The Commerce Department has reported that people are responding to the stimulus package’s tax cuts by putting away more money for a rainy day. In May, the personal saving rate soared to 6.9 percent — the highest level seen since December 1993. It’s an encouraging turnaround from the nadir of the housing bust, when the average [...]
Wondering how banks are coping with the recession? Easy: They’re dipping deeper into the pockets of consumers who make banking mistakes. The Washington Post yesterday reported on a topic we’ve covered in depth: increased banking fees. Customers are paying more to maintain a checking account and withdraw cash from an out-of-system ATM, and when they bounce a [...]
An unfortunate side effect of a recession is that it provides easy pickings for opportunistic scammers. Thieves earn their bread and butter when people are in a panic over their finances, so it’s important to recognize the warning signs of a deal that’s too good to be true. The FBI recently compiled this list of [...]
The New York Times editors posted an interesting discussion on the Room for Debate blog last week regarding student loans and higher education. The responses from five ‘insiders’ chosen to participate are far-ranging and address the questions: How much is too much to carry in student loans? What factors should be weighed? Should a student [...]
Especially in times like these, everyone’s looking for ways to save money. Daniel Adler at Forbes.com has an excellent feature identifying seven ways being lazy may be costing you money, and how little changes can make for big savings. My personal favorite, and possibly the most expensive of the seven: Not Opening a Retirement Fund [...]
Australia is reporting a surge in bankruptcies among young women eager to live the celebrity lifestyle: The Daily Mail reports that a survey found women were ‘far more likely’ to spend irresponsibly than men as they try to emulate celebrities such as Victoria Beckham and Paris Hilton. Last year 55 per cent of young bankrupts [...]
We’ve covered before how new credit laws mean tighter restrictions regarding who qualifies for a credit card, and how people with sterling credit scores could face higher fees under the new regulations. As it turns out, there’s another wrinkle in the law books that gives young people a truly bum deal. Under the new law, [...]
Account holders may not be aware that banks like Bank of America, SunTrust and Wachovia have increased fees on certain services. At a time when federal lawmakers are cracking down on questionable bank practices like hidden fees, and trying to implement more transparency among financial institutions, consumers should remain vigilant about their own finances to [...]
Slate’s Caitlin McDevitt has a great feature about board games that teach kids unfortunate financial lessons. Monopoly has taught us that financial institutions are invincible. The game’s banker cannot go bankrupt, according to the rules: “The Bank never ‘goes broke.’ If the Bank runs out of money, the Banker may issue as much as needed [...]
I’m a bit tired of hearing about “social media” sites. For awhile social media seemed mostly like a tool solely used to talk about… social media. Sites such as Twitter, Reddit, and Digg have of course grown out of this (most of the time), but it’s still sometimes hard to find interesting and relevant information [...]
