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• Laddering your emergency fund

  Posted May 20 2008, 06:39 AM by Karen Datko
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  Filed under: banking, saving, emergency, Blueprint for Financial Prosperity
  Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money

  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.   Read More...

  Discuss ( 2 comments) 3,600 Views Digg this | Email this | Link to this

• Learning to love the emergency fund

  Posted Apr 28 2008, 04:47 AM by Karen Datko
  Rating:
  Filed under: banking, saving, emergency, Get Rich Slowly
  Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money

  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.)   Read More...

  Discuss ( 5 comments) 2,198 Views Digg this | Email this | Link to this

• Interest rate falling? She ends the love affair

  Posted Feb 06 2008, 06:01 PM by Karen Datko
  Filed under: banking, saving, emergency, Karen Datko
  Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money

  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."   Read More...

  Discuss ( 2 comments) 773 Views Digg this | Email this | Link to this

• What do you do with your spare change?

  Posted Dec 31 2007, 09:12 AM by Karen Datko
  Rating:
  Filed under: debt, banking, saving, emergency
  Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money

  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.   Read More...

  Discuss ( 4 comments) 1,140 Views Digg this | Email this | Link to this