M

EY

BY SARA CLEMENCE

Fair trade

Declutter before the holidays and make a little spending money by getting rid of

i,»

unwanted gadgets, games, and DVDs. Target and Best Buy have new programs that

("!

let you trade in items at many of their stores for credit. The online-based NextWorth

(a retail partner with Target) will quote you a price, let you bring your item to a store or

ship it to them for free, then send you a check. Amazon takes games, movies, and books.

Be sure to compare values online, as they can vary widely. Amazon offered $8.75 for

Rock Band 2 for XBox, while NextWorth valued it at $4.32. But for a two-year-old Black-

berry Pearl, NextWorth offered $21— more than other sites we checked.

m ore likely

you are to

have your

id en tity stolen

in person

than online

ID IQ

And you thought shopping online was risky. A recent Travelers Insurance survey found

that your identity is five times more likely to be stolen in person via physical theft than

on the Internet. To protect yourself, avoid carrying Social Security cards, birth certifi-

cates, and passports, advises Joe Reynolds, identity fraud product manager for Travelers.

Keep a list of all your credit card and bank account information in a safe place—

a locked filing cabinet or password-protected device, say— so if anything is stolen, you

can notify financial institutions right away. And never give confidential information to

an unsolicited caller who claims to represent a bank or creditor. “Get the name, location,

telephone number, and reason for calling,” Reynolds says. “Call the number on your

billing statements to verify the caller’s identification.”

Year-end tax tip

Don’t wait until 2011 to get that new water heater, upgrade your

windows, or add insulation. You can get a federal tax credit for

making certain energy-efficient improvements to your home— but

only if you do it before Dec. 31. For more info, go to

energystar.gov.

Up in alms

In a spend-happy world, how do you teach children the habit of giving to charity?

Can it. Have your kids put a portion of their allowance or earnings in ajar or bank,

and at the end of the year let them choose where to send the funds. That’s exactly what

Kerry Palombaro does. The foster care coordinator for the Love Without Boundaries

Foundation in Oklahoma has a 4-year-old daughter who gets a weekly allowance of

75 cents. One quarter goes to savings, one to spending, and one to charity. “In

December, she chooses where she wants to send her money, and my husband and I match

her savings,” Palombaro says. Last year, her daughter picked from charities based on her

passions: a local animal shelter, helping kids in China, and the Pennsylvania Ballet. ■

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BETTER HOMES AND GARDENS | DECEMBER 2010 | BHG.COM

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