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Posted
May 28 2008, 06:09 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
This post comes from partner blog The Dough Roller. I'm a "Seinfeld" fan, and I'm reminded of the episode when George Costanza pushed an elderly woman, a clown and a roomful of children out of his way so he could escape what he thought was a blazing fire. The clown ended up dousing the blaze with his big shoe. When you think of your home-equity line of credit, you should be reminded of George. In an emergency, your home-equity line of credit may be the first thing to leave the room.
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Posted
May 20 2008, 06:39 AM
by
Karen Datko
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This post comes from partner blog Blueprint for Financial Prosperity. Plenty of articles discuss the importance of emergency funds and how to set one up, so this is not going to be one of those. I assume that you already understand all that good stuff. (If not, check out these great articles at a Money Blog Network writing project.) Here I'll discuss a strategy to maximize your emergency fund's interest earnings so you can lessen the pain of not having the funds in an investment account.
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Posted
Apr 28 2008, 04:47 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
This post comes from J.D. Roth at partner blog Get Rich Slowly. I wasn't raised in a culture of saving. My parents never made it a habit, and so could not pass the skill on to me or my brothers. In fact, I didn't establish my first savings account until three years ago, when I was 36 years old. (I had a passbook savings account as a young boy, but it never had more than $5 in it.)
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Posted
Feb 06 2008, 06:01 PM
by
Karen Datko
Single Ma at Fabulous Financials apparently took it as a personal slight when her bank informed her in a letter that -- due to rate cuts by the Federal Reserve -- her online savings account was, so to speak, losing interest. So Single Ma responded with a Dear John letter online. She noted that her bank first attracted her with a 5.05% APY. In the past five months, it has dropped four times, now to 3.55%. She wrote: "I really enjoyed our love affair while it lasted: the 5.05% APY, our biweekly exchanges, your generous deposits, the sneak peaks at my growing balance -- ah, the memories. But it's over now."
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Posted
Dec 31 2007, 09:12 AM
by
Karen Datko
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What to do with spare change has been a popular topic here of late, so we thought we'd look into how personal-finance bloggers handle theirs. (None keep enough in jars at home to pay cash for a new truck, like that famous Indiana fellow.) You can tell by the name of his blog that glblguy at Gather Little by Little doesn't eschew spare change. In fact, he wonders "at what point did we as a society make the decision that loose change just isn't worth the trouble?" He and his wife put spare change, and now $1 bills, in a jar, and periodically deposit the money in an emergency fund or pay off debt. Estimated savings over 15 years of marriage: $4,500.
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Posted
Dec 13 2007, 11:57 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
We hope the creep who took Glblguy's debit card reads his post at Gather Little by Little. It contains a personal message: "You are a thief, and in my opinion pure scum." Total damage done: $877.35, including $280 in overdraft fees. What made matters worse is that Glblguy and family were on a mini-vacation and ended up running out of funds. "Fortunately we had enough gas to make it home, but just barely," he writes. What did he learn from this experience? He needs better access to his emergency funds, and it's probably best to take extra cash on trips. He says, "I even considered carrying a credit card again." Luckily he called his bank when he first noticed the charges, and it made good on the stolen amount and canceled the overdraft fees.
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