Taking a day off to mark financial tasks off your to-do list has many benefits according to Cettina. For one, you won’t have to cram all of them into your lunch hour, which is meant for relaxing. You also won’t need to worry about coworkers overhearing everything your sharing over the phone. By setting aside time, you’ll also be able to work uninterrupted and finally just get those tasks off of your list for good!

Cettina also provides a list of some of the most common money management tasks you may want to tackle. For instance, you could spend time picking the right credit card for you. Credit cards are an important part of your financial portfolio, and you want to make sure you’re using the one that provides you with the most benefits. If you’ve recently moved into a new home and brought your old cable provider with you, you may want to consider negotiating a cheaper rate. Before you call your company’s customer retention center to negotiate, make sure you are aware of how much their competitors are charging. You may also want to consider shopping for cheaper car and home insurance. If you’ve been feeling like you’re paying too much, spend the day researching other policies that you could afford.

There are several ways you could help save money just by taking a day off to focus on your personal finances. For more information about how to save on your insurance, pay off debt and simplify your personal finances, explore the Equifax Finance Blog.

A pop-up restaurant is a secretive one-night only experience in which the location and menu are kept quiet until the day before the event when chosen attendees receive an email with information.

Riff’s Fine Street Food is not the only Nashville eatery that is getting in on the pop-up action. M Street, which owns several local restaurants is also planning a pop-up restaurant as a way to test new menu item ideas.

While pop-ups are not a way to solely run a restaurant business, they do offer residents a new and exciting way to experience cuisine.

Were you one of the in-crowd attendees of Nashville’s first pop-up restaurant? Share your experience with us, we’d love to know what you think of this new craze.

For more information on Nashville real estate and life in Nashville, be sure to visit our site.

If you are looking to sell, deferred home maintenance projects for your outdoors, from gutters to windows to old doors to driveway cracks, need to be fixed pronto. These projects not only have a cost-value ratio of 71 percent, but also add to the curb appeal of your home. Remember that even if you have a dynamite interior, the exterior is your home’s first impression. In many cases, the exterior is the only chance your home has to entice buyers to seeing the other qualities of your home.

High traffic areas are another must for consideration, especially kitchens and bathrooms. Aim for middle of the road remodeling and replacement: too low and the quality will turn buyers off, too high and buyers will see the luxury appointments as being a cost passed on to them. Prioritize these remodel projects to cabinets and countertops. Don’t spend more than 20 percent of the home’s total value on the replacements, or you will be looking at a lower return on investment.

Explore the Equifax Finance blog for more real estate advice, whether buying or selling a home. While you’re there, you can also find information about taxes, credit, retirement and all manner of money management tips and tricks.

You can earn interest rather than paying it in a number of ways, usually through investing. Just like how money you borrow from a bank in the form of a loan means that the bank no longer has access to the capital you have borrowed, most ways of earning interest require you to allow someone else to use your money.

When you invest, the amount of interest gained is frequently associated with the amount of risk. It is important to measure interest reward with risk before you begin investing or lending money. This is why bank accounts like savings accounts have a very low rate of interest. More volatile options have higher interest, and there is also a higher chance for you to lose your entire investment.

The article also goes in depth about how interest makes it harder to pay off debt, especially on large loans and purchases. Be sure to explore the full article to learn more, and explore the Equifax Personal Finance Blog for great information about everything money.

By 2014, Parton will open a new amusement park for families in the capital city for country music. Built with vacationing families in mind, the new amusement park will be located next to the 2,881-room Gaylord Opryland convention center and hotel.

Convention-resort owner Gaylord Entertainment Co. will contribute capital and 114 acres of land on which to build the park. The final product will be a mixed-use venture. Dollywood, Parton’s other family amusement park located in Pigeon Forge, Tenn., will contribute capital as well but will also take over operations of the park. It is estimated that the new amusement park will take $50 million to build.

Don’t expect Dollywood Part II; Parton mentioned a few years ago that she wanted to create more parks like Dollywood that are unique. This new Nashville amusement park will include some 50 acres for water and snow activities.

Aside from the entertainment value, the new amusement park will bring more jobs and tourism to the Nashville area. Dollywood in Pigeon Forge has nearly 3,000 employees on its payroll and is the largest employer within the community. Furthermore, the park averages 2.5 million visitors each year. Parton and her business partners hope that this new park will attract 500,000 visitors per year.

Do you plan on visiting the theme park when it opens summer 2014? What kinds of rides and attractions are you hoping for? Let us know!

First, take stock of all of your expenses, from your utility bills to your Starbucks habit, and make a list. Each of these expenditures gets put into one of four categories:

Postpone – If you have just made or are planning to make a purchase, think about if you can or should have postponed it. This is old wisdom, but it does do a good job of stopping impulse buys in their tracks.

Eliminate – Here is where you’ll often realize that you’re still paying for things that you rarely, if ever, enjoy. Unused subscriptions, from magazines to Netflix, are often big on this list of things that can save you money.

Reduce – This is usually where you can make the most amount of change for saving money. From being more mindful of utilities to taking rather than buying lunch a few times a week, you can make a lot of easy spending habit modifications to save money.

Keep –Must-haves, like insurance and mortgage or rent payments get put in this category. If you find you have a lot of keep items, you may want to revisit them in future assessments to see if they can become another category.

The PERK process is an easy way to budget and control your personal finances. For other great ways to cut spending, save money and be more financially savvy, check the Equifax Finance Blog!

Home prices in Nashville, Tennessee, showed an increase from last year. A number of factors are leading to the thought that potential buyers could be calling in the first half of 2012. Mortgage rates have reached record lows and this comes at a time when Nashville apartments are continuing to rise in rental rate. The area has experienced a 16 percent increase in rental average in only a year’s time. This increase is a cautionary warning to those who are deciding between continuing to rent and buying that first home.

Home sales for 2011 numbered 20,624; an increase of 1.8 percent from 2010. While a 1.8 percent increase may not seem very large, it is important to note that it is the first time the local market has shown an increase – all without tax credits or other incentives.

Foreclosure rates, which have never been over 3 percent for the Nashville area, are down as well. Again, local factors such as the closure of the Saturn plant had much to do with these figures. The recent announcement of the plant’s reopening is welcomed news for 2012 real estate sales. Better than national average figures on unemployment also indicate healthy home sales in 2012.

At the beginning of 2012, inventory for homes in Nashville had declined by 8 percent and distressed homes entering the market remained at 2 percent. What does this all mean? For buyers, this means there are still homes for sale in Nashville at affordable prices and incredibly low mortgage rates for those who qualify. For sellers, less inventory, more job seekers relocating, means more competitive bidding among buyers.

The good news for sellers is that even though home prices are still dropping, they are not plummeting as they had been previously. As inventories decline, demand among buyers will increase along with home value. The good news for buyers is that low home prices and enticing mortgage rates, could make 2012 a great time to purchase a home.

If you get in an accident, make sure you do the following first, regardless of whether the other party has insurance:

1. Call the police. An official police statement will make sure the story is documented and that there is proof in the event that hidden damages are discovered.

2. Get all the insurance information you can from the other driver. If there is no insurance, make sure to get whatever contact information you can.

3. Take photos of your vehicle damage. If you don’t have a camera with a phone, it’s a good idea to keep a disposable camera in your glove box or your car first aid kit.

4. Report everything to the insurance company. This is like the police report in that if you leave something out, you may have trouble getting any hidden damages cared for.

5. Don’t hesitate to call your agent if something comes up.

These steps will make sure that you get all the help you can after an accident. If you are going to be doing a lot of traveling this season, make sure you do a thorough double-check of your policy, especially your supplemental uninsured/underinsured motorists coverage. The article has more about that, and for all your questions about insurance, taxes, retirement, credit and real estate personal finances you can find answers on the Equifax Finance Blog.

Her article, “Credit Card Shopping Rises for the Holidays,” offers some insight into our spending habits.

Credit card balances tend to increase in November, October and December. This is due to special events like Black Friday. The balances also increase because some people save their credit cards specifically for end-of-the-year shopping and may instead stick to cash for the other nine months of the year. Even though the total balance for credit card debt increases, the average per person does not. Seasonal shoppers’ balances are likely not as high as the regular credit card users’ balances because they don’t use the cards for everyday purchases.

This year, holiday balances are lower than in years past. In fact, credit balances in 2011 have declined. This is because more consumers overall are deleveraging, or paying off debt. However, Dedrick predicts that shopping is going to pick back up in the next few years.

For some more in-depth review of holiday credit card trends, read her full article on the Equifax Finance Blog.