As you may already know, you can no longer buy paper U.S. savings bonds. The Treasury phased out the paper certificates and now sells all bonds only online. As we enter the graduation time of year, many may be wanting to buy savings bonds as gifts for high school and college graduates. Ann Carrns over […]
Once a year my wife and I each receive in the mail our Social Security Statement. It shows us our earnings record for both social security and medicare. And it gives us an estimate of our future social security benefits depending on when we decide to retire. Recently the Social Security Administration made these statements […]
If you’ve ever applied for a mortgage, you know just how convoluted the whole process can be. Just trying to read a HUD-1 statement is enough to send you over the edge. And then there are origination fees and discount points. Discount points are fees charged that generally result in a lower interest rate on […]
Surveys are worthless. SmartMoney just released its 2012 survey of the best and worst brokers. Let’s be honest here. I don’t trust movie reviews, so why would I put stock in a survey of investment brokers? Part of the problem is that even the best surveys are of limited valued. For example, here are the […]
This morning I read an article on CNN with the headline, “Seniors clamoring to invest in Facebook IPO.” Of all the silly articles written about Facebook’s impending IPO in an effort to draw readers to news websites, this one has to be the lamest. So of course I read the article. It turns out the […]
Here are three facts about mortgage applications that at first glance are difficult to reconcile: Fact 1: Mortgage rates are at historic lows. Fact 2: Real Estate prices have fallen substantially over the past few years. Fact 3: The number of mortgage applications over the past 2 months are DOWN. So what’s going on here? […]