Blog Posts by CNBC

By Jennifer Leigh Parker, CNBC.com

All of us are guilty of a few bad financial habits, and most of us share a few. When financial advisors first meet with clients, they usually find a familiar set of money-losing miscues, from checking credit reports too infrequently (or not at all), paying too much for insurance, or buying stocks for the wrong reasons.

Rarely are any of these bad habits alone enough to sink us. But taken together over time, these small leaks in our financial ship rob us of amounts we'd never stand for losing all at once.

See the slideshow: 10 Most Common Money Mistakes


We asked several financial advisors to name the most common personal finance mistakes they find, and provide solutions to each. The good news is that some of the most frequently made missteps are also the most preventable.
Read ahead to see the most common mistakes - and how to stop making them!


Overpaying for Home InsuranceOverpaying for Home Insurance
Odds are the premium on your homeowner's

By Albert Bozzo, CNBC.com

When Noor Siddiqui learned about a fellowship that would give her $100,000 to pursue her dream to create an alternative educational system for the world's poor, she saw her future.

Noor Siddiqui "I had this moment-'This is the perfect thing for me,'" remembers Siddiqui, who at the time was attending high school in Fairfax County, Va., where she had already helped create a not-for-profit organization.
She didn't blink at the terms, though she knew her parents would - the Thiel Foundation fellowships open to applicants under 20 years old require postponing college or interrupting it during the two years they work on their project. They must also move to the San Francisco area.
Siddiqui applied, but didn't tell her Pakistani-immigrant parents. Once accepted, of course, she confronted the inevitable. "My parents thought it was a horrible idea," she remembers.

Their opposition was one-part immigrant aspiration, one-part conventional wisdom.

Noor, however, prevailed and

By Kirsten Chang, CNBC.com

With today's jobs market in a dismal state, no buzz word has given more hope to the youthful unemployed than the word "entrepreneurship."

More and more, young men and women are striking gold - armed with a strong innovative spirit, a razor-sharp focus and an ability to hold their own in the marketplace. From coaches, automobiles and limos to T-shirts, street fashion - and, yes, the inevitable social networking tools so embraced by the 21st century, industries across the globe are seeing their very own Mark Zuckerbergs-in-the-making.

Read ahead to see these budding young entrepreneurs who have already made it big - even in the face of today's daunting market!

Catherine and David CookCatherine and David Cook
Started business when they were 15 and 16
Business: Social media

When Catherine Cook moved to her new high school in New Jersey, she and her brother Dave saw a need for "social discovery" and better tools to meet new people. With the help of a $250,000 investment from their

By Cindy Perman, CNBC.com

Do you check your work email on an iPhone, BlackBerry or other smartphone after-hours?

Take my email away — what? Sorry, I can't hear you. Join the club: More than 80 percent of workers say they continue to work from home even after they leave the office, according to a recent survey from mobile-research firm Good Technology. Nearly two-thirds said they check their work email before 8 a.m., and a whopping 40 percent admitted to checking email at the dinner table!

"All you have to do is go out to a nice restaurant and look at all the people checking their emails in between courses to see how pervasive it is," said Michael Crom, the chief learning office at the Dale Carnegie Institute, a corporate training organization.

Some people say checking email after-hours helps them get organized, get through the crush of email and better balance their work-family life. Others say it's becoming a huge problem - one that's masking other issues.

[Related: Best Jobs for Loners]

"Checking, sending and receiving work

By Nicole Frehsee, CNBC.com

Millions of American kids will arrive home this month from the country's 7,000 overnight camps, full of stories about traditional activities like archery, crafts and waterskiing and the questionable pleasures of bug juice and bunk beds.

The summer retreats we feature here break that mold, offering campers organic food, golf lessons from PGA pros, and jaunts to New York City for cooking classes, and the odd shopping trip to FAO Schwarz. Their parents pay for the perks. In 2011, the average weekly fee for overnight camp was $690, according to the American Camp Association. The camps that follow charge upwards of $1,025 per week.

Read ahead to see what some kids were doing while yours were learning to weave friendship bracelets.

International Riding CampInternational Riding Camp
Cost: $11,800 for 8 weeks
Location: Greenfield Park, N.Y.

Geared toward aspiring equestrians, this all-girls camp in the foothills of the Catskills offers an organic, locavore-leaning menu (whole-wheat

By Liza Jansen, CNBC.com

New research suggests that companies feeling the pain of the economic downturn might need a woman's touch.

Large companies with at least one women on the board do better than those with all male boards, a report by Credit Suisse found.

Credit Suisse analyzed more than 2,500 companies and found that companies with more than one woman on the board have outperformed those with no women on the board by 26 percent since 2005.

"Introducing women to a group of men changes their behavior and makes them focus more. Companies with more women on the board tend to be closer to the consumer and have a better sense as to what is going on in their product markets," Michael O'Sullivan, UK research and global portfolio analysis managing director at Credit Suisse Private Bank, told CNBC.

O'Sullivan said: "We're used to governments telling companies they need to have a certain quota of women on the board. That debate is now moving on to performance and how decisions are made

By Colleen Kane, CNBC.com
Wanted Women

The FBI's most wanted list is exclusively male, and the vast majority of the other fugitives on its website are also men. Women fugitives do appear on the agency's website, mostly in parental kidnapping cases, but also in murder, domestic terrorism, white collar crime and violent crime cases. Bounties for women fugitives range up to $1 million. Read on to learn what some of these women did … and see if any of them look familiar.

Julieanne Baldueza DimitrionJulieanne Baldueza Dimitrion
Wanted for white collar crimes
Missing since: July 6, 2010
Reward: up to $10,000

In February 2010, Julieanne Baldueza Dimitrion, 39, and her husband, John Dimitrion, were indicted on mortgage fraud charges. They pleaded guilty to operating a real estate fraud scheme that involved using money from distressed homeowners to fund their own lifestyles, after promising they would invest it. Her lifestyle "investments" included expensive clothing, high-end lingerie, designer purses and shoes,

By Cindy Perman, CNBC.com

Is it me or does this summertime weather make you feel like calling in sick?

And .. send! AWESOME. He bought it. I am officially sick for the rest of the day! Outside of the wintertime - right after the holidays when everyone needs a break - summer is the time that "fake sick days" go up the most.
Nearly 20 percent of workers admitted they call in sick at least once per summer just to "enjoy the beautiful summer weather," according to a recent survey by Monster.com.

And those are just the ones who admitted it - to a job-finder web site!
"Maybe for some people, the temptation is just too much!" said Steve Langerud, director of professional opportunities at DePauw University and a workplace consultant. "There's an art festival or something going on, or maybe people just want to go to the beach or have a project to do at home."

[Related link: Are You Calling In Sick Too Much?]

Langerud, who does not endorse the fake sick day, cautions that doing so is a LOT riskier in summer than in winter. The reason? In the winter, you're more likely