Unemployment Benefits Extended

Posted by Chris O'Sullivan

The Senate voted unanimously on Wednesday to extend unemployment benefits by up to 20 weeks in all 50 US states. All unemployed individuals are entitled to an additional 14 weeks on benefits, while those living in states with unemployment rates of 8.5% and higher are eligible for an additional 6 weeks (20 weeks total). This proposal will be funded primarily through an extension of the federal unemployment act. It will still have to pass through the House and eventually be approved by the signature of President Obama.

Unemployment rates continue to be an issue in the United States, with 15 million unemployed vying for only 3 million available jobs. The unemployment rate hit a 26 year high of 9.8% in September and is expected to rise once again when October figures are released in the upcoming days. 1 in 3 unemployed Americans has been out of work for at least 6 months. According to government sources, this will be the last extension on unemployment benefits.

This new legislation also extends the $8,000 homebuyer tax credit to contracts signed by April 30 and closed by June 30. This is meant to energize the real estate business and put home builders back to work. This extension will cost $10.8 billion over 10 years. 1.8 million homebuyers are expected to exercise the credit by November.

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Deal of the Week: Commission-free sharebuying

Posted By: Zach Lungo

Article By: Steve Lodge

What’s the deal?

Interactive Investor (II), the online stockbroker, is offering commission-free share purchases through its Portfolio Builder regular investment service until June 30 2010. Investors can buy any UK share, including Aim companies and exchange traded funds (ETFs), for no dealing fee. Users select one of four dates in a month for their purchase, and can invest as little as £20, with no maximum. There is no requirement to invest every month, and scheduled purchases can be cancelled up until the day before. The offer is available within II’s individual savings accounts (Isas) and self-invested personal pensions (Sipps) as well as for standard dealing accounts.

Is this good?

The commission waiver is a rare opportunity to buy shares without paying a dealing charge. The Portfolio Builder service normally charges a flat £1.50 per trade, while II’s standard commission is £10. Investors buying ETFs also pay no stamp duty. The offer is attractive for investing smaller sums, where commissions could otherwise make purchases uneconomic.

Building up a shareholding with regular purchases offsets the risk of bad market timing, while the ability to stop and restart the plan at any point provides flexibility, for example to cancel a purchase when prices are high. Some lump sum investors might also want to use the service to make a single share purchase at no charge.

What’s the catch?

Investors are dealing blind – they do not know the actual price they are buying at, which, in volatile markets, could be disadvantageous. Also, while purchases are free, sales are at the broker’s usual £10 rate.

What’s the alternative?

Other brokers, including TD Waterhouse, Selftrade and Halifax Share Dealing (which provides Interactive Investors’ service), have similar regular investment plans charging £1.50 per purchase. Many investment trusts also offer low-cost monthly purchase deals.

Click here to read more: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/8a3e1fdc-af7e-11de-ba1c-00144feabdc0.html

Harvard Business School's New Curriculum: Everyday Finance

Posted by Andrew Lipsitz

Harvard Business School is the place where the chief executive officers, hedge fund stars and Goldman Sachs ( GS - news - people ) partners of tomorrow learn their craft. Now, in a break from tradition, a new course is focusing on the troubles of everyday consumers.

Consumer Finance, as it is known, will look at topics ranging from the best ways to boost the savings rate to how banks can deliver better products for low-income customers. Instead of proceeding along the conventional HBS path and delving into corporate case studies, students will focus on the financial lives of real middle-class families. In one exercise, they create a budget for a Boston family of average means, figuring in costs for such everyday staples as food, transportation and insurance.

"By the time our MBAs graduate, they will have looked at financial statements for hundreds of companies," said Peter Tufano, the professor who teaches the course along with Howell E. Jackson, a faculty member at Harvard Law. "Other than in our course, they would have never looked at the financial statements of a single household."

Traditionally, business schools have shied away from teaching consumer finance, despite the fact that households represent $61 trillion in assets. As business schools grew in the 19th century, they traditionally taught men how to run corporations, while the study of household finances became the focus of programs tailored to women.

"We now know that consumer financial decisions are not only huge activities but have the potential to make or break entire economies," Tufano said.

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Homebuyer's Tax Credit Applies to Higher Income

Posted by Chris O'Sullivan

Article by Palmeri (Businessweek)

The Senate is expected this week to pass an extension of the credit that was originally going to expire Nov. 30. Buyers who sign a purchase agreement by April can now claim the credit.

The extension will apply to higher income buyers. Previously the credit was available to individual filers making $75,000 a year or less. For couples the limit was $150,000. The new income limit will be $125,000 for individuals and $225,000 for couples.

There’s also something in for move-up buyers. Previously you couldn’t claim the credit if you owned a home in the past three years. Now, if your last home was your primary residence for at lease five years, you can claim $6,500 in credit if you buy a new home. The new house can’t cost more than $800,000 though.

Just in time to kick Washington into action, the National Association of Realtors reported that pending home sales jumped 6% today. That’s the eighth month in a row of sales increases and the longest rising streak since 2001. “What we’re witnessing is a rush of first-time buyers trying to beat the expiration of the tax credit at the end of this month,” said the association’s chief economist Lawrence Yun.

I’ve a written before about the role psychology has in home purchases. No where is that topic more relevant than in what we’re seeing with the tax credit. I participated in an Internet interview last week on the housing market on the Financial Fitness Show . Jim McQuaig, a mortgage broker in Reston, Virginia, said he recently completed financing for a woman buying a $430,000 home who said the $8,000 tax credit was the incentive.

Imagine that, one of the largest purchases of your life and you’re moved to do it by a tax credit worth less than 2% for the purchase price!

Click here for full article...

Achieving Financial Security

Posted by Matthew Maillet

Achieving financial security is something that involves smart decision-making. Regardless of your age, you are never too young to begin striving for long-term financial security. There are several decisions you make along the way that help (or hurt) your ability to protect your financial stability.

First, it is important to take a good look at the way you handle risk. This can be examined by looking at all aspects of your life. “Would you rather work for a rock-solid company with strong benefits” or a “smaller startup with a great stock options?” If you chose the latter, you clearly demonstrate a strong appetite for risk and uncertainty. Luckily for most college students, it is never too late to dust yourself off and start a new approach to your decision making.

Second, how do you manage your debt? If you find yourself with multiple credit cards spending money that is not yours, you may be starting bad habits for the future. Money owed to a creditor should be a top priority. Years down the road, putting off paying a credit card will only come back to haunt you. Unpaid credit card balances puts the credit issuer in control of your finances. This can be a recipe for disaster.

Third, it is vitally important that you protect your assets. While auto and home insurance policies may seem like an inconvenient expense today, poorly protecting your assets can seriously jeopardize your financial stability in the event of a disaster. This is also relevant if you chose to start a company: choosing a limited liability company makes it much more challenging for others to attack your personal assets.

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91 Ways to Save on Almost Anything

Posted by Matthew Maillet
Article by Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine

Want to save a buck? How about a few hundred or a couple thousand?

We took a look at eight spending categories in your budget and identified dozens of ways you can keep more money. Whether you need to plug leaks in your spending, learn where to find the best deals or even trick yourself into shaving expenses, we've got something for everyone.

And here's a bonus tip: Before you even start looking elsewhere in your budget to cut costs, start at the source with your paycheck. If you get a tax refund, that means you're overpaying Uncle Sam from the beginning. Boost your take-home pay today by adjusting your tax withholding with your employer.

Click here to read more...

As Health-Care Costs Rise, Paying More To Insure the Family

By Anna Wilde Mathews

It’s open-enrollment time for workplace health benefits, and the big trend is no surprise, as I write in today’s Healthy Consumer column. We will all be spending more on our coverage. Workers’ costs are expected to rise about 10%, to a total of $4023 in premiums and out-of-pocket costs in 2010, according to benefits consulting firm Hewitt Associates.

But people who have family members on their employer health plans may find themselves digging even deeper into their pockets. Benefitfocus Inc., which provides benefits software to more than 300,000 employers, says around a third of them are trying to trim spending on dependents. The tactics include audits to root out dependents who don’t qualify for the plan – not a new strategy, but becoming far more common. Spousal surcharges, in which a worker pays more to cover a spouse who has another potential source of health insurance, are also being used by a share of employers. And some are cutting back how much they contribute to family coverage.

Company officials told me they had a lot of good reasons for their focus on family plan expenses. Mark Wilson, the chief executive of Kimley-Horn and Associates Inc., said the engineering and planning firm’s rich benefits were luring family members who had other options, adding to Kimley-Horn’s costs. He felt he was “subsidizing…other companies.” An official at another company told me it was “making a concerted effort to widen that gap and make family coverage more expensive than individual coverage…we have our first allegiance to employees, but not as much to their dependents, so if you are going to put dependents on, you are going to bear more of the costs.”

At the extreme, some employers don’t spend any money on covering workers’ dependents. They give the same amount of money to each employee, whether the person has children and a spouse to insure or not. The employee can pay to add others. One teacher I interviewed found it cheaper to buy individual coverage for her son, since she would have had to pay his full premium on her workplace plan.

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Underemployment: Fading Trend or Sustaining Sector?

Article By: Zach Lungo

Rich Grogan of Murrells Inlet in South Carolina is becoming part of a trend nationwide who are underemplolyed. Grogan works as a sales associate at Sears for about 22-24 hours a week on 100% commission to provide for his wife and 2-year-old son. He holds an MBA and an undergraduate degree in finance and has worked for years in management. Now, Grogan is making about one-third of the income he brought in before, but is happy tot have a job. Nationwide, about 6% of the working population is underemployed which is defined as an employee who is either working part time when he or she previously worked full-time, or those who are working full-time but are using fewer or none of the skills one previously used in another career. In Horry County, where Grogan lives, at a 10.9% unemployment rate, anywhere between 1 in 6 to 1 in 4 people could either be underemployeed or unemployed.

With full-time jobs not available, alot of overqualified pople are taking up whatever they can find, part time, any hours available, and temporary. Crystal Johnson of Conway South Carolina has found similair hardship. She was a booking and payroll specialist in Washington, D.C, moved to Myrtle Beach last year and stuggled to find new employment. She went from making $21 dollars an hour to making $7.50 an hour.

Overall, some workers who are experiencing this trend in employment have said underemployment has helped them realize that building on skills that are not only fufilling financially, must also have a sense of satisfaction and desirablility.

Please click here for more: http://www.thesunnews.com/business/story/1142311.html

Family Finances: Solving financial woes through education

Posted By: Zach Lungo

Article By: Gail Liberman & Alan Lavine

One often-overlooked reason for our current financial mess is a lack of education about money and business.
Bankers made mortgages to people who could not afford them. And those who were unable to afford their homes and other desires bought them anyway -- unfortunately, on credit.
So far, 21 states now require at least some type of instruction on personal finance, according to Jump Start Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy based in Washington, D.C.
Plus, you can find a lot of free information at a U.S. government Web site available to all families: http://www.mymoney.gov/. Or, you can get information by phone at 1-888-MYMONEY. The Web site and phone line are manned by the Financial Literacy and Education Commission, made up of 20 federal agencies.
Help for teachers and parents also is available from the nonprofit Alliance for Investor Education, based in Washington, D.C. Among the alliance's 21 members are state securities regulators, the Security and Exchange Commission and Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. The Alliance provides free information at http://www.investoreducation.org/.
Newly available to consumers: An interactive game-based financial literacy course, MoneyU, which already is used in public schools and colleges. Available at http://www.moneyu.com/, the program, designed for young adults between the ages of 17 and 24, teaches skills such as how to compare credit cards and auto loans. It also teaches how to research starting salaries in a chosen field, manage debt, save and file income taxes. The aim of the interactive game is to use smart financial strategies to become a virtual millionaire.
The creator, Griffin Enterprises of Rockville, Md., is offering the game to students for $14.95 through June 1, 2010.
Expect financial literacy to become an even bigger issue in the near future.
The Financial Literacy for Students Act of 2009, introduced by Sen. Kay Hagan, D-N.C., provides grants to states that add banking, credit and taxes into school curriculums for grades six through 12. Tahira Hira, personal finance professor at Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, is particularly interested in seeing fewer college students experience financial distress.

Please click here read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09296/1007674-68.stm#ixzz0VfH8RNUG

Personal and Family Finance: The Bluring Line

By Robert Katz

In today's world of finance there is so much emphasis on budgeting for the future and for your family that it makes you ask; is there really a difference between personal and family finance. Right when you get out of college you're told to start saving for old age, start a wedding fund, save for when you have kids, save for your kids college funds, and make sure you have money to take care of your parents and yourself once your old. Now, while some of these may seem like they fall under personal or family finance the two terms are beginning to blur together more and more.

People now and days are much more worried about saving money and budgeting than ever. All these online sites and blogs providing services, software, and articles to help you save more money and budget wisely. Yet, most of these tricks they talk about are good strategies for someone to use for themselves or for a whole family. Different retirement accounts that provide higher tax deductions can help people living alone or with a family. Clipping coupons, using super saver cards, and waiting for sales aren't only strategies families can use to save money but ways for everyone too. All these blog websites are allowing everyone to bring their own unique situation together with others and see where each other are going wrong. This is creating a new trend of not personal or family finance, but country finance. Where people you don't even know and have never seen before from across the country give you tips on how to budget wisely and how it worked for them. In today's economy it is good to see people so concerned with saving their money and that they care that everyone else is saving their money as well. The key to economic prosperity and growth in the US or anywhere is in a large and growing middle class and because of these new trends hopefully we should be heading in that direction.


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Solving Financial Woes through Education

Posted by Andrew Lipsitz

One often-overlooked reason for our current financial mess is a lack of education about money and business.

Bankers made mortgages to people who could not afford them. And those who were unable to afford their homes and other desires bought them anyway -- unfortunately, on credit. So far, 21 states now require at least some type of instruction on personal finance, according to Jump Start Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy based in Washington, D.C.

Plus, you can find a lot of free information at a U.S. government Web site available to all families: http://www.mymoney.gov/. Or, you can get information by phone at 1-888-MYMONEY. The Web site and phone line are manned by the Financial Literacy and Education Commission, made up of 20 federal agencies.

Help for teachers and parents also is available from the nonprofit Alliance for Investor Education, based in Washington, D.C. Among the alliance's 21 members are state securities regulators, the Security and Exchange Commission and Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. The Alliance provides free information at http://www.investoreducation.org/.
Newly available to consumers: An interactive game-based financial literacy course, MoneyU, which already is used in public schools and colleges. Available at http://www.moneyu.com/, the program, designed for young adults between the ages of 17 and 24, teaches skills such as how to compare credit cards and auto loans. It also teaches how to research starting salaries in a chosen field, manage debt, save and file income taxes. The aim of the interactive game is to use smart financial strategies to become a virtual millionaire.

The creator, Griffin Enterprises of Rockville, Md., is offering the game to students for $14.95 through June 1, 2010.
Expect financial literacy to become an even bigger issue in the near future.
The Financial Literacy for Students Act of 2009, introduced by Sen. Kay Hagan, D-N.C., provides grants to states that add banking, credit and taxes into school curriculums for grades six through 12.

Tahira Hira, personal finance professor at Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, is particularly interested in seeing fewer college students experience financial distress.
"People need to learn the basic principles so they can make the right purchasing and financial decisions," she said.

Click here to read more...

US home prices rise in most major cities in Aug.

Posted by Chris O'Sullivan

Articel by J.W. Elphinstone


NEW YORK (AP) -- Home prices rose for the third straight month in August, data Tuesday showed, a key ingredient for a broad and sustained housing recovery.

The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller home price index of 20 major cities climbed 1 percent from July to a seasonally adjusted reading of 144.5. While prices are down 11.4 percent from August a year ago, the annual declines have slowed since February.

The index showed a widespread turnaround with prices rising month-over-month in 15 metro areas since June. San Francisco, Minneapolis and San Diego led the way.

Prices are at levels not seen since August 2003 and have fallen almost 30 percent from the peak in May 2006.

Low prices and mortgage rates combined with a temporary tax credit for first-time buyers have spurred sales. Home resales climbed more than 9 percent in September, the largest amount in more than 26 years, the National Association of Realtors said last week. Sales figures for newly built homes are due out Wednesday

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Learning How to Save Money on Almost Everything

By: Amy Wingfield

Posted by: Robert Katz

Using Coupons and Networking to Get the Most out of a Dollar

In these tough financial times, families struggle to put food on the table. Many are facing this crisis together by sharing with others what they learn along the way. This has created a phenomenon of coupon blogs and internet sites all devoted to teaching others how to save money.

Major Coupon Networks and Companies

Most people are familiar with the coupon inserts found in the Sunday newspaper. The three main companies that provide these coupons are Smart Source, Red Plum and Proctor & Gamble. All three companies also provide coupons online. Providing printable coupons on the internet makes collecting and sharing coupons with others very simple.

Six years ago, two women, Julie Parrish and Heidi Kennedy, met on an internet chat group that discussed ways to save money on groceries. When that site closed, they joined another group and became group moderators. That site eventually sold. Julie and Heidi were ready create a coupon website of their own. These two women have never met in person. They communicate by means of the telephone and the internet.

Read more: http://family-budgeting.suite101.com/article.cfm/learning_how_to_save_money_on_almost_everything#ixzz0V9WG1cOL

House Considers Antifraud Measures for Home-Buying Credit

Posted by: Zach Lungo

Article by: Martin Vaughn

First-time home buyers seeking to claim an $8,000 tax credit may face steeper documentation requirements if Congress decides to provide more time to claim the expiring credit.
Linda Stiff, Deputy Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, told a House panel Thursday that the IRS supports requiring those trying to claim the credit to submit a settlement statement from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the so-called HUD-1 form, together with their tax return.
Top congressional Democrats support a temporary extension of the credit -- which expires Nov. 30 -- and are now wrestling with how long to extend it and with what safeguards against fraud should be included.
Realtors, mortgage brokers and home builders are lobbying for the credit to be extended, arguing that the real estate sector hasn't yet recovered.
Oversight Subcommittee Chairman John Lewis (D., Ga.) introduced legislation Thursday aimed at blocking would-be fraudsters seeking to cash in on the first-time home-buyer credit.
Independent auditors testifying before the House Ways and Means Oversight Subcommittee Thursday said IRS may have paid tens of thousands of fraudulent and erroneous claims since the start of this year.
For instance, more than 19,000 tax returns were filed claiming the credit for homes that hadn't yet been purchased. The claims, which should have been ineligible but were paid because IRS didn't have proper controls in place, totaled about $139 million, said J. Russell George, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.
IRS has since fixed the problem for tax future returns.
In addition, 582 taxpayers under the age of 18 claimed almost $4 million in first-time home-buyer credits, Mr. George said.
Mr. George said that while there are some instances where a minor might legitimately purchase a home, most of the cases identified by audit appeared to be claims by parents who had purchased a home but were ineligible for the credit because their incomes were too high.
The Lewis bill adds a minimum age of 18 to claim the credit, requires inclusion of the HUD-1 form, and gives IRS authority to look at prior-year returns to determine whether a taxpayer is eligible for the credit.
The credit is available only to first-time home buyers who purchased a primary residence between April 9, 2008, and Nov. 30, 2009, whose income is less than $95,000 for single taxpayers or $170,000 for married couples.
More than 1.4 million households claimed nearly $10 billion in refunds through returns filed in 2009. Hundreds of thousands more are expected to claim the credit when they file returns in 2010.
The IRS has opened criminal investigations in 115 cases of possible fraudulent schemes, involving 8,000 returns, said the IRS's Ms. Stiff. It has selected a total of 106,000 returns for audit based on questions regarding first-time home-buyer tax-credit claims.
"We cannot let fraudulent activity undermine a program that has benefited so many," said Ms. Stiff.
House Democrats would like to have Republican support for an extension of the home-buyer credit. But Rep. Charles Boustany (R., La.) said during Thursday's hearing that GOP support will be conditioned on the extension not adding to the deficit. He said unspent stimulus funds could be redirected to pay for the cost of an extension.

For More Information:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125622884824101553.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLTopStories

Surprise 401(k) Performance

Posted by Chris O'Sullivan

During these harsh economic times many investors have experienced some sort of decline in their retirement (401k) accounts. However, recent news out of Vanguard shows that many people may be doing much better than expected. On September 30, 2009, the median account held at Vanguard was up 7% from where it was two years earlier when the markets where at their peak.

The stock market is down around 30% from 2007, but the Dow Jones did recently climb back over 10,000. The key to surviving this downturn was proper diversification of your portfolio. Accounts invested heavily in stocks are more likely to be experiencing greater loses than accounts with a mix of less volatile securities like bonds.

Statistics show that account holders 45 years and older are recognizing greater loses in their retirement accounts. Younger people have fared better thanks to continued contributions. Three-quarters of accounts held by people aged 35 of younger are either even or up from September 2007. Part of this can also be explained by the fact that younger people tend to have less money invested in their accounts.

The key to surviving the economic downturn is making continued contributions to your retirement account. Diversifying your portfolio using stocks from emerging sectors of the market is also important. A diverse mix coupled with continued contributions will allow investors to realize bigger gains when the markets finally do recover.

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Protecting the Family Nest Egg

By Andrew Lipsitz

One of the most important aspects of a sound financial plan for a family is making sure that the family income is well protected in case of an injury, sickness or death. The purchasing of insurance has a few major benefits. When the primary provider for the family gets sick or injured it is extremely important for them to be covered. While income decreases for a family in this situation, a common misconception is that family expenses stay at the same rate. The truth is, family expenses increase as a result due to medical bills and other costs that go along with a sickness or injury. So while income decreases, expenses rise, create a distressed situation for the entire family. Life insurance can be thought of as protection against leaving your family and loved ones with bills to pay off. A claim from a life insurance policy, depending on its size, can cover up to years of income, creating a pillow for the family’s financial situation.

In finding an insurance company, the most important aspects to look for are the company’s financial situation and a company’s claim-paying ability. While the two usually go hand in hand, financial strength does not necessarily mean that their claim-paying ability is on point. In such cases you would usually want to look at the company’s claim-paying history. Another way to determine which company is right for your family is by researching the major rating companies such as Moody’s and Standard and Poor’s ratings.

How much insurance should a family buy to keep them protected? Well, this question remains different for everyone, obviously. The point of insurance is to keep the family living the same lifestyle should the breadwinner become ill or pass away. So, the first step is calculating your spouse’s and your children’s annual expenses, as well as funeral costs, and decide how long of a period you can afford to cover them , since premiums are not cheap. As a rule of thumb, you should posses more insurance earlier in your marriage to cover expenses down the road. Later in life, around retirement, the need for insurance is minimal since you and your spouse have already accumulated a life savings and you are usually no longer paying for children’s expenses.

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Family Squabbles in Hyatt IPO

Posted by Andrew Lipsitz

The Pritzker family, which controls Hyatt Hotels Corp., has been feuding on and off for a decade. So it follows that the dynastic squabbling continues as they plan for a Hyatt stock offering that should help reduce the family tensions.

The family in-fighting is a big enough issue that recent revisions to the prospectus for the Hyatt initial public offering include a specific warning about it. The company's initial filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission didn't mention the past family battles.

The amendments, filed as recently as last Thursday, warn that new family disagreements "may arise or continue in the future" and could "disrupt our business." In connection with the Hyatt stock offering, a dispute arose over restrictions on what family members could do with their shares, according to the amendments. As a result, some of the restrictions were loosened. For instance, family members will be able to sell up to 25% of their Hyatt holdings each 12 months, instead of the 20% originally contemplated.

The most recent prospectus amendment says that allowing the Pritzkers to sell their shares more quickly could have a negative affect on Hyatt's stock price. Another apparent bone of contention involves the role of Penny Pritzker as one of Hyatt's "independent" directors. The 50-year-old Ms. Pritzker has been heavily involved in running other family companies, some of which do business with Hyatt. She is also a first cousin of Hyatt's executive chairman, Thomas J. Pritzker, who is one of three trustees of family trusts. Mr. Pritzker, 59, is the only other family member on the board.

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Personal Bank Loans for Bad Credit – Credit Union Offers

Posted By: Zach Lungo

Article By: Mike Garner

Getting a personal bank loan for bad credit is something that many Americans are doing to get money to make ends meet. With many Americans using credit unions the question is often asked if a credit union will offer a bad credit personal loan. Each situation is a little bit different but if you currently use a credit union and you are seeking a personal loan the best option is to check their website or call them personally to see what they offer.
Most credit unions offer personal loans but if you have extremely bad credit you might be denied this opportunity. Once again, there is no definite answer until you actually contact your credit union and talk to someone in the know. If you cannot get an answer then by doing a few quick Google searches for credit union personal loans will send you in the right direction.
If you currently use a credit union you know there are a few benefits over a national or regional bank. You will also want these benefits during the loan process. If your personal credit union does not offer bad credit personal loans but others in your area do you might want to contact them. Banks and financial institutions are willing to take the extra step to get a new customer so take advantage of this.
Please be aware that getting a bad credit personal loan may lead to a very high interest rate. If your credit score has dropped over the last few years and your income has not increased some loan companies are going to consider you a great risk as you could default on your loan. With this in mind, expect an interest rate on the high side possibly even in the 20% range if you are a bad credit borrower.
There are many banks and credit unions out there that are more than willing to help you get a personal loan for bad credit. It should not be very difficult to find these businesses as many of them are advertising very hard on the Internet and the television. After a few searches you are likely to find that most of the companies that offer these services will be right at your fingertips.

For more information:

http://www.subprimeblogger.com/2009/10/11/personal-bank-loans-for-bad-credit-credit-union-offers/

Average Family Owes $9,200 in Credit Card Debt

Posted by Chris O'Sullivan

Article by Dave Burge

El Paso Times

Some simple, common-sense steps can go a long way toward helping you get out of credit-card debt, experts say.

First, make a vow to get out of debt and stop using your credit cards.

That may sound easy, but it's often the hardest step, experts say.

"You can't fill up a hole while you're still digging," said Mike Sullivan, director of education for Take Charge America, a national nonprofit credit-counseling and debt-management organization based in Phoenix.

Next, make a strategic plan to tackle the debt you already have.

You should also build up some savings so you don't have to rely on your credit cards in the future when you're hit with unexpected expenses or financial emergencies, experts say.

"Across the United States, (credit-card debt) really is a problem," said Maureen Hankins, director of the El Paso YWCA's Consumer Credit Counseling Service. "Instead of saving money, they're spending their money paying off debt."

The average U.S. family has about $9,200 in credit-card debt, Sullivan said.

According to the Federal Reserve, U.S. revolving debt exceeded $880 billion as of March.

Click here to read more...

College Costs at all Time High

Posted by Chris O'Sullivan

Article from CNN Money (Hibah Yousuf):

College costs are higher than ever, according to a new report, putting a degree even further out of reach for many Americans.

Tuition and fees at private 4-year schools rose 4.4% in the current school year to $26,273, according to a survey released by the College Board Tuesday.

Charges at public 4-year universities spiked over 6% for both in-state and out-of state students, to $7,020 and $18,548, respectively.

"We're in a very strong sellers market for higher education," said Pat Callan, president of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, who noted that the high school graduating class of 2009 was the largest in history.

"Colleges and universities are capitalizing on that more than any other institution in the economy. If you walk around a shopping mall, nobody else is raising prices at the same rate."

Tuition prices are going up at private schools at least in part because those schools have seen their endowments dwindle. Public schools are suffering from a dip in state funding, which declined 5.7% per student this year. (College Cost Finder: Get the latest tuition.)

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Financial Habits that Can Sink a Marriage

By Laura Rowley

Money conflicts can sink a relationship, even in households that aren't struggling financially. A study published in the Journal of Socio-Economics, for example, found that women argue with their significant others about money more than any other topic, including love, children, in-laws, leisure, drinking, chores, other women, and religion.

The first step to avoiding money-fueled strife in your relationship is to recognize your money styles. Psychologist and author Brad Klontz, a therapist specializing in financial issues, says everyone develops unconscious beliefs about money through childhood experience.

"Money scripts," as he calls them, are "only partially true but contextually accurate -- that is, they make total sense in the context from which they arose, but may be inaccurate in other contexts." For example, a woman he knows has been hoarding money for years without her husband's knowledge. She fears being left alone and penniless -- which happened to her in a previous relationship.

"She brought her unresolved hurt from that relationship and the resulting belief that 'you can't trust others around money' into her current relationship where she lives in dishonesty, fearing getting caught," Klontz says. "With therapy, she could have been open about taking care of herself financially in her relationship while being trustworthy herself."

There's Ready and There's Financially Ready...When Having a Baby?

By: Robert Katz

While most people have an age in their head for when they think they want to have a baby, most of them never really considered whether or not they would actually be financially ready when that time comes. Love and wanting to start a family are beautiful things, but you can really ruin them both if you don't think about the costs involved before hand.
According to thousands of moms who took the Baby Centers Exclusive Survey, you'll spend approximately $10,000 in the first year your baby is born. Ten Thousand Dollars!! I read that number and I almost went and got a vasectomy. Yet, the truth is while this may seem like a lot that is the least of your worries. You have to start thinking about life insurance, disability insurance, a will, your tax status, health insurance needs, loss of income from maturnity or paternity leave, the costs of childcare, etc. the list goes on and on. Even worse, on top of all that the expenses just keep growing the older your child gets. Okay, now that I have completely scared the crap out of you, you can calm down now. The real truth is all of this is managable as long as you are prepared with a plan.
I know what your thinking, my parents had me and I turned out fine I don't really need to plan this out that much, they never really did. Well, the problem with that assumption is that, "A 2007 analysis from The Pew Charitable Trusts in Washington, D.C., found that American men have 12 percent less income than their fathers' generation did at the same age...Meanwhile, the cost of housing for families with children shot up 78 percent between 1984 and 2001, says Amelia Warren Tyagi, co-author of The Two-Income Trap and All Your Worth: The Ultimate Lifetime Money Plan." So, you see that now and days it is even more imperative for the livelyhood of your family that you understand all the expenses involved in having a baby and formulate a well thought out plan. Becoming a parent will be scary enough on its own with out burdening yourself financially in the process.

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Designing Your First Budget

Posted by Matthew Maillet

Article by Liz Weston

Angelica Trummell, like millions of other college graduates, is trying to figure out how to make ends meet now that Mom and Dad won't be sending checks every month. It's not that her parents paid for everything. The art-history major worked for the campus bookstore at the University of California, Riverside, and took out $10,000 in student loans to help pay the bills. She also racked up $2,000 in credit card debt. But facing life now that she has to foot the entire bill for rent, food, utilities, insurance and debt payments is more than a little daunting.


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Madoff's Ponzi Scheme: Bringing the SEC under fire

By: Zach Lungo

On Wednesday, two victims of ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff filed a lawsuit in the U.S District Court in New York claiming the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) failed to detect Madoff's long-running scam, which stole billions of dollars from thousands of investors. Phyllis Molchatsky and Steven Schneider released a statement through their lawyers office Herrick, Feinstein LLP. They claim, "Through its negligent actions and inactions...the SEC caused Madoff's scheme to continue, perpetuate and expand, eventually in billions in losses by investors, and directly caused (the two) plaintiffs to lose more that $2.4 million." The lawsuit goes on to claim that SEC regulators had "countless opportunities" to stop Madoff's scheme from becoming more volatile and damaging. They feel the SEC is held accountable in some respect for its negligence in not protecting investors. Furthermore, that from 1992 to 2008 the SEC received at least eight complaints or submissions indicating that Madoff was operating a ponzi scheme.
Could this scheme have been foiled in its infancy? Or was its investors blind trust and high yield returns ultimately where the responsibility lies? It is fair to note that as the market stabilized before the recession that these investors were still making double digit returns on investments when others were appreciating relatively average gains from investments. When asked about the suit, SEC spokesman John Heine said, "Based on our initial understanding of the matter, we believe there is no merit to the complaint."
The court filing, filed in the same court where Madoff plead guilty to 11 federal counts, including fraud, and was sentenced in July to 150 years in federal prison. The ponzi scheme he operated, portrayed his investment firm as legitimate when it was nothing more than a front where funds from new investors were used to payoff mature investors that were passed of as legitimate capital gains. Madoff claimed to have $65 billion, however it was later revealed that even this figure was fraudulent and the court appointed trustee, Irving Picard, is still tying to determine how much was actually stolen.
It is all too early to evaluate weather this lawsuit will hold up or if the SEC will be found accountable. Madoff has been forced to forfeit the fruits of his former lifestyle to comply with a $170 billion legal judgment. Many of Madoff's family and relatives including his wife have had separate lawsuits filed against them. It is evident that the Madoff schemers and proceedings are far from over, however pulling in government regulators and other agencies will be an interesting twist in this unfolding tale.

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http://money.cnn.com/2009/10/14/news/economy/madoff_sec_lawsuit/?postversion=2009101415

How To Handle Money in your 20's

Posted by: Matthew Maillet

Article by: MSN Money Staff

Spend the money for a new suit, shoes and a haircut so you're ready for interviews. (See "A survival guide for college grads.")
•Don't spend money for a résumé kit; find a free tutorial online.
•Find out if your university has an alumni chapter nearby. Alumni are a wealth of information and are often eager to help new graduates.
•Be careful about accepting a job in an unrelated field simply because it pays more. This could delay your career progress or trap you in a field that may not make you happy.


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Identity Theft Prevention

By Matthew Maillet

Identity theft is a serious matter that affected over 10 million Americans in 2008 alone (up 22% from the previous year.) Subsequently, the government has taken some positive steps in recent months to slow down this recent trend. For example, laws have been enacted in over 44 states that require companies to disclose details when identities “private data” has been compromised. Efforts like this have backed consumers in the fight against identity thieves.

One preventative approach that has been effective at limiting the monetary damages incurred from identity theft is by being proactive as a consumer. Realizing you have been the victim of identity theft and responding appropriately can limit your total losses. Consumers are more aware of the dangers and have effectively cut down the “average total loss” per theft to less than $500 (Javelin Strategy & Research.) One way to limit your loss is by reporting the crime as soon as possible.

This however has been a problem for many victims. "There are 18,000 or so police departments in the U.S., and some of them won't take police reports (about identity theft)," said identity theft expert Rick Kam, "which puts the victims in a Catch-22." Because of this problem, it is important for Congress to react accordingly. There needs to be a formal “identity theft reporting” measure put in place that provides consumers with protection.

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Swine Flu: Health Risk or Financial Killer?

By Andrew Lipsitz

America’s most talked about epidemic, the H1N1 Virus, also known as the Swine Flu Virus, has affected over 33,000 Americans and has taken about 170 lives. While many American families have been concerning themselves with the health risk related to the virus, many overlook the financial and economic cost of dealing with the flu. Nobody likes to be “kicked while they’re already down,” but the H1N1 Virus does just that.

In one case, the Ramirez family was hit extremely hard by the costs associated with the virus. The father, Dr. Maurice Ramirez, was working with patients infected by the flu when he realized that he had caught it himself. As it turned out, once he got better after missing work for a week, his son caught the virus and his daughter, who was away at college, was sent home after being infected as well. While each of the family members had a quick recovery, by the end of the month, the loss of work hours, the prescription co-payments and the doctor visits had cost the Martinez family about $14,000. While the family was thrilled to have survived the troublesome month, they still had to bear the pain of watching their credit card bills inflate.

All we can do is hope to stay healthy by washing our hands and not sharing water bottles if we want this pandemic to pass. The economic effects worldwide could be disastrous if the virus continues to spread. “Reuters pointed out in 2008 that the IMF said a flu pandemic could cost $3 trillion and cause a 5% drop in global GDP. In other words, it would almost certainly turn the current deep recession into a worldwide depression.” Fortunately, the swine flu virus is only fatal to about .5% of all U.S. citizens who are affected. However, as we have seen, there are still serious financial consequences to only being infected for a week.

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Selling Your Life Insurance Policy for Cash

Posted by Chris O'Sullivan

In these harsh financial times, people are looking for cash in unusual places. Some people are even looking to sell their life insurance policies in transactions known as life settlements. Firms such as Life Partners Holdings, Inc. are willing to liquidate your life insurance policy in exchange for the value of the policy upon your death. In essence, you are selling a future payout for a one time, immediate payment.

Firms will buy your policy on behalf of its investors. The firm then acts on behalf of the investors, who have now become the owners of the policy and will pay the premiums until the day you die. Firms collect the benefits upon death and pay a 9-12% return to its investors. Some firms may even buy and repackage the policies for sale to a third party.

A major downside to selling your policy is the high transactions costs. A recent study showed that seniors over the age of 65 who sold their policy received only 20% of the face value. Those looking to sell should be certain that they will not need another policy in the future. These transactions are also taxable, whereas the payouts to your beneficiaries would have been tax free. In conclusion, it is important to shop around just as you would have done when buying the policy in the first place.

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