My thanks to Jason over at the blog Live Real, Now, for including the blog post by our editorial intern, Cara Henis, in the 270th edition of the Carnival of Personal Finance.

I got a kick out of the carnival’s theme: Elvis is dead.

It’s the 33rd anniversary of the death of Elvis Presley, and Aug. 16 is a day burned into my memory, because back when I was an editor at Country Weekly magazine in the ’90s, no Aug. 16 would pass without us doing a cover story on the legendary singer from Tupelo, Miss. I’m not sure why, but the anniversary of his untimely death is marked much more than the day of his birth.

The item from Cara included in the carnival was “My disagreement with credit card agreements.” It turned out to be the last thing Cara wrote for us during her internship; now that she’s graduated from the University of Texas, she’s moved on to her next adventure in life, and we wish her the best.

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Credit card insurance can cost anywhere from $20 to $40 per month, and is used to insure a variety of purchase types and card balances. Most experts agree that credit insurance is absolutely necessary for some individuals and completely useless for others, so it is important to be certain there are no hidden credit insurance fees being charged unnecessarily each month.

Who Needs Credit Card Insurance

The main purpose of credit card insurance is to cover the necessary repayments in the event of injury, unemployment, or other circumstances that may prevent cardholders from paying their credit card bills. Credit insurance is ideal for people with active professions that require physical labor, freelance workers with inconsistent payment scheduling, or people with health issues which may interfere with their payment schedules.

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Australian consumers are now able to buy from up to 300,000 international stores that were previously inaccessible following the launch of a new shopping site by PayPal.

The payment processing giant has set up hopshopgo.com, which provides a different payment system for sites that only accept US credit cards, the Daily Telegraph reported.

It means that products from hugely popular brands like J Crew, Abercrombie and Fitch, Urban Outfitters, Macy’s, Bloomingdales and Saks Fifth Avenue will now be available to Aussie shoppers, with shipping rates starting from $24 for the first kilogram.

PayPal spokesman Adrian Christie said: “The key benefit of this site is that it unlocks so many of the boundaries that previously stopped Australian consumers from shopping at some sites overseas.”

The news may interest shoppers looking to compare credit cards in search of the best interest rates. Read full article…

Young entrepreneurs and investors take note – when looking at a mutual fund’s prospectus, the expense ratio remains the most important number on the page. That’s the conclusion of a new study by Morningstar (NASDAQ: MORN), an independent investment research firm.

Morningstar is famous for its “star” ratings, which rate funds on the basis of risk- and load-adjusted returns. Recently, though, the company did a study on how often the rating beat expense ratios as a predictor of returns – and found that more than 50 percent of the time, expense ratios were the better choice.

An expense ratio, briefly, is the percentage of your capital you pay to put your money in a fund. Read full article…

Many people that have had bad experiences with conventional credit cards give up all hope of using any kind of credit card in the future. However, there are many types of credit cards available today, all of which have different approval methods and different terms and conditions.

Being approved for a credit card with bad credit is not impossible, but it is slightly more difficult and the options are more scarce. Sometimes, when an individual’s credit score is low enough the only option is to apply for a secured credit card. Secured credit cards are safer for the card issuer because the funds are secured by some form of collateral. W

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