The Sun's Financial Diary

The bank itself may be not, but its parent, GMAC Financial Services, is certainly in a situation no bank wants to be in.
News came out this morning that GMAC, the recipient of billions of dollars of taxpayer money since last December, is going back to the government to ask for more money. That would be [...]

Now you can earn Membership Rewards Points even faster with the American Express Premier Rewards Gold Card. The new card allows you to buy the things you need and get rewarded with the things you want at the same time.
Membership Rewards
Here’s how it works. With the AMEX Premier Rewards Gold Card, you can earn points [...]

If you are thinking of putting aside a little more for your retirement in 2010, you won’t get any help from the government because the 2010 401(k) contribution limit will remain at the same level as 2009 at $16,500 (the catch-up limit for workers 50 years old and order will also be the same as [...]

Citi PremierPass Card, one of the best travel reward credit cards, is running a promotion to celebrate the 5th anniversary of the introduction of the card (I had the PremierPass for nearly 3 years).
From now till December 31, 2009, card members can earn up to 1,500 ThankYou points by simply using the card to make [...]

I opened a PNC Business Checking Account early this year for the little business I am running.  The reasons I had the account with PNC are that 1) they have a branch office in our neighborhood, so it’s easy to make a deposit; 2) the account has low balance requirement and no monthly fees; 3) [...]

Fannie Mae, the mortgage insurer, announced early this week that it is revising the eligibility, underwriting, and pricing policy to support housing market liquidity and sustainability. In a statement (PDF file) released on Tuesday, Fannie Mae said that starting December 12, 2009, the minimum credit score will be increased to 620 for all loans delivered [...]

Last week, when I logged into my Mint.com the first time in several months, I was shocked by how Mint categorizes the expenses downloaded from my Bank of America Checking account. I don’t know exactly how Mint processes the transactions, but it is just unacceptable to me that a popular financial product that is used [...]

Early this month, Ohio CollegeAdvantage 529 College Savings Plan announced a promotion which gives each new plan participant $25 bonus for just opening an account. Yesterday, I got an email from CollegeAdvantage with a sweetened deal: For a limited time, each new customer will get another $25 bonus on top of the existing $25 referral [...]

Kind of.
Last night, when I was writing the post about manageME 7, I logged into my Mint.com account first time in many months in order to make some comparison I needed for the post. I mentioned before that I mainly use a desktop version of Quicken to track my finance, not the online version, despite [...]

If you are using either Mint.com or Quicken Online to manage your finance, you probably have already heard the big news today that Intuit, owner of Quicken Online, is buying Mint.com. While changes can always be expected when such acquisitions occur, Intuit has promised to keep both popular online money management tool free for existing [...]