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Buzz News Roundup, 10/17

BuzzSugar — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 13:30:37 PDT

Once is going to get a remake as a Broadway musical. - LA Times
Speaking of theater, Will Ferrell will make his Broadway debut in January in the new solo comedy You’re Welcome America. A Final Night With George W Bush. - Variety
Mad Men will be renewed for a third season - but creator Matthew Weiner isn't officially on board yet. - The Hollywood Reporter
Michael Lewis’s nonfiction bestseller Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game will be adapted to film, with filmmakers eying Brad Pitt for the lead role. - ComingSoon
The real Sarah Palin will appear on Saturday Night Live this weekend. - AP
The film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's The Road may not be ready for release until 2009. - The Hollywood Reporter
Four Tops lead singer Levi Stubbs has passed away at the age of 72. - AP
Kim Cattrall is set to star in a movie titled Miss January. - Variety
Barry Manilow will release an album of '80s covers on Nov. 25. - Billboard

6 Strategies to Save More This Year

Kiplinger — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 13:27:21 PST

We're thrilled to present this smart Kiplinger story here on Savvy!

Saving doesn't come easily for us young adults. Entry-level salaries don't give you a lot to work with. And, well, we also tend to spend what we make - and then some - on the latest gadgets and flashiest fashions.

But don’t worry. We’re not doomed to frivolity and the wreckage it can make of our finances. Here's how you can start saving smart throughout 2012:

Periodically calculate how much you spend. What better time to review your budget than at the start of a New Year? “It’s really hard to [track your spending] each month, so aim for just once or twice a year,” says Jill Boynton, a certified financial planner in Newington, New Hampshire.

Just be sure when you do it that you track everything. Boynton recommends filling out a spreadsheet with a month’s worth of spending. Or you can try an online budgeting tool such as Mint.com (See our slide show: Which Budgeting Site is Best for You?). But note: Mint works best for those who deal mostly in plastic as opposed to cash. When you make an ATM withdrawal, the site labels the transaction as “Cash & ATM.” Unless you diligently manage your cash transactions (you can manually edit Mint’s labels), you can easily lose track of where the money goes.

The drudgery of tracking spending can pay off when you find surprising expenses you could easily cut. At the end of 2011, I crunched my own numbers and found that I shelled out about $200 a month at Starbucks and other restaurants. I’m sure I could cut that by at least half. That’s like finding a $100 bill every month in my back pocket.

Read on for more strategies.

Rewind: Books to Read Before They're 2012 Movies

BuzzSugar — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 03:05:00 PST

Need some reading material? Stock up on these 20 books before they're adapted into 2012 movies.
The cast for the upcoming musical Les Misérables is coming together. See who's in so far.
New show alert: find out what we think of NBC's new drama The Firm, new sitcom Are You There, Chelsea?, and Alcatraz, Fox's new sci-fi mystery.
What are we stoked for this January? Take a look at our must haves for the month.
Get pumped for even more Batman stills from The Dark Knight Rises.
Back by popular demand: 10 Hollywood faces we'd love to see more of in 2012.
Missing Middle-earth? Take a peek at the latest pictures from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.
We were puzzled by these new pics of Blair in a wedding dress in a Gossip Girl sneak peek.
We revealed the highly anticipated 10 movies we can't wait to see in 2012.

9 Steps to Get Your Finances Back on Track

Business Insider — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 00:15:01 PST

We're thrilled to present this smart Business Insider story here on Savvy!

As the youngest daughter of two borderline baby boomers, like many other Generation Yers, I grew up watching my parents spend cash faster than they made it and had no concept of financial planning whatsoever.

When I scored my first full-time job after college, I'll never forget the rush I felt seeing all those numbers fill up my bank account. I bought new furniture for my apartment, stocked my closet with fancy new work clothes, and spent paydays filling my shopping cart on Amazon.com.

Ten weeks later, my entire department was laid off.

At that point, I had no savings, my credit score was bad, and I had absolutely no backup plan. I scraped by for two months with a few freelance jobs until I took a $10,000 pay cut just to get by.

Things finally turned around, and a couple years later, I found myself in the same place as many of my friends in their mid-twenties. We're paying rent comfortably for the first time and are able to start building our nest eggs. The problem is many of us have no idea how to start doing it.

Rather than turn into some sort of cautionary tale for future generations, I decided after my last birthday that I was going to take a good hard look at my finances.

I asked for tips from a trio of financial whizzes who broke down a few actions us 20-somethings can take today to start to getting our money on the right track. Here's how I did it and you can too.

Know your numbers

I have something akin to post-traumatic stress disorder from my days when I was in constant fear of overdrafting my account or bouncing my rent check.

But Chris Hobart, president and CEO of Hobart Financial Group, said knowing how much debt you have is the first step to chipping away at it.

I laid out how much I owe in student loans and on my two credit cards, set up auto-payments for each, and worked out a plan to start paying off more than my minimum payments each month to get rid of the debt faster and cut back on interest.

Read on for more ways to get your finances back on track.

The Most-Overlooked Tax Deductions

Kiplinger — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 16:50:44 PST

We're thrilled to present this smart Kiplinger story here on Savvy!

Every year, the IRS dutifully reports the most common blunders that taxpayers make on their returns. And every year, at or near the top of the “oops” list is forgetting to enter their Social Security number at the top of the tax form - or making a mistake when entering those nine digits.

But think about it for a minute: Do you think that’s the most common mistake . . . or simply the easiest to notice?

One thing we know for sure is that the opportunity to make mistakes is almost unlimited, and missed deductions can be the most costly. About 45 million of us itemize on our 1040s - claiming more than $1 trillion worth of deductions. That’s right: $1,000,000,000,000, a number rarely spoken out loud until Congress started tying itself up in knots trying to deal with the budget deficit and national debt.

Another 92 million taxpayers claim about $700 billion worth using standard deductions - and some of you who take the easy way out probably shortchange yourselves. (If you turned 65 in 2011, remember that you now deserve a bigger standard deduction than the younger folks.)

Yes, friends, tax time is a dangerous time. It’s all too easy to miss a trick and pay too much. Years ago, the fellow who ran the IRS at the time told Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine that he figured millions of taxpayers overpay their taxes every year by overlooking just one of the money-savers listed below

Jon Hamm and His Mad Men Hit the Set in Style

Lauren Turner — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 10:33:10 PST

Jon Hamm wasn't the only small screen star wearing a suit for the Mad Men cameras in LA yesterday. He was joined by John Slattery, Vincent Kartheiser, and Rich Sommer for filming after the costars returned from their Thanksgiving break. The guys celebrated the beginning of the holiday season, but the cast already had a big highlight back in September when the series was honored with the Emmy for best drama. The leading men partied together post-win, though they were missing their leading lady, January Jones, who had just given birth to baby Xander. She's since been spotted on set and even brought her young son along to meet the cast. Season five doesn't return to AMC until next year, but if you have a fanatic in your life, there are lots of Mad Men gift ideas that would be great to help ease the wait.

The Vampire Diaries "Homecoming": The Good, the Bad, and the Bloody

Shannon Vestal — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 09:15:59 PST

Brace yourself: this week's episode of The Vampire Diaries is the last for the whole year! We won't see any new episodes until 2012, which is even more disappointing considering that this week's midseason finale is utterly epic. The showdown between Klaus and basically everyone else goes down at a homecoming party, and it's a blur of stakes and daggers and twists. Damon and Elena's plan to finally kill Klaus with the help of Mikael doesn't exactly go off as they hoped it would (as plans tend to do on this show).

There is a momentous death toward the end of the episode, plus a sad breakup and of course, since it's a finale, there's also a cliffhanger. But I'm ready to talk about all the dirty details, spoilers and all. To get to the good, the bad, and the bloody, just keep reading.

Reader Recipe: Pumpkin Squares, Squared

OnSugar — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 11:30:39 PDT

October brings on our pumpkin obsession, and OnSugar blogger Food Orleans clearly feels the same way, sharing this delicious pumpkin squares post.

I come from a long line of German women who feel compelled to produce baked goods pretty much nonstop from October to January. I'm not even fudging this fact a bit. I refer to the phenomenon as "extreme baking," or the condition during which our collective kitchens are completely dusted with flour and sugar, all of our tupperware containers have been filled with sweets and handed over to neighbors, and our feet ache from standing over too many mixing bowls, yet we continue to bake without ceasing. I suffer from the condition, and I don't even have a sweet tooth.

Our family's specialties run the gamut from simple to elaborate: there are artfully decorated sugar cookies, coconut bon bons, cranberry tea loaves, and candy cane twists. My mother's most popular offering has always been Brown Sugar Squares - a sort of chewy blonde brownie studded with pecans and rolled in powdered sugar while warm. I've been missing those squares mighty hard lately, but also wanted something pumpkinated, so I dug her recipe out of our old church cookbook and adjusted some proportions to include pumpkin and its favorite spices. These squares turned out ultra-moist and light, not chewy at all, but sweet and autumnal. I like them both rolled in sugar and naked. To stay balanced, I recommend having one of each.

Get the recipe.

January Jones Steps Out For the First Time Since Giving Birth to Baby Xander!

Katie Henry — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 15:34:56 PDT

January Jones and her newborn son, Xander Dane Jones, dropped by a friend's house in LA today. The little guy was born on Sept. 13, and this is the first time the mother-son duo have been spotted out of the house together. Her Mad Men costars, meanwhile, are back to work filming the fifth season of their Emmy-winning primetime drama. The cast picked up their fourth consecutive win for best drama series this month, and even though January missed the afterparty celebrations, she was still a hot topic of conversation in the press room. Costar John Slattery passed along a message from January and Xander, saying, "Her baby had his fingers crossed, she told me that . . . We miss her tonight and we're super happy for her, all of us are. It's a great addition to our work family; we're very close here." January may be sharing cute stories about Xander with friends and family, but she's keeping some things top secret - like the identity of Xander's father, who wasn't listed on the birth certificate.

Don’t Miss Open Enrollment!

LearnVest — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 00:15:57 PDT

We're thrilled to present this smart LearnVest story here on Savvy!

Never has there been a more dreaded phrase than “out-of-network.”

Well, maybe. But anyone who’s ever had health insurance knows the headache that is copayments, referrals and reimbursements.

Given that, staying on top of the maze of paperwork can sound about as appealing as a lobotomy. But this is the season for open enrollment, the one time of year (often no more than two weeks long) when many employers let their employees make changes to their insurance policies.

For the most part, you can’t change your health care choices at any other time of year, unless you’ve had a major life change like getting married or having a baby. That’s why it’s time to act now.

From getting your paperwork under control to getting money back by negotiating your bills, we bring you the ultimate guide to turning health insurance into a (healthy, brisk) walk in the park:

Figure Out Your Window

Call your HR representative to find out exactly when your open enrollment period begins and ends. The specific dates vary from company to company; if you miss your window, you’ll still receive the same medical, dental, vision and life insurance coverage as the year before, but you won’t be able to make changes to your accounts or sign up for a flexible spending account, for which you need to re-enroll each year.

LearnVest tip: Make a calendar reminder for yourself so you won’t forget to talk to HR.

Read on for more tips on open enrollment.