When you go to your neighborhood bank to open an account, most probably you would be accepted and you would open that account. There are folks who are unfortunately rejected. How does a bank decide whom to accept and whom to reject? Well! the bank asks for the services of the national account verification company […]
The poor economy tends to bring out wolves in sheep clothes, better known as scums, bearing fraudulent offers, including illegitimate home refinancing. To be prepared better against these schmucks is to have a greater financial literacy, at least the terms most commonly used. At any age, we must literate ourselves in financial terminology to beat […]
Buying generic will trim your bill on your everyday shopping. I always buy generic if it is available. Anything generic may not come in a pretty bottle or be as tasty as your favorite brands, but in many cases, the only thing that’s not premium about generics is the price. That’s because some generic brands […]
If you were the bank, you would be happy – 4th of July, bells ringing. But you are the consumer. You don’t check your account, you overdraw and the bank charges you $35 for the $5 worth of food. You are debited $40. Some folks don’t realize this. Imagine if 100,000 people did that in […]
What the heck is negative equity? If you have heard of mortgage underwater, then negative equity means almost the same, for us ordinary folks. I don’t know if there is a difference in technical definition. Let’s say your home is worth $200,000 and you owe $250,000 in mortgage, then you have negative equity of $50,000 […]
Let’s see what the “operation of law” principle is. Just as an example, say you designate your spouse as the beneficiary of your retirement accounts (IRA, 401(k), etc.). Years later, you get divorced and update your will to specify that your account money should go to your adult children. By that act alone, without changing […]
According to research from the University of Kent, from age 55, people worldwide are nearly twice as likely to have experienced age barriers than any other discrimination. If you have a number of years of experience that fingers on your hands and feet are not enough to count them – to put it bluntly, you […]
Ellen Ruppel Shell, a journalism professor at Boston University, once enjoyed a bargain as much as the rest of us, maybe more. “Low price is an end and a victory in itself, a way to wrestle control from the baffling mystery that is retail,” she writes in her introduction to “Cheap: The High Cost of […]
Research by the Federal Reserve indicates that household debt is at a record high relative to disposable income. Some analysts are concerned that this unprecedented level of debt might pose a risk to the financial health of American households. A high level of indebtedness among households could lead to increased household delinquencies and bankruptcies, which […]
I thought when people are dead, they are gone – no more. nada, zilch. The problem is they leave a whole history of their lives behind, especially their financial history. When people die, it seems that a vacuum gets created and who fills up that vacuum? The grave diggers – not to be confused with […]
