Honeymoon or Bust

I may have been married almost 17 years, but I'm not too old or too married to know that too many couples marrying these days are the worst kind of beggars.

For example, in an Ask Amy column this month one bride-to-be was wondering whether she and her fiancé should ask for money instead of gifts for their upcoming nuptials. Their reasoning: They've been living together for five years and they don't need anything that their wedding guests might want to buy for them. But they do want money to recoup the cost of the wedding.

In this case, at least this bride feels uncomfortable about being avaricious.

You'll have to read what Amy says about this situation, but with all due respect to a fellow columnist, I thought one part of her advice was equally crass.

If you've attended a wedding or been invited to one recently and the couple wanted you to pony up some dough to help defray the cost of their wedding or honeymoon, how did you respond? What do you think of this type of begging? Write to me at colorofmoney@washpost.com and put "Pay For My Wedding" in the subject line.

Oh, and before you take your vows, read what some experts say you should know about your intended. Here's advice from The Experts:

*Christopher Brown, President of Ivy League Financial Advisors in Rockville, Md.

*Rita Cheng, Financial adviser of Ameriprise Financial Services in Bethesda, Md.

*Louis J. Schwarz, Founder and managing member of Schwarz Financial Services in Bethesda, Md.

The Psychology of A Purchase

My husband has been trying to persuade me to let him buy an iPhone since they first came out. So far, he's still using his old cell phone. In our house, a major purchase decision takes two "yeses." That means if one of us (usually me) disagrees with a purchase, the item can't be bought.

In his new monthly column, The Financial Lobe, Post reporter Mike Rosenwald tries to rationalize his need for the new iPhone. His wife is the holdout. His problem: He already owns a first generation iPhone.

But his column -- Putting Prices Into Focus (June 22), -- isn't just about the iPhone. It's about the psychology behind our purchases.

"I thought that with our wallets feeling lighter these days, with high gas prices and depleted home values, a discussion of what provokes us to buy and invest in the things we do would be a perfect start for my new monthly column," Rosenwald writes. "The Financial Lobe, a play on the region of our brains responsible for decision making, is not about what we should buy or invest in, or how we should go about doing it, but about why we make the financial decisions we make -- and how we can make them better."

I certainly will be looking forward to Rosenwald's reports because goodness knows too many people have lost their minds when it comes to making purchases.

Money Really Can't Buy You Happiness

Here's a question for you: How much money does it take to make you happy?

Post writer Shankar Vedantam reports in Financial Hardship and the Happiness Paradox (June 23), that Americans, despite their relative wealth, are less happy than they were in the 1970s. Economists attribute the disconnect to the fact that as we grow richer, our desires and expectations change. When we make more money, we want more stuff and more money. And in order to get that money we have to sacrifice the things that really do make us happy, like time with our loved ones.

Maybe money can't buy us happiness, but we're certainly willing to spend it anyway. According to the Commerce Department, Americans are spending their rebate checks at stores and driving up retail sales, the AP reports in Retail Sales Rise Unexpectedly in May. General merchandise stores like Wal-Mart were the big winners, but sales were also up at stores selling appliances and electronics, building materials, sporting goods and health-care products.

Charitable Giving

People are still giving, but some charitable organizations are worried that the downturn in the economy will affect their fundraising and their ability to help those in need.

Charitable donations for 2007 hit a record high of $306 billion. The majority of donations came from individuals, who contributed a total of $229 billion.

The Post's Philip Rucker reports that across the country demand for charitable services is soaring. Requests for emergency assistance have increased 28 percent at Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Washington, according to its president and chief executive, Edward J. Orzechowski.

Read Rucker's full report in Despite Economic Dip, Giving Rose in 2007 (June 23).

Pesky Fees: A Consumer Problem

In 2007, Americans paid a total of $30 billion in fees on their credit card bills. Miscellaneous fees were also tacked on to bank, broker, cell phone and Internet bills.

Americans 55 and older annually pay $4.5 billion for unwanted overdraft loan fees according to the Center for Responsible Lending reports Post staffer Nancy Trejos in On a Fixed Income and Paying for Overdraft Protection? (June 23).

Gas fees are also eating away at the average American's wallet as companies add fuel surcharges to compensate for soaring gas prices. Because this is an emerging trend, there are no regulations on how the fees are calculated. Get details from Ylan Q. Mui's article Consumer Pain Goes Beyond The Pump (June 24).

Don't despair. Here's a tip that may help you some: Consumers who complain about their fees get them reduced 65 percent of the time. See It Pays to Complain (June 22), the first installment in a series of stories by Kiplinger's Personal Finance on how to avoid fees and save money.

Surviving the Economy

Montgomery County parents may not be able to boast to their kids anymore that they had to walk two miles to school every day when they were little. Next school year, their kids may be doing it too.

The Montgomery County school board gave it's school superintendent the authority to make students walk farther to school in the upcoming academic year if rising fuel costs threaten to bust the district's budget. The school system's diesel fuel costs have more than doubled in the past four years.

"A one-penny rise in price costs the school system $33,000 a year," reports Daniel de Vise.

Read more in Montgomery Schools Adjust Bus Policy (June 24).

But perhaps walking further isn't so bad. At least the kids will be getting some exercise, writes Lean Plate Club columnist Sally Squires in her June 23 online group discussion.

If you want to join the discussion too you can submit a comment here.

Skyrocketing gas prices have even caught the attention of the IRS. The agency recently announced plans to increase the automobile mileage rate from 50.5 cents to 58.5 cents a mile for the second half of the year. The IRS usually updates the rate once a year in the fall. See AP reporter Jim Abrams' article IRS Raises Mileage Rate to Reflect Gas Prices (June 24) for more info.

You are welcome to e-mail comments and questions to singletarym@washpost.com. Please include your name and hometown; your comments may be used in a future column or newsletter unless otherwise requested.

Reporting and research assistant Charity Brown contributed to this e-letter.