Houston Consumer Blog

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Today on Live at 5 we showed you the Houston company that supplies furniture to model homes across the nation.   Scott Randall Designer Furniture Showroom has been in business for 8 years.  Owners say about 2 years ago the national housing market stalled and it has not shown signs of a rebound.  Now the company is closing its doors and selling off more than one million dollars in inventory.

In the past only designers could shop the store, now it is opened to the general public.

The store is located at 11413 Todd Street in Houston.  It's along Hempstead Highway off of the 610 loop.

The store will be open Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday from Noon to 5 p.m.

Financial Aid for "Older" Students

College is becoming an appealing choice for those who have been laid off, down sized or cut back.  Those who lost jobs are turning to higher education as a way to start a new career path.

Older students are not shut out of the Financial Aid plans.

In fact about 20% of Pell Grants are awarded to older students.

If you want to go back to school, check out the financial aid web site links.

The first one is for general information, the second is for older students.

http://www.finaid.org/

http://www.finaid.org/otheraid/nontraditional.phtml

Credit Scores and Reports

If you want to look at your credit score it will cost you.  The following link can help you se the score, but you have to pay 16 bucks for it.

www.myfico.com

If you want to take a look at your credit report, minus the score, you can get that for free.

Be careful, not all free credit report web sites are actually free, but this one is:

www.annualcreditreport.com

Temp work rebounding

The job market has not been good for several months, but one sector may be turning around and it could mean good news for everyone.

Temporary workers are being let go by employers at a much slower rate than earlier in the year.  Temp agency experts say that typically means an increase in temp workers will be seen in the next quarter or two.  If that happens, the overall job market generally will show gains too.  It could be another 6 months before that happens, but if you are looking for work, any good news is welcome.

Temp officials say more than 100,000 Texans are temping right now and you can get in on it too.

Check out www.texasstaffing.org for details and good luck on your job search!

Negotiating the cost of a funeral

The following information is from Patricia Lopez's report on negotigating the cost of a funeral

 

Ken Lambert/ Funeral Negotiator

(281) 357-0195        

Toll Free 1-888-669-4947

http://www.funeralnegotiator.com

 

The Better Business Bureau of Metropolitan Houston found the following 8 companies currently have an “F” rating with the BBB due to their failure to respond to consumer complaints.  For more information visit www.houston.bbb.org

 

1.    Forest Park- Lawndale 2.    Houston Monument Company 3.    Frazier-Mitchell Funeral service 4.    Mabrie Memorial Mortuary 5.    Hollywood Cemetery 6.    Dignified Management Group, Inc. 7.    Melton & Melton Funeral Home 8.    Willie Waddell’s Riverside Funeral Home

Taking care of your yard is about to become more expensive

The city of Houston has passed a new rule when it comes to yard clippings and leaves.

If you don't use a biodegradable bag,they won't pick it up.

The new bags will be on store shelves in about a month and they will be more expensive than the bags you use right now.

How expensive?  Right now you can buy 40 yard bags for under ten dollars.  The new bags cost 7 dollars for ten bags.

The new rules go into effect the first weekof December and if you ddon;t use the new bags you could be fined.

To learn more, click on the cities link.

http://www.houstontx.gov/solidwaste/index.html

E Books

If you were thinking of buying an ebook, you may already own one and not even know it.

E books allow you to download copies of books for about ten dollars, but you can even find some for free.

The ebooks may be designed of the purpose, but if you have a lap top, iphone, windows based smart phone, or just a desk top computer, you can down load the reader software too.

The Houston Public Library has about 30,000 titles for free.

You need a library card and you have to download software that lets your device receive the book, but the titles cost you nothing.

You can even text questions to the library and get answers, keep that in mind when tackling a tough home work question.

http://www.hpl.lib.tx.us/