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For some holiday shoppers, bargain hunting is a competition and Black Friday is the Super Bowl. All the preparation throughout the year goes into a few frenzied hours that determine winners and losers. Did you get that 50″ TV you were aiming for, or did you camp out all night only to be caught in
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Are you entering the holiday season short of cash? You may want to consider a seasonal job. Once Halloween passes and cold weather sets in throughout the country, demand increases for temporary workers to fill in during the holiday shopping season. Online – Check online employment sites for local opportunities – if you are looking
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Stocks Outpace Housing Few can argue that the stock market has experienced great growth under President Trump. The “Trump Bump” consists of an approximate 20% increase in both the Dow Jones and S&P 500 during the President’s first year in office. Does the same Trump Bump translate to the housing market? A recent study by
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If you are attempting to buy a home on a low or intermediate income, you need every bit of help that you can get. Mortgage credit certificates are one of the lesser-known ways that the federal government can help. A mortgage credit certificate (MCC) is essentially a form of tax savings. The mortgage interest that
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Every October, the Social Security Administration (SSA) announces adjustments that are made to the Social Security program for the upcoming year. What effect will these changes for 2018 have on you? More Money for Beneficiaries – Social Security beneficiaries receive cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) based on one of the standard measures of inflation – the Consumer
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Credit scores are somewhat like IRS tax codes: we know they’re important; few folks fully understand them; and failing to successfully deal with either can cost you a lot of money. While most of the factors determining your credit scores, such as payment history, number of open accounts, and type of accounts, take months or
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Home sellers and their agents may be limiting their potential base of buyers by ignoring a growing pool of them. Inside Mortgage Finance recently noted that loans acquired through the Veterans Affairs (VA) Department are rapidly increasing, reaching a holding level of one-quarter of primary insured home loans. This tops the number of loans backed
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Veteran’s Administration (VA) loans are invaluable for homebuyers. Their advantages include little or no money down, qualifying with a lower credit score, competitive interest rates, potentially lower closing and auxiliary costs, and no private mortgage insurance requirements. VA loans are administered through approved lending institutions, and backed through an entitlement of up to $36,000. This
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MoneyTips Fall is here. It’s time for thinking about cooler weather, Thanksgiving, falling leaves – and taxes? While Congress debates changes to our tax codes, a few hours spent on your taxes now can produce benefits in April with the savings of both time and money. The following tips may be able to help you
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Everywhere you look, you see announcements, signs, banners, and flashing lights promoting a momentary lowering of the cost for just about everything. Everything, except for life insurance, that is. As I was researching this topic, I took a moment to Google “life insurance sale” to see what would come up. Here is what I found
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Successful retirement planning requires a good understanding of what you want to do in retirement and a reasonable estimate of your expected expenses. Once you have a grasp of your likely retirement costs, you know approximately how much money you will need to salt away. However, one retirement expense is notoriously difficult to predict –
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College may be expensive, but a college degree allows you to recoup your investment by landing a higher-paying job that allows you to pay back your loans in a timely fashion… or does it? The skyrocketing costs of college in recent years, combined with a rough job market, have thrown that basic premise into question.
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What’s the best time of the year to rent a home? That depends on what factors are important to you, and how much time you have to act. People don’t always have the luxury of taking their time in renting a house or apartment. They often have to assess a market in a fairly short
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It’s that time of year when the leaves change colors, pumpkin flavoring is crammed into everything imaginable (who needs Eye Drops with Pumpkin Spice?), and scary things come out on Halloween – but will you open your door on October 31 and be confronted by anything scarier than these hair-raising financial horror stories? They Stole
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Where do lower-income Americans turn when faced with immediate bills and no money with which to pay them? Most turn to the payday loan industry, which offers short-term loans in exchange for fees and high interest rates. These loans are generally $500 or less and are called “payday” loans because the borrower is expected to
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Do daily finances give you daily heartburn? You aren’t alone. According to a new survey by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), 43% of Americans have trouble making ends meet. One-third of survey respondents reached the level of financial or material hardship during the past year, such as running out of food or being unable
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Beware of KRACK KRACK Attack? Is that the name of a new video game, dance craze, or rock band? Unfortunately, it’s none of those things – it’s the acronym for a new path identity thieves have to steal your personal information. KRACK stands for Key Reinstallation AttaCK. It’s a recently discovered systemic vulnerability in wireless
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Automatic payments from your bank account can be a great convenience, but they can also be a source of problems if you don’t pay attention. Do you check your payments on every bank statement? If not, you may be paying incorrect amounts or making automatic payments for a service or subscription that you don’t want
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Did you quit smoking last year? Move into a gated community? Do you live within five miles of the nearest fire station? These factors – and many others – make you a safer bet for your homeowner’s insurer, which means you can get a significant discount on your insurance premium. Something as simple as installing
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A Burden for You, An Opportunity for Scammers Educational debt has reached levels that are hard for the average American to fathom. By some estimates, outstanding student loans have reached a whopping $1.45 trillion dollars. Over 44 million Americans have some form of student loan debt, with 2016 graduates averaging over $37,000 in debt. That’s
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