The Great Recession has spurred a number of changes in consumer behavior but none more transformative than people’s mindset over their debt. While many people have been making a conscious effort to pay down their debts and use credit more responsibly, new findings reveal that credit card debt and car loans have taken priority over [...]
Continue Reading →Is cosigning a loan the best thing to do for your college grad? We all want to help our kids prepare for the future, that’s why we scrimp and save to send them to college. For parents who have weathered the college savings years and survived the college expense years, few are prepared for the [...]
Continue Reading →If you were to ask any one of the millions of retirement savers who endured the vicious roller coaster ride of the stock market from 2008 through 2011, whether they would have preferred that their money was invested in stable value funds, the answer would probably be a resounding “YES!” That’s easy to say in [...]
Continue Reading →It’s an unfortunate sign of the times that we are seeing a proliferation of ads promoting debt consolidation and debt settlement companies giving bad debt consolidation information. While there is no doubt that more people are in financial distress and could use some help, many of these ads are targeting the most vulnerable, those at the [...]
Continue Reading →With the economic and political climate in the U.S. becoming increasingly stormy, the number of Americans leaving America and starting life anew in foreign lands has spiked in just the last couple of years. An estimated 5 million Americans now call Canada, or Mexico, or Costa Rica, or Thailand, or the Philippines, or several dozen other [...]
Continue Reading →The nearly 5 million Americans who have chosen to become expats and live their lives abroad face many challenges, including language barriers, cultural integration, social acceptance, economic hurdles and government corruption. If that weren’t enough, their expatriation has several implications that can affect their citizenship, and their good standing with Uncle Sam, at least as [...]
Continue Reading →It’s probably happened to everybody at some point. You’re faced with a big, one-time expense like a tax bill, and you have a credit card with a zero or low balance burning a hole in your wallet, so you say, “What the heck, I’ll pay it off in a couple of months.” Or, you found [...]
Continue Reading →It’s done. Google has implemented “radical” new changes to the Google Privacy Policy which will affect anyone who has anything to do with Google while they’re logged onto the Internet, and that includes just about everybody who is logged onto the Internet. Yet, there doesn’t seem to be the massive outcry you would expect from the [...]
Continue Reading →With sky high gas prices using your airline miles may be the cheapest option to travel this summer. Thinking about a road trip this spring or summer? You may reconsider your mode of transportation. Gas prices are rising faster than a thermometer in Phoenix on the 4th of July, and they are likely to be even [...]
Continue Reading →In most settings, be it an Occupy rally, a Tea Party rally, or even a stock market rally, the mention of one of the big banks’ names is likely to draw looks that could kill. After nearly destroying the financial system a few years back, they haven’t done much to endear themselves to the American [...]
Continue Reading →One of the ways that consumers are lured into spending more money on debt is through the promise of an interest free loan. Most of these loans aren’t interest free for the entire term. Usually, interest-free specials are only for a limited time, whether it’s a 0% introductory rate on a credit card, a special [...]
Continue Reading →Can’t decide whether to pay for your lawn seed with cash or credit? Or maybe you’re just not sure which credit card you should be using. Maybe you forgot your wallet. Not to worry, you can now pay for a Home Depot purchase with your phone number. PayPal, the leader in online payment processing, with [...]
Continue Reading →When it comes to your finances, one of the important aspects is your credit score. A good credit score can do more for you than you might imagine. Whether you are trying to borrow for a new home, open a new low interest rate credit card, or get the best deal on auto insurance, your [...]
Continue Reading →Having very good or excellent credit does have its privileges. Mainly, that just about any credit card issuer would be happy to extend you credit on favorable terms. In a highly competitive marketplace, they are quick to recognize people who have committed themselves to maintaining a long, solid credit history by keeping their payments current [...]
Continue Reading →For the young men and women joining our military today, with the full knowledge that they can be deployed at anytime and anywhere in the world, they must feel a sense of exhilaration while at the same time, feeling a sense of angst over the life they leave behind, albeit temporarily. Whether you have a [...]
Continue Reading →Tax Tips for Tax Day With the countdown to Tax Day really begun, many are scrambling to file their taxes. As you prepare your tax return form this year, it helps to consider how you can make the process a little easier – and make sure your tax return is accurate. Here are some helpful tips [...]
Continue Reading →You might have seen the headline come across the wire, “Four Large Banks Fail Stress Test,” among them was Citigroup, SunTrust, Ally, and MetLife. But before you hightail it to your bank to withdraw your savings, let’s consider what this really means to you. The stress test, a hypothetical measure of a bank’s ability to [...]
Continue Reading →Student loans are things that have become acceptable in our society today. It is normal for someone to graduate from that “great university” with a massive amount of debt. The average student now graduates college with over $25,000 in debt. In my mind, that is totally unacceptable. I don’t want to start out my life [...]
Continue Reading →The question of when to indoctrinate our teenagers in the use of credit seems to be coming up much more frequently these days, and I don’t know why. With more than 13 million adults defaulting on their credit card accounts, why on earth would we even consider our teens ready for plastic spending by outfitting [...]
Continue Reading →A lot of people have expressed an interest in the highly anticipated Facebook IPO, and rightly so as it is truly the most significant new stock issue to come to market since Google in 2004. Unquestionably, Facebook is a once-in- a-decade opportunity for investors, and no other company has so dominated a space as it [...]
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