Rates on 30-year mortgages fell to 4.57% this week amid falling new home sales and increasing joblessness. It’s the third straight week that mortgage rates have dropped, and they’re the lowest since Freddie Mac started keeping track in the 70’s. [More]
money
Last $10 On Visa Gift Card Proves Seemingly Inextractable
By 7.7.10
Kate has a $50 Visa gift card. She used $40 on it and then tried to buy some DVDs for $7, but the card was rejected. What gives? [More]
Formerly Beloved Technical Analyst For Wall Street Warns Massive Market Crash Coming
By 7.7.10
Pick any Roland Emmerich disaster movie and randomly select a scene–that’s more or less what Robert Prechter, a market forecaster who was widely lauded as a technical analyst in the 1980s, says is coming to the Dow, writes the New York Times. [More]
Personal Finance Roundup
By 7.7.10
10 thrifty ingredients to improve your meals [Smart Spending] “Affordable, healthy meals need not be boring and bland.”
21 Web Sites for Finding Deals Online [Kiplinger] “We’ve tested and picked 21 Web sites we think are easy to use and will help you save money all year.”
4 More Ways to Save on Maternity Clothes [Wise Bread] “Here are four clever tips you may not have known about!”
I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Sign Here [Wall Street Journal] “Move over, heirs and heiresses: Baby boomers are flocking to sign prenuptial agreements, too.”
Nine Tactics That Work for Starting Food Preparation at Home [The Simple Dollar] “Making food at home isn’t the hard chore that many people make it out to be.”
Study: American Express Has Most Obtuse Penalty APR Polices
By 7.7.10
If you’re gonna get kicked in the pants, wouldn’t you at least like to know why? Well, American Express is the least clear in how they communicate their penalty interest rate policies, a new Card Hub survey finds. [More]
Hackers Love Stealing Your Credit Card From Hotels
By 7.6.10
Make sure you check your credit card for suspicious charges after you use it at a hotel. A new study finds that 38% of credit card hacking cases involved hotels, way ahead of any other industry. [More]
TD Bank Pushes Totally Flat Debit Cards
By 7.6.10
Run your fingers over one of TD Bank’s new debit cards and you’ll notice something missing. There’s no embossed numbers. It’s not a fake, it’s the future: a completely flat debit card that can be issued right on the spot when you open an account at a local bank, with no waiting for it to arrive in the mail. [More]
27 Of The Sickest Things You've Done To Save Money
By 7.6.10
We asked Consumerist readers to share the sickest, grossest, and sketchiest things they’ve ever done to save money. Over 250 comments poured in and most of them had to do with things that people have reduced themselves to eating at one point in the past.
This was one of the most entertaining comments threads I’ve read here in a while and it was hard but I have whittled them down to the 27 sickest: [More]
Filibuster Scuttles Jobless Benefits Restoration For Third Time
By 7.2.10
Happy Fourth of July weekend! To help you celebrate Independence Day, which includes independence from the government dole, a Senate filibuster has successfully prevented unemployment benefits from being extended for 1.3 million out of work citizens. [More]
HOA Board Member Says They're Not All Money Grubbing Scumbags
By 7.1.10
Yesterday we wrote about how in Texas, there’s been a bit of a spree of homeowner’s associations (HOAs) foreclosing on people’s houses over just a few hundred in late dues, then selling the house to themselves and turning it around for a juicy profit. And now, the other side of the story. Robert is an HOA board member in Texas and while his association does sometimes foreclose in order to collect, there’s more to the situation than meets the eye. Here’s his take: [More]
HOAs Foreclose On Homes Over $500 In Late Dues Then Flip For Personal Profit
By 6.30.10
In Texas, Homeowner’s Associations (HOAs) are on a foreclosing spree, selling members’ homes on the courthouse steps for just a few thousand dollars simply because they are a few hundred dollars behind on their homeowner’s dues. Sometimes they’re even selling it to HOA board members, who turn around and sell the house for half of what it’s worth, netting a tidy profit. [More]
10 Commandments Of Using Coupons
By 6.30.10
The world of shoppers is divided into two, sometimes rival, camps: those who coupon and those who don’t. If you are going to coupon, you have to make sure that you do it right and respect your fellow shoppers, otherwise they will hoist you (in their minds) from the nearest shopping cart return sign. So then, NJ.com proposes 10 commandments for couponers to follow so that we can all live together in harmony, couponer and non alike. [More]
Homebuyer Tax Credit Poised For 3-Month Extension
By 6.30.10
First-time homebuyers looking to snag the up to $8,000 income tax credit that expires today could get a reprieve. If you already signed the purchase contract by April 30th but haven’t closed yet, you will have 3-months to seal the deal, if a bill passed by Congress yesterday makes it through the Senate, which it seems it will. [More]
Personal Finance Roundup
By 6.30.10
Seven secrets of coupon pros [Consumer Reports] “Nancy Niemeyer, an IT project manager from Seattle, says she feeds her family of four for about $10 a week.”
5 cheap places to retire in the US [MSN Money] “An expert offers his top picks, taking costs, culture and access to medical care into consideration.”
How 5 money blunders ding your credit [Smart Spending] “FICO calls them ‘damage points,’ and, boy, can they pull down your credit score.”
10 Things Funeral Directors Won’t Tell You [Smart Money] “The best defense? Shop around, or have someone who is up to it do it for you.”
7 Lessons the World Cup Offers on the Stock Market [Wall Street Journal] “Here are seven lessons that ‘the beautiful game’ can teach you about the money game.”
Even Wells Fargo CEO Powerless To Reduce Your Punitive APR
By 6.28.10
The APR on Kevin’s Wells Fargo credit card got jacked up from 9.6% to almost 23%. He owes $16,000. At 9.6, he could afford to make double the monthly payments, but now he’s paying $300+ a month in finance charges alone. He’s begged up and down the hierarchy, from the CEO to any exec or VP he could reach, to please reduce his APR so he can carry this debt. Nope. The numbers have spoken. The odds are calculated. Your risk has been assessed, and the verdict has been issued: you lose. [More]
Fun Summer Project: Get Your Tax Records In Order!
By 6.28.10
Inc. magazine has published a list of tips on how to get your home business tax documentation in order right now, so next year’s tax filing will be trouble free. Sure, this isn’t the most exciting staycation idea ever, but on the other hand anything you can do at home you can do in your underwear with a six pack of beer. I should really become a motivational speaker. [More]
Shady Car Dealers Price Loans More Than What Bank Will Take So You Love Them When It's Reduced
By 6.25.10
A former manager of a car dealership knows exactly how sneaky those sons of guns can be. One of their favorite tricks involved knowingly pricing out the monthly payments at $100 above what the bank computers would let buyer afford, and then acting like they’re your best friend for getting it lowered $100. [More]
Pay Less Rent
By 6.24.10
In life, everything is negotiable, including your rent. Many renters might tremble at confronting the dark landlord ogre, but with a little research, some tips on negotiating, and a little moxie, you can stand a fighting chance at trimming your monthly rent check: [More]
