debt
You Deserve a Luxurious Vacation…Let Me Finance It For You
Today, I receive an email from CitiFinancial. This isn’t rare, being they send email to current and past customers at an annoying frequency. As you can tell from the text of the email (pasted below), Citi is offering a loan in order to finance a vacation. We all know financing a vacation is a horrible idea, [...]
Prosper.com Concerns
Prosper.com has some interesting notions to it that make it unique in the borrowing/lending market. If you have some extra money, you can lend it out and make a return (hopefully) or if your credit is bad, you can get a loan for a badly needed loan that you might not get otherwise, due [...]
Top Financial Leader Thinks Second Wave of Foreclosures Coming July 1
“We have a wave of foreclosures coming after July 1, which may make the first wave look small by comparison.” - Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-CT)
Earlier this week, Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT), Chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, expressed his less than enthusiastic financial forecast for the coming months during a Securities [...]
How Much Were Your Closing Costs?
Do you remember closing on your first home loan? You sit down in a small room with your realtor, the seller, the seller’s realtor, and a title agency. The agency plops a huge stack of documents in front of you and one by one, you sign your paychecks away. If you are [...]
A Tipping Point to be Free From Broke
I work in the IT industry and it’s a true fact that I am currently making an income that is below both the median income for my industry as well as the median income for my area. Why am I not crying myself to sleep every night and fretting about how I am going [...]
Can I Save My Home?
As we all sit around, glued to our bank accounts, waiting for our stimulus check, the country is hurdling towards an unknown that won’t officially be settled until July. Once the magic “R” word comes out, I would imagine that there is going to be a new shock to the system as a whole. [...]
My Credit Card Interest Rate Raised for No Reason
Credit card companies are coming under fire lately, and in our opinion, deservedly so. Credit cards of all kinds are now taking advantage of the 10 pages of fine print you agree to when signing up for a new card, which gives them the rights to basically do whatever they wish to your interest rate. [...]
Use Credit Card Rewards Programs to Save for Retirement
Participating in your employers 401(k) match program allows for a great way to accelerate your retirement savings, but have you ever considered using your credit card rewards program as a means to save? Although rewards programs are all over the map in their offerings, certain programs present a great way to add to your future [...]
Investing in Real Estate vs. Stocks - Which Is Best?
For years, the United States Government has encouraged citizens to become homeowners, primarily with tax incentives like deductions from mortgage interest, mortgage points, and property tax. However, if the U.S. Government was held as a fiduciary by encouraging home-ownership, our tax breaks might subside based off recent numbers highlighted in a recent Washington Post article [...]
Simple Ways to Boost Your Credit Score
Improving and maintaining your credit score is one of the best ways to qualify for lower interest rates, acquire credit, and reduced insurance premiums. However, the majority of us don’t keep a close enough eye on our credit scores and frankly probably don’t understand them. How your credit score is actually determined is [...]
