Yahoo has a video on how to make some extra income without much work. Their suggestions:

Five years ago, I posted the first-ever “Ask the Readers” question here at Get Rich Slowly. “How much do you spend on food?” I asked in a short post (the likes of which one never sees around here anymore). For five years, people have been posting their food budgets for others to see.

Shauna wrote earlier this week asking for an update:

The other day, while chatting with an acquaintance, the topic of the economy came up. We talked a bit about the recent market turbulence, the debt ceiling debacle, the S&P credit downgrade, etc. He lamented that his 401(k) was taking a beating, and that this was coming on the heels of everything they dealt with in recent years.

Each week, I highlight ten things each week that inspired me to greater financial, personal, and professional success. Hopefully, they will inspire you as well.

1. Madeleine (1892) by Ramon Cassas
The face of the woman in this painting has stuck in my mind all week. I kept wondering what her expression meant. Is she afraid? Worried? Anticipating something? What is she looking at? Is she about to run away?

It was once considered gospel that, for most families, college educations were the second largest expenses they would ever assume, right after buying a home.

But the way college costs are rising (and home values are decreasing), I’m not sure college educations haven’t graduated into first place. Of course, a funny thing happened on the way to good ol’-fashioned college degrees growing ever more costly.

According to a recent report from NPR, the Federal Reserve has $1B worth of dollar coins just sitting around. The production of these coins stems from a 2005 Congressional mandate to produce a new series of coins honoring past Presidents. Unfortunately, the general public doesn’t seem to like them and very few people are using them.

Municipal bonds, which are issued by states and local communities, are a popular choice for those who are looking for a fixed income investment in a taxable account. The reason for this is that the income generated by muni bonds is tax exempt, which boosts their effective yield as compared to taxable bonds.

Over the weekend I spent some time migrating my 14+ years of Quicken data from Quicken 2007 to iBank, which was at the top of my list of Quicken alternatives. I’ll be providing lots of details below, but the executive summary is that iBank (currently version 4.2.4) is a great piece of software, though I’m not convinced that it’s right for me.

This week, Kris and I are spending time with her family in Banff, Alberta, which is nestled in the heart of the Canadian Rockies. The scenery is spectacular, and there’s lots of stuff to do. We’ve hiked, rafted, and soaked in the hot springs. This morning, we went horseback riding.

For once, I had good control of my horse (Dell).
Usually when I ride, my horses like to stop to snack.

I finally got around to updating Quicken over the weekend, so I thought I’d put together another update of Lending Club investment performance, this time covering through the end of May. I neglected to note my net annualized return (NAR) at the end of the month, but it was in the mid-8% range. According to Quicken, my real-world return was through the end of May 2011 was 8.30%.