New rules taking effect August 15th mean two things if you have a checking account: (1) you must make explicitly authorize your bank to enroll you in their overdraft plan if you wish to make debit card overdrafts, and (2) expect changes in your bank’s fees and checking account rules in the near future. Read the full article

Now in its 10th year, Boston Restaurant Week | Summer 2010 will kick into gear next month. Fine restaurants in the Boston area will offer reduced-price versions of their cuisine, giving thrifty diners opportunities to eat well at a discount. Read the full article

Boston College’s Center for Retirement Research recently released a brief that examines whether people nearing retirement should pay down their mortgages. Read the full article

Although I’m not a true “foodie,” I do enjoy a good meal. I enjoy saving money, too. Restaurant Week enables me to do both simultaneously. Now in its ninth year in Boston, Restaurant Week offers an opportunity for locals to sample the offerings of pricey restaurants at a discount. Moreover, there are Restaurant Weeks in other cities. Read the full article

Scott McCartney, who writes a travel column for the Wall Street Journal, noted yesterday that there are signs that airlines appear to be replacing their summer sales with fare increases. His travel blog, The Middle Seat, discusses some of the indications that fares are on their way up and includes several helpful videos with air travel tips. Read the full article

Although early summer in the Boston area has been unseasonably cool, it probably won’t stay that way. Coupled with some of the highest electrical rates in the nation, warm weather provides plenty of motivation for energy conservation. Here are some suggestions for cutting your electric bill during the summer. Read the full article

Here’s the test of whether you're a true contrarian: would you buy a Chrysler today? Read the full article

Running out of budget-cutting ideas? Here’s one: cut your cable bill to zero. Read the full article

College graduation season, which lasts for several weeks, is upon us here in the Boston area. According to the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS), graduating seniors with educational debts carry an average debt load on the order of $20,000. More and more, college students are beginning their working lives with fairly heavy debt loads. It's more important than ever for newly-minted grads to hit the ground running with a plan for their finances. Read the full article

With short-term Treasuries yielding fractions of a percent, people who need safe investments find they're getting very little for their money. What are the best options for low-risk cash investments right now? Read the full article

Many employers offer Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs) that can be used to pay for healthcare expenses not covered by health insurance. If you participate in one, the money that you have withheld in the account has use-it-or-lose-it status. In some plans, the deadline for spending funds contributed in 2008 was 12-31-08, but many plans have taken advantage of an IRS provision that allows prior-year FSA funds to be used up to 2.5 months after yearend. The deadline this year is March 16th (the 15th is a Sunday).

FSA funds can be used to pay for co-payments, deductibles, or other expenses not covered by your health insurance. In addition to prescription drugs, the IRS has ruled that FSA funds can be used for certain over-the-counter medications.

A number of online over-the-counter drug vendors provide information at their sites regarding which medicines qualify as FSA-reimbursable expenses. Medications for acne, cold medications, pain relievers, and a wide variety of other items can be purchased to use up remaining funds in your account (the IRS frowns on “stockpiling,” though, so don’t buy thirty bottles of Beano®). Be sure to maintain receipts showing the items purchased so that you can substantiate the eligibility of your expenses.

Any funds not used by the deadline are lost to you, so if you’re not sure when your FSA’s deadline is and you have money left from last year's funds, check to be certain. Read the full article

I've written several posts on the asset protection limits available to consumers who have invested in a variety of financial assets. With all the changes and adjustments that have taken place in the last few months in the financial landscape, I thought it might be helpful to provide a single article summarizing the insurance /protections currently available to investors. Read the full article

The Federal Reserve announced this morning that it is creating a Money Market Investor Funding Facility to ease tensions in the short-term credit markets. Read the full article

As part of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, the level of FDIC insurance coverage has increased as of October 3rd to $250,000. As I noted in an earlier post, it’s possible to have much more than $250,000 of coverage at the same bank, because the coverage depends on the titling of the account. Read the full article

Congress voted down the Troubled Assets Relief Program (“TARP”) legislation, much to the chagrin of the financial markets. At the moment, the markets continue to be in distress, despite a “dead cat bounce” in stocks today. What should you be doing in terms of your household finances? Read the full article

This Monday, something very unusual happened: a money market fund began trading its shares at 97 cents, instead of a dollar.

Reserve Primary Money Fund (RPFXX) was forced to write down three quarters of a billion dollars of Lehman Brothers debt as a consequence of the Lehman bankruptcy. Even though the debt may eventually be partially paid through the bankruptcy process, as a current obligation the debt has no value. Thus the fund’s share value had to drop, forcing the fund to “break the buck.” On Monday and Tuesday, investors in the fund pulled out $27 billion in response.

FT Alphaville reports that one of Putnam Investments’ institutional money market funds has decided to close and liquidate itself, not because it needs to “break the buck” now, but because of concern that a future run on the fund might force a fire sale of its assets.

Money market funds are normally thought of as stable places to put cash, but even money market funds are not guaranteed not to lose money. How can you judge how safe your money market funds are? Read the full article

The possibility of further bank failures continues to hover in the air. In a June post I explained that under the right circumstances a depositor can have funds in excess of $100,000 insured by the FDIC in a single bank. For cash-holders with serious assets, there is at least one other way to obtain FDIC insurance for really large sums. Read the full article

For the fifth year in a row, Massachusetts will have a “sales tax holiday” on purchases of many items costing less than $2,500 on August 16-17. The Commonwealth joins fifteen other states and the District of Columbia in this attempt to boost in-state retail sales by exempting purchases from the 5% state sales tax. Read the full article

Although most of us are still basking in the joys of summer, winter will be here before we know it. The University of Massachusetts Donahue Institute released a report today projecting the impact of increased energy costs on heating bills in Massachusetts over the next couple of years, and the news is pretty bleak. Read the full article

If you have a longer-term CD that is now coming to maturity, you've probably been disappointed to discover how much interest rates have dropped since you last locked in your CD rate. What are the best options for those with short-to-medium-term cash to invest these days? Read the full article

Most people understand that the FDIC insures certain kinds of bank deposits, like bank CDs. There's no way to “guarantee” an investment against losses, but an FDIC-insured deposit is probably the closest most of us will ever come to a guaranteed investment. However, consumers are sometimes a bit confused about how much FDIC insurance coverage they can have. Read the full article

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