Filed under: Family Money , Personal Finance Miranda Martinez has a pretty good handle on her finances these days. The college professor and her husband bought a house in Brooklyn, N.Y., with a healthy cash down payment. Martinez takes regular trips to Italy to visit her in-laws without wracking up fat credit card balances.

Filed under: Taxes Congress is cutting the budget of the Internal Revenue Service. Granted, the IRS is not the most beloved agency in our government, and complying with the rules it enforces isn’t exactly a favorite national pastime. But before you cheer the move, consider this: While most parts of the government operate by consuming money, the sole mission of the IRS is to generate the funds that keep the country running.

Filed under: Honda Motor Co , Ford Motor Co , Toyota , General Motors , Autos , Tesla Motors Toyota ( TM ) may have lost the U.S. sales lead, but it still leads in one key survey — and that lead should give fans of the automaker hope as it gears up to retake lost ground. Toyota retained its crown in the latest edition of Consumer Reports ‘ annual survey of auto-brand perception, a sign that many consumers remain loyal to the company despite its struggles in recent years

Filed under: Media , Honda Motor Co , Autos , Entertainment Fans of John Hughes’ classic Ferris Bueller’s Day Off will have to keep waiting for a real sequel. A teaser with Matthew Broderick reprising his role as the happy-go-lucky Bueller — sort of — is actually a taste of a Honda ( HMC ) commercial that will make its television debut during Sunday’s Super Bowl. Facebook, Twitter, and blogs were ablaze earlier this month with buzz that Broderick’s middle-aged turn as Bueller wanting a day off from work was actually a precursor to a full-blown movie….

Filed under: Technology , Media , Netflix , Amazon.com Amazon.com ( AMZN ) may be gearing up to start charging for its unlimited video streaming service. If what industry sources are telling the New York Post holds up, the leading online retailer would go from giving away streams of select movie and TV show titles to its millions of Amazon Prime subscribers to selling the unlimited service as a stand-alone offering. If this all sounds somewhat familiar, just rewind a few months to a summer that Netflix ( NFLX ) would prefer to forget