WASHINGTON (Reuters) – By now, the class of 2011 has moved on to real life. There’s some good news: Early reports show they are getting better job offers than their older brothers and sisters did when they graduated. The National Association of Colleges and Employers reports that new grads started jobs with an average salary of $41,701, up 2.3 percent from the 2010 level.

But there’s some bad news, too. The Class of 2011 is said to be the most indebted ever, with average loan balances near $27,000, according to Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of FinAid.org. Folks who graduated in May started getting bills for their first payments right around Thanksgiving. Ouch.

That’s double-ouch for the grads who are still looking for jobs or working in low-paying, no-benefits gigs. But there are, in this era of low interest rates, some ways to cut student loan payments or costs. Here’s an overview.

– Use new tools to understand your options. You can consolidate your loans into one that stretches far out into the future; that will lower payments but raise your total cost of borrowing. Or you can pay extra every month to burn your loans early; that will raise your payments but lower your total costs.

You can see your options in graphic detail at a new website called PaybackSmarter.com (www.paybacksmarter.com.

For example, the typical Washington University in St. Louis graduate owes $27,349 in loans, almost all of it in federal Stafford loans. Standard repayment would require you to pay $314 a month, and you’d end up paying $37,906 in total interest and principal before you finished in 2027. Stretch it out and you can lower your monthly payment to $211, but you’ll be paying until 2032 and you’ll pay a total of $50,375. Choose, instead, to pay an extra $50 a month, and you’ll be done five years early — by 2022, and pay a total of $37,644.

– Explore lower payback options for your federal loans. If you can afford to keep up with higher monthly payments, stick with the program you’re already on. But if you don’t have a job, or it’s a low-paying one, consider enrolling in the federal Income Based Repayment plan, which will lower your payments to affordable levels. Get all of the details at IBRInfo.com (www.ibrinfo.org).

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – It’s all fun and margaritas when you first book a cruise. But that “ticket” is actually a contract that can run more than a dozen pages, and gives away more rights to the cruise ship company than you may realize.

“People will buy the ticket without knowing this, and they won’t even look at it before they step on the cruise ship,” said Joseph Goldberg, a Harrisburg, Pennsylvania-based consumer attorney who reviewed the ticket contract posted on the Carnival Cruise Lines website (here)

for Reuters.

Carnival dominates about half of the cruise market and its contract, which runs almost 8,000 words and mentions “liability” 20 times, could be considered typical for the industry.

“It’s not until something does happen that you find out how stuck you are,” Goldberg said.

Something did happen, of course. The Costa Concordia, operated by a company owned by Miami-based Carnival, ran aground in Italian waters on Friday, leaving at least 11 passengers dead and some 24 more missing. That was an extreme and unusual event, likely to have lawyers fighting for years over the various and sometimes contradictory laws, agreements and contracts that may come into play, according to Lewis “Mike” Eidson, a Miami trial lawyer who specializes in representing cruise passengers.

He said he expects to represent Costa Concordia passengers and crew members, and that he will argue that the usual contractual limitations shouldn’t apply, because the particulars of this case were so extreme.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A new video game has gotten its hooks into Brian Kealer, a 26-year-old San Francisco software engineer. He’s not killing birds or using his vocabulary to impress his friends. No, Kealer is after real prizes, like the iPad2 he just scored. And he’s playing with his bank account.

At least once every day, Kealer signs into SaveUp.com, a new financial website, and does some financial activity that wins him credits he can then use to play for big money prizes. To earn those credits, he can pay a credit card bill, deposit money into his savings account, or watch a sponsored video about personal finance.

To be clear, Kealer’s not making any real dollar bets; he’s just paying his bills. But by participating in SaveUp, he is playing into the financial services industry’s latest attempts to attract and keep engaged consumers. Call it, inelegantly, “gamification.” It involves the use of game-like attributes and mechanics — contests, prizes, scorecards, badges, friendly competitions and the like — to make the boring business of money more appealing to hard-to-snag consumers.

“It’s a word that everybody hates, but it is descriptive of what’s going on,” says Jim Bruene of Netbanker, a banking technology consulting firm.

Financial firms are turning to games to attract a younger demographic that may be impervious to advertising. Online games afford banks a cheaper way to attract customers in an era when interest rates on savings are practically nil, debit card fees are capped and banks have small margins and little leeway to throw rewards at consumers. “It doesn’t cost much” for bankers to market this way, he says. And the ability to push games out in smart phone and tablet applications probably contributes to the interest, too.

But financial games may have a more serious social purpose too: Some policymakers believe that bank-run lotteries can encourage lower income people to save more money.

Of course, it’s not just banks that are “gamifying.” Zynga, the company that creates social-network games like Farmville and Mafia Wars, raised $1 billion in its recent public offering on the expectation that its commercial tie-ins with companies like Pizza Hut and Paramount Pictures would pull real cash from the 200-million monthly active users the company claims. Web network marketing companies like Groupon and FourSquare offer participants badges, crowns and other awards.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – I have a particularly resourceful friend who lives a pretty good life, despite never having quite enough money. She is hardworking and popular with her wide circle of friends, neighbors and colleagues. She networks, barters and works for what she really wants.

A former chef turned teacher, she finessed enough grant money to pay for a two-week trip to cooking school in Italy. She knows where all the good used furniture stores are, has bartered home cleaning for a two-week stay in a vacation home in Vermont, and is working on an arrangement now that will get her free housing in France for several weeks this summer. Tres bien!

I’m pretty sure my friend will do really well in retirement, though I strongly suspect she has nowhere near the $1-million plus that you would think her lifestyle would require. She has a different kind of capital: skills, smarts, and a great social network.

“Everyone is focused on the money, but when somebody retires, they usually manage,” said Larry Cohen, director of Consumer Financial Decisions, a consulting group that studies consumer behavior. “If they don’t have the money, they have human capital like skills and education, and social capital in terms of friends, neighbors or a church. All these things help.”

Cohen predicts that “The (retirement) solutions for the future are going to involve more of these other forms of capital.”

Experts are increasingly focusing on the non-financial assets that workers can bring into retirement to help them manage on fewer dollars than might be optimal.

The Retirement Income Industry Association, a group that represents a cross section of insurance, investment and research firms, has its own program for training and certifying “retirement management analysts.” The training handbook used in that program includes items such as membership in religious and civic organizations, and the ability to earn money as forms of “capital” that are foundational in the new retirement world.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – It’s a cherished and long-held belief in the personal finance world that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. The catechism goes like this: if a service is “free” that just means you can’t see the hidden fees, or it’s a really lousy service, or it’s a trap, and not free at all.

That’s been especially true in the past of “free” financial advice, typically offered by salespeople who make money when they sell products to consumers who are unaware that the sales commissions are buried in the product’s costs. It was also true of a certain jingle-happy “free” credit reporting site that had to pay $950,000 in credit monitoring services after it was sued by the Federal Trade Commission.

But now, some companies are leveraging new technologies and widespread Internet access to services to offer, really for free, the kinds of financial services that consumers usually pay a lot for. And the hidden traps and tricks are not obvious, even to cynics like me.

Two new cases in point: Hedgeable, an investment advice company, is offering free retirement account management, and CreditKarma, a reporting and research firm, started offering free credit monitoring services yesterday.

“We started the firm to disrupt the industry and we just wanted to go for it,” Mike Kane, chief executive officer of Hedgeable, told me in an interview. “We just want to totally undercut what all the other advisers are doing, and offer a really high quality product for retail investors.”

Over at CreditKarma, CEO Ken Lin says of his new offer: “This is the same service that the credit monitoring guys are tricking consumers into paying for with their ‘free credit score’ pitches… We think it’s strange that you should have to pay to monitor your own credit.”

So, what’s at play here? Mostly technology. Automated portfolio design and rebalancing, credit modeling, publishing and communicating makes these services far cheaper to provide than they used to be. And some of the most successful companies today — think Facebook and Google — offer free services that they then use as a lever to make money in other ways. So there’s the possibility of more free services in the future.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Ask any behaviorist: Resolutions rarely work. They are too big and sweeping. The minute you fall off the bandwagon, you abandon attempts to climb back on, mostly because you’re too busy hating yourself.

So forget about the “I’m going to lose 20 pounds AND track every penny that I spend” fervor. Instead just do what does work – actionable small steps. Here’s a list of ways you can improve your finances in 2012, usually in just a few minutes at a time, and without any self-loathing.

- Set up at least one automatic investment besides your 401(k) account. You can open up a regular taxable mutual fund account with a company that offers low-cost index funds, or start a Roth IRA. Either way, authorize the new account to sweep a fixed amount out of your checking account every month. Even if you start with just $50 a month, you’ll begin to accumulate an extra savings account you’ll be happy to have. And the regular investments will serve you during volatile markets.

- Put your credit cards in order. Make two lists: One should include any cards that you currently have a balance on, listed in order of interest rates, highest to lowest. You can use that list to pay extra to the top card on the list until the balance is zero, and then work your way down. If you have rewards cards with zero balances, make a separate list of them, with their rewards specifics; for example 3 percent on groceries, 1 percent on everything else. Use this list to determine which card you use when.

- Do a balance transfer if you think you can’t pay your balance down within two months. Comparison site LowCards.com is currently listing an offer for the Slate Visa card from Chase that has no balance transfer fee and a 0 percent interest rate for six months to a year, depending on how good your credit score is. If you are carrying a credit card balance that you can’t pay off in a month or two, switch it to a card like this, and then make sure you pay it off before the introductory rate falls away.

- Comparison shop for your insurance. It’s true that Geico has made a national advertising campaign out of the 15 minute insurance-shopping phone call, but you really can get quotes in about that amount of time, on auto and home policies. In addition to the lizard, try Progressive, another company that sells direct to the public and offers quotes on its web site. And, if you’re currently working with an agent, ask the agent if she can find you lower cost policies for 2012.

You really may be able to save hundreds of dollars every year, but don’t be so premium-focused that you choose a company that doesn’t have a solid rating from A.M. Best and top reviews from consumers who have had to deal with claims. If you want to know about how other consumers feel about the company you’re considering, check out the reports on ConsumerAffairs.com.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – In the waning days of 2011, the federal government has handed gamblers two gifts. The Justice Department cleared the way for states to start legalizing online poker and other online betting games. And the Internal Revenue Service agreed to a tax court decision that will allow professional gamblers to take big tax losses.

Does that mean you can now write off all those Knicks games and bar nights you and your fantasy league buddies attend? What about the Vegas sprees that support your habit? Sorry, not so much.

“The tax code is very very very… and I could add many more ‘verys’… unfair toward gambling,” says Russell Fox, a Las Vegas tax expert who prepares the returns of poker aficionados, horse bettors, slots players and more. Fox is an enrolled agent — a special class of tax preparer that qualifies him to represent clients before the Internal Revenue Service.

Fox and other analysts do believe that the administration’s new position will eventually lead to many more legal games and gambling opportunities. “Maybe five years from now, you’re going to see a number of new games online; many of them have yet to be invented,” said Michael Pollock, managing director of Spectrum Gaming Group, a research and consulting firm.

But whether the people who spend money on those ‘opportunities’ can actually cash in on the tax breaks that might be associated with them is another question.

The main limitation, from Fox’s point of view, is that the IRS distinguishes between recreational and professional gamblers — and only pros can take lucrative tax losses for their expenses. The bar is higher for a professional gambler than it is for a professional painter, babysitter, dogwalker or eBay merchant, Fox suggests. And only the pros can take tax losses for their expenses.

Here’s what you need to know if you enjoy the games of chance and want to save money on your taxes.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The youngest retirement investors are not abandoning the stock market and actually are more likely than other groups to have stock-heavy portfolios in their 401(k) accounts, according to a study of plan participants released on Wednesday.

The study also found plan participants are cutting back on the amount of their own company stock in their retirement plans and that 401(k) investors generally resumed a more balanced approach to investing in 2010 than they had in the fear-driven years of 2008 and 2009.

Average account balances grew slightly in 2010, but were still well below their pre-recession peak, according to the report, issued today by the Investment Company Institute, the mutual fund trade group, and the Employee Benefit Research Institute, a nonprofit research organization.

The findings about younger investors runs counter to the popular perception that 20-somethings are afraid to invest in equities. In 2010, some 60.4 percent of 401(k) participants in their 20s had more than 80 percent of their accounts in stocks. Only 40 percent of all participants of all ages had stock allocations higher than 80 percent.

The study attributed the higher stock allocations of younger workers to broad participation by new hires in target-date and other balanced funds. Target-date funds allocate portfolios on the basis of an expected retirement date, so they would be expected to have high stock allocations for younger workers.

Younger workers were also less likely to put money in company stock, a factor that helped shrink the portion of company stock in 401(k) portfolios to 8 percent from 9 percent in 2009 and 19 percent in 1999.

At year-end 2010, the average account balance stood at $60,329. That is only 3.4 percent above the 2009 level, although the S&P total return index rose 15.1 percent in 2010, a year in which several employers also reinstituted matching contributions.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Remember way back in January, when Washington was arguing about taxes, homeowners were having trouble getting refinanced and investors were dumping gold? Hmmm…that makes it seem like 2011 was an uneventful year.

But 2011 forever changed the way you’ll manage your money. Here’s an overview of the big financial stories of the past year, and their implications for your wallet.

– Volatility achieved permanence. There were a record number of consecutive 400 point swings in the Dow Jones Industrial average. Daily index changes approaching 2 percent became the norm, and the U.S. stock market often reversed course or went dramatically in one direction or another in the final hour of trading. Call it bipolarism or computer trading, it’s not going away soon. Until the euro crisis, the jobs crisis, the housing crisis, the federal debt crisis, all other crises and the 2012 election all resolve, that can be expected to continue.

That means that investors should plan for volatility. Long term investors can make money in volatile times by choosing a plain vanilla index fund and buying more shares on bad days, or by simply dollar cost averaging and investing the same amount of dollars on the same date each month. You can protect your portfolio by staying very diversified, putting stop loss orders on your stocks, or using hedging strategies.

– Your wallet got Durbinized. Just as the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill was being passed in 2010, Senate Democrat Dick Durbin added an amendment ordering the Federal Reserve to cap the fee that merchants pay issuers for debit card transactions. That went into effect October 1, 2011, and a flurry of activity and rhetoric ensued. Banks started raising fees on other services, to make up what they were losing. Rewards for debit cards disappeared. Some merchants started planning separate prices for credit and debit card customers, but few actually implemented that.

The bottom line for shoppers? Debit cards never delivered a great advantage before, so leave them in the drawer and use a rewards credit card that you pay off every month. Watch for differential pricing that might make it worth your while to start using the debit card again.

– Annuity sales hit record highs. New sales of variable annuities were at record highs, and fixed annuities were close to their tops. That’s despite the fact that low interest rates have made the payouts on those fixed annuities historically low. Insurance salespeople are having a field day with the fear of the common investor, and pre-retirees and new-retirees rushed to lock in any kind of guarantee they could get.

By Linda Stern

(Reuters) – Sigh. A lot of people are predicting more of the same for 2012: Another year of stock market volatility, high unemployment, banking industry upheaval, weak housing and more talk about Facebook, mobile commerce, 401(k) plans and taxes.

But maybe that’s just because it’s hard to envision change. Not everything will stay the same. For example, a year from now, we’ll not be having weekly Republican presidential debates, and we will most likely know who the President will be in 2013. Conventional wisdom holds that by this time next year, Facebook will be a publicly traded company and not just a huge time suck.

It’s easier to imagine the European economic situation getting better or worse in 2012 than it is to imagine it lurching along as it has been for a whole other year. And federal financial regulators who have spent a year threatening to increase their oversight of mortgage lenders, financial advisers and 401(k) plans may stop talking and start doing.

What does all that mean for your wallet? Here are some financial predictions for 2012.

– You may play with your money more. Banks and other financial companies don’t have much in the way of interest rates to offer, so they’re turning their services into games to win and keep customers. Like every other kind of company, they’re investing more in social networking. So expect more game-like random rewards and Facebook-hyped deals from the financial industry, says Philip Blank of Javelin Strategy & Research.

For example, one new company called Save Up runs a sweepstakes-type game for bank customers, who earn the right to “play” when they save money or pay down debt. The rewards vary from coffee pots and gift cards to a grand prize of $2 million.