Insurance and You
Buying insurance isn’t the easiest task in the world, in particular because if you’re like the rest of us, you have multiple policies for various things and much of it comes through a friendly smile at work that says ‘Sign here’ and you do. Below are some common FAQs about insurance.
1. What type [...]

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The Markets
The American dream of home ownership is causing some people a lot of nightmares.
Stocks took it on the chin again last week as weak housing and credit data helped keep investors in the doldrums. According to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) as reported on March 6th by MarketWatch.com, “The rate of mortgages [...]

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First Time Homebuyer Tips
I’ve been writing a lot about how terrible the market has been in terms of home foreclosures, ARM rates jumping up and people walking away from their homes, so I thought it was about time to be a little more positive. None of the negatives in recent months may have bothered you; [...]

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Who’s that Tapping at my 401(k)?
Oh, it’s me!
As the credit crunch cuts deeper into homeowner’s wallets, and as they shell out more cash to either prevent foreclosure or meet the new, larger payments they’re facing after mortgage resets (not to mention the lousy economic situation we’re in), Americans are tapping into their sacred 401(k)s and [...]

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Walking Away from Their Homes
Foreclosures keep on rising, and they’ve reached an all-time high. Borrowers who took out ARMs, or adjustable rate mortgages whose rates are set to reset to a higher rate, are giving up, many simply walking away from their homes prior to them having to even make one payment at the new [...]

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For Sale by Owner
People sell their home themselves because they want to save money–and according to the U.S. Department of Justice, they could be saving as much as $7,500 by going through the FSBO process, at least on a median-priced home. And a lot of the help they get often comes from online sources.
While money [...]

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The Markets
“It’s not what’s in the news today, it’s what’s already in the price that matters.” Unfortunately, that insightful comment from the March 3rd issue of Barron’s magazine leaves unanswered just how much of the current bad news is already priced in the market.
Last week’s news was not pretty, yet the markets, while down, did [...]

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Almost everyone these days has debt, but the way you manage it can make a big difference because there are so many different rates being charged, from 0% teaser rates to 21% revolving store or credit card debt. Given the choice, the conventional wisdom is that in these difficult economic times, consumers would only borrow [...]

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Ten Finance Blogs You May Want to Watch
I’ve been wanting to come up with a list of top finance-related blogs for a while, but for one reason or another haven’t gotten around to it. I’m sure you have plenty of blogs you go to, some good, some bad, some in between. If you know of [...]

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The U.S. Dollar
I just returned from Vancouver, BC, and while the city is nice and all, something that happened while shopping in Chinatown threw me for a little loop. We were in a little knick knack store, and the cashier was taking our American money and trying to convert it in her head, but was [...]

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