The Sun's Financial Diary

This time last year, I created a list to track failed banks in 2009. On January 23, 2009 when I wrote the post, there was a total of 3 bank failures. At that time, I also compared 2009 with 2008, the first full year of this recession when 25 banks were shut down. I was [...]

Yes, we are buying a house!
We have been looking since last December. After the new year, we went to a few open houses in this area, but found one we really like. Then early this week, some new listings in a very nice, gated community came up, all short sales. Since our agent lives in [...]

Sometimes in our quest to save money we make… well… bad decisions. We try to save money by doing repairs ourselves or we contract inexperienced workers to do work around our home for us. These decisions may seem smart when you see a full wallet after your repair or other service is done, but they [...]

ChoiceTrade, headquartered in Central New Jersey, is another online discount broker which offers stock and options trading at a discounted price (ChoiceTrade is one of the discount brokers highlighted in my discount broker comparison post). The current trading commission at ChoiceTrade is $5 per online stock trade with no limit on the size of the [...]

This topic has been discussed many times in the past. In my last post in April 2009, I mentioned that despite the apparent lower costs, index funds remains unpopular among investors, accounting for only 12% of the total equity mutual fund assets as of 2007. There are many reasons that investors turn their back on [...]

Well, Ally Bank, a division of GMAC Financial which recently received the third round of bailout from the government, is expanding its business, adding Ally Bank Interest Checking Account to its product line that already includes high-yield online savings account and CDs (regular CDs and 9-Month No Penalty CD). The checking account currently offers two [...]

Bank of America is offering $0 equity trade for customers with $25,000 or more in all asset across BoA deposit accounts, including checking, savings, and CDs.
Offer available with an individual or joint Banc of America Investment Services, Inc. (BAI) Self-Directed Brokerage account. If you have a combined total of $25,000 or more in your deposit [...]

Listen to almost every politician and you’ll likely hear a similar theme coming from their mouths – lower taxes. And why not? Telling taxpayers that you’re going to lower their tax bill is how you win elections.
But there’s a stark reality that America is facing right now. The low tax rates that [...]

In case you missed the Quicken 2010 special offer early this month (get 50% off Quicken 2010 products plus free software), the promotion is alive again. The promotion period is 5 days from today till January 23, the same as last time. However, from what I noticed the coupon code worked a few days past [...]

The reasons behind stockpiling items at home are clear: savings and convenience. Only problem is, finding where in the world to stash it all and how exactly to go about doing it.
Chances are if you could really benefit from the savings that stockpiling can offer, than storage space is likely an issue. It has been [...]