Financial News

SmartyPig to Lower Interest Rate by 40 Points to 1.75%

September 7, 2010

SmartyPig has announced that today, their interest rate will be dropping from 2.15% to a much lower 1.75% for account balances less than $50,000.  Account balances of more than $50,000 will still be receiving the same interest rate of 0.50%.  The reason that SmartyPig gives for this, fairly large drop in APY is the following: [...]

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Food Prices Are Soaring Everywhere!

August 31, 2010

Over the last several years, food prices have begun to soar. Not only at high end grocery stores such as Whole Foods but even at chains such as Safeway, Sam’s Club and Costco. Fueled by trends in the global demand for food and the costs involved in supplying it, finding cheap food is becoming almost [...]

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PerkStreet Launches a 5% Cash Back Debit Card!

June 24, 2010

Ladies and Gentleman, I come to you today with something that I’ve never seen before.  PerkStreet, a somewhat unknown online checking account and debit card provider has just decided to offer 5% cash back on their debit card for select purchases and a flat 2% cash back for everything else.  All non-PIN transactions of course. [...]

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Lending Club Offers $300 Investing Bonus!

June 23, 2010

Lending Club, the largest peer-to-peer lender in the world today, has announced a very generous bonus available for a limited time only.  Investors new or old, can earn up to $300 in cash depending on the amount of new money they load into their Lending Club accounts and invest before July 31st 2010.  First, let’s [...]

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Prepaid Credit Cards + Online Savings Account = Incredible Interest Rate

June 17, 2010

We recently learned of a prepaid credit card that will soon offer a high interest rate savings account to its customers. Believe it or not, the savings account will pay 5.1% interest, which is more than triple the interest rate offered by other online savings accounts. Before we get to the details, however, I little [...]

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OptionsHouse Launches Two New Free Trial Services

June 9, 2010

When it comes to online discount brokers, offering free-trials is not commonplace.  Most discount brokers simply don’t have services that charge monthly fees but OptionsHouse does.  To prove that their services are worth the money they cost, OptionsHouse is offering their coaching service, as well as a subscription to two Morningstar newsletters, free for 90 [...]

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SmartyPig Finds a Bigger Sty For Their Deposits in BBVA Compass

June 9, 2010

In a world where online banking has become somewhat boring, SmartyPig seems to be livening things up a bit by announcing a major change to their online banking practices on a normal basis.  Last month, SmartyPig increased their online savings account rate to 1.75%, demolishing any competitor even close to them and on Monday, SmartyPig [...]

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Zap Trade Launched By Zecco

May 25, 2010

For the last ten years, making trades online has been the same old story.  You set up two browsers, one for your online discount broker and the other to check news on the stocks you’re researching.  After finishing up your reading on one browser, you log in to your discount broker with another and execute [...]

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Mortgage Rates Fall Again–Is it Time to Buy or Refinance?

May 21, 2010

Just when you think mortgage rates can’t get any lower, they continue falling. As the Wall Street Journal reported today, mortgage rates have hit their lowest level in years. Here are the details: The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 4.84% for the week ended Thursday, down slightly from last week’s 4.93% average but up a hair [...]

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