| Well, there I was, practically giddy about the 4.38% APY our new-ish rewards checking account was paying us on our savings … and whaddaya know? Two months in, and the credit union is about to lower its cap.
From the very top of my August statement:
Effective October 1, 2010, there will be two changes to the Rewards Checking program. The cap will change from $25,000 to $15,000. For qualifying accounts, 4.38% APY will be paid on balances of $15,000 or less and .50% APY will be paid on amounts greater than $15,000. The dividend rate for |
- Last Modified: 2010-09-07 08:15:32
| As readers probably know, I’m a big fan of Quicken. It’s my finance-tracking tool of choice, and has been since the mid-1990s.
Last week, I received an email from reader Dennis, who apparently has caught on to something of a shortfall in Quicken’s internal register calculator. For those of you who aren’t sure what that is, here’s a screenshot:
If you have numbers to add or subtract, you can do it inside the SPEND and RECEIVE columns in Quicken’s register. Anyhow, here’s what Dennis had to say:
In yo |
- Last Modified: 2010-09-02 09:15:48
| Fun new survey data out from Rasmussen, regarding Americans and how they currently feel about government participation in the mortgage market:
See the glaring disconnect in the first two items? If fifty-six percent of Americans think the government should stay “altogether” out of the mortgage market, but seventy-nine percent want the mortgage-interest deduction to continue, then an awful lot of people have an awfully shallow view of what “government participation” means.
If you don’t think that the mortgage-int |
- Last Modified: 2010-09-01 08:40:43
| I imagine most IYM and Money Musings readers are seeing what I’m seeing: After a drop-off in 2008 and 2009, credit-card applications are hitting my mailbox with a vengeance these days.
As a rule, such applications have a date with my shredder pretty quickly. I don’t really pay much attention to the type of credit-card application it is (personal or business). As a family who uses cards only for convenience and cash rewards, and with no debt other than our mortgage, we have no real need for more plastic in our wallets and/or purse |
- Last Modified: 2010-08-30 08:04:41
| The stats junkies out there will undoubtedly want to take a look at this new website, courtesy of the Federal Reserve:
New York Fed: U.S. Credit Conditions and Quarterly Report
Look for the New York Fed to update its nifty Report on Household Debt and Credit every quarter. As of this writing, the first (and latest) report is for 2010 Quarter 2.
Lots of charts there (viewable as JPEG or PDF) for the economics dorks among us!
|
- Last Modified: 2010-08-29 11:47:45
| You want stimulus? Well, how ’bout the chance to go almost 40 months without a house payment?
Thanks to cottony-soft (and FedGov encouraged) accounting standards, banks are loathe to foreclose on underwater properties. As a bank, realizing five- and six-digit losses is no fun. It tends to leave ouchies on your balance sheet, and more importantly, has a negative effect on management bonuses.
Cause, meet effect:
Defaulted borrowers were spending an average of 469 days in their home after ceasing to make payments as of July 31, so the fin |
- Last Modified: 2010-08-27 08:34:56
| Because I have become very much a financial hardass in my old age, I’ve been against FedGov’s HAMP program from Day One. (To show that I am an Equal Opportunity Hardass, I am virulently against taxpayer funds going to banks or other corporate entities, as well.)
Still, I keep up with HAMP results (or lack thereof) because train wrecks this large are just hard to ignore. And also because watching FedGov throw piles of good money after bad is better entertainment than most primetime TV (which isn’t saying much).
So here we g |
- Last Modified: 2010-08-23 08:18:50
| This, friends, is easily the one thing about Dave Ramsey that pisses me off the most. This particular table comes from Dave’s Total Money Makeover Workbook, page 229:
The point of that data is pretty simple: If you’re not making payments to anyone other than yourself, AND if you’re willing to work hard, you can accumulate a lot of money in a pretty short amount of time.
Now, I agree with that premise wholeheartedly. Heck — I’m seeing it play out in my own life. Our only debt payments go to the mortgage compa |
- Last Modified: 2010-08-18 09:22:25
| It’s been a while since I discussed the economics of school supplies. In fact, the last time I covered the subject was in 2006. In “Back to School Adventures,” I mentioned that a whole lot about the school-supply-buying process seemed to have changed since my wife and I were kids.
Now that we have a daughter in elementary school, my perspective has shifted a bit. And this piece from the New York Times sort of touches on what many folks are seeing:
NYT: Budgets Tight, School Supply Lists Grow…
From the article:
Pre-kinde |
- Last Modified: 2010-08-16 08:15:18
| Mary Pilon at the Wall Street Journal tells us that total outstanding student-loan debt has now overtaken total outstanding credit-card debt:
WSJ: Student Loan Debt Surpasses Credit Cards
As of June, there was roughly $830 billion outstanding in student loans, compared to $826 billion in credit-card debt.
Swell, ain’t it? I tell you, this country can strap on the anchors and leg chains of debt like nobody’s business.
|
- Last Modified: 2010-08-13 08:03:08
|
|
