Many homeowners struggling to keep up with mortgage payments are probably using their credit cards to make ends meet. Now, apparently, people who can't pay their mortgages have a new alternative: they can charge their monthly mortgage payments to a credit card directly. I wish I were making this up, but I'm not. Read the full article

It wasn't that long ago that mortgage lenders were eager to extend credit lines to anyone with a pulse and a property title. Alas, the industry's mood has turned with the swooning of housing prices: frugal caution has displaced wild abandon. Many homeowners, unaware that their lines of credit could be curtailed summarily, have been unpleasantly surprised. Read the full article

The Pew Research Center Social and Demographic Trends Project reported last week that Baby Boomers, who turn 44 to 62 this year, are slightly (but significantly) more pessimistic about their lives than other adults. Read the full article

The IRS announced last week that the business mileage rate, often used to determine the deduction for business use of a car, will go up effective July 1st. Read the full article

Wall Street is licking its wounds this weekend, no doubt, after being pretty badly clawed by what is almost certainly a bear market. In the coming days you’ll see all sorts of articles offering you free advice, e.g. identifying “Bear Market Stocks You Should Buy Now,” providing lists of the mutual funds into which you should put all your money, and so forth. What should you do? Read the full article

The studentloanconsolidator.com blog noted a while back that new rates for Stafford and PLUS loans have been set; these are based on the Treasury Bill auction rates. There's further information in their Stafford loan blog. Starting July 1st, consolidation loan rates will drop significantly. Read the full article

On three occasions since 2002 the Santa Monica-based Milken Institute has ranked the states on the basis of how well they’re competing in the knowledge economy. For the third time in a row, Massachusetts ranks #1, while California slid from second to fourth place. Encouragingly, four of the top ten states are in New England. Read the full article

Legendary investor Warren Buffett has made an interesting wager with the management of a New York hedge fund. Buffett is betting that over the course of ten years, the hedge fund won't be able to outperform a passive S&P 500 index fund after fees are considered. Read the full article

The University Of Michigan Retirement Research Center recently published a brief summarizing the results of several surveys of financial knowledge. The studies suggest that many Americans need help understanding financial and economic fundamentals. How financially literate are you? Read the full article

Taxpayers who previously set up their tax refunds to be deposited directly to their IRAs this year will need to be vigilant: Economic Stimulus rebate checks will also be automatically deposited into any IRAs whose owners have set them up to receive tax refunds. Read the full article

It’s wise to do whatever you can to protect your confidential information, but some ID theft losses are impossible to avoid. According to Computerworld.com, four million or so customers of Bank of New York Mellon recently learned this the hard way. Read the full article

Mark Twain is credited with saying a great many things that he may or may not have actually said. Among these is the observation that "People commonly use statistics like a drunk uses a lamp post: for support rather than illumination." If Twain did say it, he might have had housing statistics in mind. If you pay attention to news reports, you're likely to hear widely-varying assessments of the state of the housing market. Who's right? Read the full article

Listen carefully, and you can hear the $2.6 trillion municipal bond market breathe a sigh of relief. Today the U. S. Supreme Court annouced its ruling in DEPARTMENT OF REVENUE OF KENTUCKY ET AL. v. DAVIS ET UX. It concluded, in a 7-2 decision, that it is not unconstitutional for a state to give favorable tax treatment to owners of its own municipal bonds while not doing so for holders of bonds issued by other states. In an earlier post, I discussed how a different decision in this case would have affected not only municipal bonds but also 529 college savings plans. Read the full article

Having taken the grueling 10-hour exam in March, I knew that it was getting close to the time when results are released. Naturally, the envelope in the mail this afternoon from the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, Inc. caught my attention immediately. Read the full article

The Postal Service has announced that the cost of first-class postage will increase to 42 cents for a one-ounce letter starting next Monday. The news has apparently ignited a bull market in Forever stamps. Is it a good idea to go out and buy lots of Forever stamps, as people seem to be doing? Read the full article

The question of whether one should use a passive investment strategy (in which you buy an entire market index) vs. an active strategy (in which you try to figure out which specific securities will outperform and invest in those) is one that can produce passionate responses. Express a strong opinion in favor of one dogma or the other in the midst of a bunch of financial types, and a brawl may ensue. Read the full article

Welcome to my new blog! Read the full article

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