Search results for banking
-
Posted
Dec 10 2007, 07:43 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from J.D. Roth at partner blog Get Rich Slowly. Twenty years ago I was a freshman in college. I was a poor kid from a poor family, but my roommates came from wealth. In order to fit in, I went out and picked up a department store credit card. I bought some new clothes, an electric shaver and a bottle of cologne. From that day on, I've been in debt. My debt grew slowly at first. The department store credit card had a $500 limit. I knew that I shouldn't come close to the limit, and that I should pay the card off, but within a year I'd maxed it out and was making only minimum payments. By the time I graduated from college in 1991, I had acquired two additional credit cards. I was glad I had them, too. When my job plans fell through, the credit cards became my emergency fund. I lived off them for months. I also bought a brand-new Geo Storm. Within six months of graduating from college, I was unemployed and carrying $20,000 in debt.
Read More...
-
Posted
Dec 13 2007, 11:57 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
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.
Read More...
-
Posted
Dec 18 2007, 12:38 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
In case you missed the news, the Federal Reserve Board has proposed rules to curb the type of lending abuses that helped create the subprime-mortgage debacle. You can read the mainstream media report or you can enjoy Sellsius' snarky take on "More rules for those who hate rules." For instance, one of the rules would restrict prepayment penalties. Sellsius says: "It does not take much to figure out that steep penalties for paying off a loan early would limit consumers' refinancing options. Hmm ... you don't pay back the bank, they're unhappy; you pay them back early, they're still unhappy. You just can't please some people."
Read More...
-
Posted
Dec 28 2007, 05:55 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from Trent Hamm at partner blog The Simple Dollar. I often get notes from people who have a small mountain of credit cards. They're trying to figure out which ones they should keep and which ones they should cancel, and they're rightfully concerned about their credit score if they do that. A wallet full of credit cards can be a problem: You have more opportunities for identity theft and, with so many credit cards, your total line of credit may be high enough to hurt your credit score. There are other issues, including extra paper management and an unreasonably fat wallet. If you have a mountain of cards, what should you do to trim them down? Here are my recommendations:
Read More...
-
Posted
Jan 10 2008, 04:59 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Earlier today we almost bought blogger Ana's line that she needs "Investing for Complete and Utter Idiots." That is until we came across The Great Credit Card Debate between Ana, of DebtFree-Revolution fame, and Madison of My Dollar Plan. If you need a solid education about the slick ways of credit card companies, read Ana's first post in the debate. You'll learn all about double-cycle billing, rate jacking and universal default, plus the "move-the-due-date game." Little Ms. Clueless she's not. And neither is Madison, who counters with "25 reasons to love credit cards."
Read More...
-
Posted
Jan 17 2008, 01:05 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Call it "peer-to-peer" or "social" lending, the online enterprise of loaning money to others outside the confines of a brick-and-mortar bank is taking off. The Silicon Valley Blogger says this "brave new world" is expected to grow by as much as 800% in the next three years, and she plans to be a part of it -- on the lending side. Her post at The Digerati Life explains how Prosper.com, Lending Club and other P2P services work, and how investors can reduce the risk of losing money.
Read More...
-
Posted
Feb 27 2008, 12:49 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Mike Richard at Master Your Card was intrigued by the LifeLock commercial in which the company CEO shares his Social Security number with the viewing public, as if to say, "LifeLock's services are so good that I dare you to try to steal my identity." So Mike decided to check out LifeLock's anti-identity-theft service -- which costs $120 -- to find out what all the fuss is about. "As it turns out," he writes, "every preventive service they offer is relatively easy, convenient and readily available for consumers to do themselves."
Read More...
-
Posted
Mar 13 2008, 11:25 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from Lisa Wade McCormick at partner blog ConsumerAffairs.com. Even a consumer reporter can get ripped off. Just ask me. I've waged a lengthy battle against a furniture store that repeatedly pushed back the delivery date for a loft bed my husband and I ordered for our son. More than six months have passed since we placed that order. The bed hasn't arrived. And now, the furniture store is closing its doors. How, you may wonder, did a supposedly savvy consumer reporter get into this predicament? That's a question I keep asking myself. After all, I thought I followed all the consumer protection rules.
Read More...
-
Posted
Feb 29 2008, 08:02 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from Trent Hamm at partner blog The Simple Dollar. Look at these 12 little hacks and think about how simple they are. Switch your savings account from your local bank to ING Direct. That's the bank I switched to about a year and a half ago in order to get a higher interest rate (then more than 4%). They made the whole thing easy as pie -- it took about five minutes -- and I've never had anything but stellar customer service. Drink one less coffee a week. Let's say you stop at Starbucks -- or your preferred coffeehouse -- three times a week. Just trim it back to two. That's it. Call one credit card company and ask for a rate reduction. Just flip over your card and call that number on the back. Ask to speak to a supervisor if the first human you get won't reduce your rate.
Read More...
-
Posted
Mar 18 2008, 08:37 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Ready for a dose of outrage? Credit Slips and others report that several ordinary citizens scheduled to testify at a congressional hearing on credit card companies' bad practices were told they had to first sign a waiver allowing the companies to publicly disclose every bit of financial information they had on these folks wherever or whenever the companies pleased. "The Republicans and Democrats had worked out a deal 'to be fair to the credit card lenders,'" wrote Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard law professor and one of three Credit Slips bloggers who testified before a House Financial Services subcommittee last week. "These people couldn't say anything unless they were willing to let the credit card companies strip them naked in public." Four of the five citizen witnesses declined to sign and weren't allowed to testify. (To read the prepared remarks of one of those witnesses in a .pdf file, click here.)
Read More...
More Posts Next page »
|
