The Sun’s Financial Diary

When the FDIC released its second quarter bank profile (PDF file) last week, the number of problem banks jumping from 90 a quarter ago to 117 isn’t the only fact that causes concerns. Digging a little deeper into the report, you will find there are plenty of facts on banks that are not pretty at [...]

This is a good news for people with poor credit score or just started building their own credit history.
Last year, when Fair Issac, the creator of FICO credit score, announced that it no longer considers authorized user accounts when calculating FICO score, the action generated quiet some discussions because it affected many people negatively and [...]

Update: This promotion has expired.
Just a quick reminder. There are a few more days left to take advantage of this $50+$20 bonus offer.
Tonight, I was about to send out the first batch of bonuses I received from TradeKing to those who used my referrals to get a TradeKing account, then I realized that the promotion [...]

When the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) released its second quarter Quarterly Bank Profile yesterday, it didn’t have a lot of good news to offer. In fact, the news is pretty bad if you are concerned about the financial soundness of your bank. In the report, the FDIC says during the second quarter, the number [...]

Dollar Savings Direct Bank is a division of Emigrant Bank, which also owns Emigrant Direct. At $1,000 minimum balance, you can enjoy a 3.50% interest rate with the new online bank.
Update: Check out the Dollar Savings Direct review post for more detailed discussion on Dollar Savings Direct bank and account opening process.
Have you heard of [...]

This month, The Money Writers is having its second group writing project. The topic this time is about financial tips for college students, most of them just began their new school year after the long summer break. This is a relatively new area for me, not the financial tips part, but the college part because [...]

Hope you got it when it was there. If you didn’t, then it’s too late already.
Just received an email from WTDirect that it has terminated the promotion of up to $250 sign-on bonus immediately.
The promotion was wildly successful, more so than we could have forecasted. Unfortunately, we need to end the promotion early. Effective immediately, [...]

I LOVE freebies. From free money (most of the time it’s bonus) to free razor, I want to have it if I can. And I am always on the look-out for free stuff when it’s just information. Recently, a Kiplinger list of freebies caught my attention. Quite a lot of information there and some are [...]

So the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games is over!

The past two weeks were pretty exciting, with all the sport events happening 6000 miles away. Right after the opening ceremony on 08/08/08, checking all the actions and scores and, of course, the medal count, became my daily routine. Too bad that most of the time I had [...]

I am not a fan of Certificate of Deposit (CD). In fact, the only CD I ever had was a 1-year $5,000 CD about 10 years ago with my local Summit Bank (which later became Fleet Bank, then Bank of America). Back then, there was no high-yield online savings accounts as we have now. So [...]