Have you ever filed your tax return and hoped you could get your hands on your refund early? You're not alone. In fact, this has been a common practice in recent years. Most large tax preparers would offer what's called a tax refund anticipation loan. How it works is they determine how much of a refund you'll be receiving when filing your taxes and then lend you the money immediately so that you don't have to wait a few weeks for the IRS to send you a check. Then when your refund actually does come in it goes towards paying off the loan, less any fees. Sounds good, right?

Well, the problem that this is an expensive proposition. Sometimes they will charge you fees in excess of a few hundred dollars just to get your hands on your tax refund a week or two early. This often translates into an APR well over one-hundred percent. Would you willingly get a loan with a 200% APR? Of course not, but that's exactly what these short-term tax refund loans give you.

Thankfully, the IRS recently issued a statement that says they plan on eliminating the information they used to send to tax preparation services that would allow them to underwrite these tax refund loans. That doesn't mean companies will need stop offering them, but it may curb their wide availability in the coming tax season. That's good news because it's a form of predatory lending not much different than payday loans. Learn more about these loans and what the IRS has to say about them.

If you're like most people, you probably use plastic for many of your daily purchases. Since more places take credit or debit cards and many of these cards offer rewards or cash back, it is no wonder they are so easy to use. But this convenience can come at a cost. If you don't keep detailed records of your spending, using the card can lead to spending more than you normally would.

When you use cash for your regular daily purchases, you have a physical connection to your available money, and you can visually see how much you have and how much you spend. With a card, it's all digital and you may not review your purchases until the end of the day, week, or even month. By then, the money has long been spent. But with cash, you open your wallet or purse and immediately know how much you have available to spend, and it may keep you from buying something you don't need. So, if you have trouble keeping your spending under control, you may want to consider giving cash a try.

With the housing market still in the dumps and mortgage rates at record lows, a lot of people are considering buying a home for the first time. Taking advantage of depressed real estate prices and cheap lending does indeed make this a buyer's market. But buying a home is no simple decision. In fact, it may be one of the largest financial decisions many people make in their lifetime. So rather than jump in head first it pays to make sure owning a home is really the right decision. Here's how to determine if you are ready to buy a home.

People love the idea of owning a home, and sometimes that allure makes people do the wrong thing. That's where risky mortgages come in. For decades, the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage was the gold standard. You put 20 percent down, you got a 30-year loan, and that was all she wrote. But in recent years the types of mortgages offered have made a mess of the marketplace, as can be seen with the current financial crisis. Now you can get interest-only loans, 40-year loans, adjustable rate mortgages, and so on. All of these new loans make it easier to make payments on a house, but the problem is they usually put you in a worse financial situation. Here's what you need to know to avoid some of the more risky home loans out there.