By Adam Jusko, ProudMoney.com, adam@proudmoney.com

Kohl’s announced today that it will begin accepting Amazon returns in its Los Angeles and Chicago stores beginning next month. You don’t even have to bother repackaging the thing you’re returning — Kohl’s will do it for you and ship it back to Amazon.

Earlier this month, Kohl’s announced that Amazon “smart home” products like Amazon Echo and Amazon Fire TV would be available for demo and purchase inside 10 Kohl’s stores in October, again in the Los Angeles and Chicago markets.

By Adam Jusko, ProudMoney.com, adam@proudmoney.com

Here at Proud Money we usually focus on personal finance topics and books for the average person. This review is for the more sophisticated investor. Smart Portfolios, by Robert Carver, “is intended for professional investors worldwide, including financial advisors, private bankers, wealth managers and institutional funds, as well as experienced private investors.” If you’re just trying to figure out which index mutual fund to choose for your IRA, this book is probably overkill for you.

By Adam Jusko, ProudMoney.com, adam@proudmoney.com

I just heard another person give the tired rant about how kids are soft from getting participation trophies, how these trophies make them think they’re great when they’re not, how the kids who excelled got shortchanged by getting the same trophies as the kids who were terrible, blah, blah, blah.

I get it.

But I disagree with it. I think participation trophies are good, and I’ll tell you why:

Participation trophies encourage you to try things.

Kids know the best players on their teams. They know who runs the fastest, who scores the most goals. No participation trophy is going to fool them into believing everyone is the same. Kids start measuring themselves against others before they are out of diapers. Any parent could tell you that, assuming they are paying any attention.

By Anthony Simon, ProudMoney.com, asimon@proudmoney.com

Looking for work over the holidays? Target is set to hire 100,000 temporary, seasonal workers this year in its stores, doing everything from helping customers on the floor to stocking shelves to fulfilling in-store pickups from online customers. Over 4,000 seasonal workers will be added to its distribution and fulfillment centers as well.

Target’s not saying a word about pay, but based on what we know about Target’s regular pay scale, you should figure on most of the jobs paying $10 per hour.

By Anthony Simon, ProudMoney.com, asimon@proudmoney.com

Tomorrow, September 14, 2017, is your opportunity to snag a coveted Olive Garden “Never Ending Pasta Pass” that gives you 8 weeks of unlimited Olive Garden pasta, soup, salad and breadsticks for just $100. If you’re really lucky, you may have the opportunity to get the even more coveted “Pasta Pass to Italy,” which gives you everything the regular Pasta Pass gives you — plus a trip to Italy! (You’ll have to pay $200 for the Pasta Pass to Italy, but you’re probably OK with that.)

The catch, of course, is that these Pasta Passes are REALLY hard to get. There will be 22,000 of the $100 Pasta Passes available to buy and only 50 of the $200 Pasta Passes to Italy. Olive Garden said that last year they sold the 21,000 Pasta Passes in one second — if that’s even possible.