“We live in a small town, and everybody looks at your clothes and what you drive and where you have your hair done,” said Ms. Gamble, who earns about $2,600 a month as a grievance counselor at a local prison.
money
Americans Struggle With The Concept Of Spending Less Than They Earn
By 2.7.08
Easily Compare Wholesale Mortgage Rates Online
By 2.7.08
Mortgage Professor has a great no-frills online tool for tracking the wholesale mortgage rates. Just go here, Select your geographic area, and time period to look at. Choose whether you want your data in chart or table format (I suggest table, as the chart data isn’t as up to date), and what kind of mortgage you want to look at. You can further sort the results by FICO, loan purpose, loan size, type of documentation, or size of down payment. The data comes from Amerisave. A great way to check out mortgage rates, and how strong you have to be to get them. Plus, you can use it to compare how much of a markup your broker is charging.
By 2.7.08
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9 Things Star Wars can teach us about frugality. Number one: “1) They do their own maintenance and repairs. Rebels don’t take the x-wing into the local Space Lube Garage.” [Wise Bread]
Mortgage Broker Confessions
By 2.7.08
“When I have a client I really don’t like — he’s a pain in the ass — that’s when I charge as much as I can get out of them,” one mortgage broker told the Joe Consumer blog. That’s right, a lot of mortgage broker fees are bullshit. It’s important to get a good faith estimate and shop around for things like your title and escrow.
How To Save A Million Dollars At Any Age
By 2.6.08
The February issue of Kiplinger’s has advice for how to save a million dollars at any age from 25-55. The longer you’ve got the easier it sounds, of course…. and the more inflation will take a toll on your million. Even so, interesting stuff.
Reach Capital One Senior Acccount Specialists
By 2.6.08
800-889-9939 is the number for Capitol One’s U.S.-based Senior Customer Service reps. They take escalated calls for credit limit increases, fee waivers, account term changes, or interest rate decreases.
Dish Network Billing Is Totally Borked!
By 2.6.08
Kayla writes:
My Husband and I called Embarq for a bundle pack with dish network in April of 2007. We were told by Embarq that we would only be seeing one bill from them, that would include dish charges, and that it would be about $100 a month. We have paid our bill every month, and never had anything suspended. As a matter of fact, we had never had to make any inquiries about dish as it had been a wonderful experience until mid-January. One morning I was turning on Mickey Mouse Clubhouse for my son and I had no service. So I called Embarq, who told me to call Dish, who had no record of our names or social security numbers, who told me to call Emarq again…
By 2.5.08
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Towns are discovering an unexpected side-effect of telling everyone to save save save water: lower water bills are resulting in a municipal income shortfall. [Toronto Star]
Banks Get Stingier With Credit Cards
By 2.5.08
Rising defaults and people behind on their payments have credit card companies retreating from the marketing and lending orgy of the past few years. Here’s what the different banks are doing to shore up their positions:
Countrywide Made Racist Sub-Prime Loans?
By 2.5.08
Countrywide Home Loans was racist and automatically put African-Americans into exotic and expensive sub-prime loans they didn’t want or need, and couldn’t afford, according to a former employee. This employee worked there for two years up until the sub-prime meltdown. They write:
“…a customer would be qualified for a loan because their credit score and other factors based on the written product description, however, when I went in to put their (this only happened to African-Americans) – they were not qualified for the loan product and had to be referred to Countrywide’s subprime mortgage company Full Spectrum. Full Spectrum offered higher rates and fees. I got wise one day and started not inputing the race so the computer could give me “approval.”
Shopping Without Asterisks
By 2.5.08
America lies in slumber as a new swath of rights are violated, our consumer rights. The right to a fair deal. Companies have a right to try to make a profit. We have the right to receive the goods and services we purchase at the price and quality level advertised, and the right to seek redress if these expectations are not met. You earned that money with your sweat, and now you’re just going to let someone take it from you?
By 2.5.08
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A look at where the candidates stand on the sub-prime mortgage meltdown and credit crisis. [Bankrate]
By 2.4.08
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Scammers are calling up people and pretending to be from the government and here to help with getting you your tax rebate. All you have to do is give them your bank account information. [9news]
Your Account Is Never Really Closed At Bank Of America
By 2.4.08
Paul writes, “Did you know a “closed” checking account is never really closed? Today I walked to the local BofA for the third time to close a checking account that every month seems to magically re-open with a $5.95 account fee. What the manager told me was quite shocking.”
By 2.1.08
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Here’s a horrible idea: a 401(k) program with a debit card. That’s right, you can go to the ATM and make withdrawals from your 401(k) retirement savings plan. [TheStreet]
Death By Cellphone Taxes, And Cheating It
By 1.31.08
For products that don’t kill you, we usually pay 6.9%, but for some states have seen fit to tax cellphones at exorbitant rates, like Illinois’ 21.05% or New York’s 21.71%. Why? Probably because people don’t notice or complain very much and so the states get tidy chunk of extra revenue. One Forbes writer who moved from New York to L.A. was still stuck paying New York taxes, the highest in the country. When he complained, Verizon said they couldn’t do anything because they link area of primary usage to your area code. If he wanted to pay L.A. rates, he would have to get an L.A. number, and give up his New York number. Instead, he went and bought a phone in Idaho, provided an Idaho address, and switched to paperless billing. Now he enjoys the small potatoes rate of 7.71%. He admits that this “probably crosses the line.” One must also admit that cellphone taxes have crossed the line, as have cellphone companies that shortcut the Mobile Telecommunications Sourcing Act by determining the “area of primary usage” based on your area code or billing address, instead of detecting where you actually use the phone the most. Inside, a list of cellphone taxes by state.
Reader Saves $950 By Ridding Life Of Fees, Overpayments
By 1.31.08
Moriconi writes in to tell us how he was able to save $950 this week by uprooting the hidden fees and renegotiating the things in his life he was paying too much for. Awesome! Here’s his true story:
