Blog Posts by Dory Devlin, Shine staff

Wait a few months, and the next generation of that favorite gadget on your list will be out. That's the tech way. Not all of the latest gadgets are necessarily the greatest and worth spending your tech dollars to buy. Yahoo! Finance's Farnoosh Torabi rounds of five upcoming releases that may be worth your time and your investment. Let's hear what you think.

Few things in life are free, it's true. But Yahoo! Finance's Farnoosh Torabi rounds up five things we can try very hard not to spend money on. Water tops the list, of course, because with water so readily available and so many nice reusable bottles to put it in, there's no need to spend up to $2 on a plastic water bottle. Watch the video for some more advice on what items and services to get for free to save some of your hard-earned money.

John Edwards engaged?Oh, John Edwards. If it's true that you became engaged to Rielle Hunter weeks after your betrayed wife of 33 years died from cancer, then you have replaced our New Year's resolution to never think about you again with those old familiar feelings of disgust and bottomless disappointment.

The National Enquirer is reporting this to be true. There used to be a time when anything reported by the National Enquirer would never be repeated by another news organization, but then the National Enquirer turned out to be spot on in its reporting of John Edwards' affair with Hunter and the truth that he fathered her baby--something Edwards denied for the first two years of the child's life. So while he and those close to him are busy denying this latest report, it would not be surprising if there were a kernel of truth somewhere in this messy, weird, terribly disappointing report.

And he is denying it, according to People and the Daily Beast. But he also tearfully stated on camera that his affair

The start of a new year is a time for making resolutions, so why not focus on a few that will save you money this year? Yahoo! Finance's Farnoosh Torabi has five ways you can resolve to save this year, starting with shedding bad, expensive habits, getting fit, and being more charitable. Watch and see which you can start implementing this month.

Starting with that convenient "free" Wi-Fi offered in so many places these days, here are five things to avoid so you don't fall prey to identity theft when surfing the Web and answering your email. Yahoo! Finance's Farnoosh Torabi has some great reminders for all of us on how to guard our information while we're on the Internet.

AP Photo: Elizabeth Smart pleased with guilty verdictElizabeth Smart's long ordeal is finally, hopefully, over. After five hours of deliberations, a federal jury convicted Brian David Mitchell of kidnapping Smart from her bed at knifepoint, holding her captive for nine months, and for repeatedly raping her during that captivity.

Smart and her family waited eight years for that verdict and she was smiling and pleased to hear it, according to news reports. "I hope that not only is this an example that justice can be served in America, but that it is possible to move on after something terrible has happened," she said alongside her mother after the verdict was announced.

Smart was 14 when she was kidnapped. She's 23 now, and gracefully, strongly moving on. She will return to a Mormon mission in Paris where she was working before the trial. Prosecutors credited her courageous, clear testimony for the outcome of the trial. "The beginning and the end of this story is attributable to a woman with extraordinary courage and extraordinary

The holidays are fast approaching, and the spirit of giving is driving many of us into the stores and online to buy gifts. Once there, you'd be wise to take note of the ways retailers pull you in and inspire you to spend more than you planned. From store loyalty programs, to "free" offers that often require us to buy a certain number of items to get the "free" items, to yummy scents wafting through the air, Yahoo! Finance's Farnoosh Torabi warns us about the most-used ploys that just may bust our holiday budgets.

These five tips for saving as much as $2,000 in a year start with some careful grocery shopping and end with making use of terrific savings through sites like Groupon and Living Social. Yahoo! Finance's Farnoosh Torabi also walks us through a few more ways to cut back on monthly bills that make it difficult to save money.