The Sun's Financial Diary

The mid-term elections have brought a lot of issues back to the forefront of the political discussion lately.  A lot of it centers on how we’re going to pull ourselves out of the current recession.  While financial topics like taxes and government stimulus tend to dominate much of the conversation, one matter that has resulted [...]

It’s no mystery that secondhand shopping can be a boon to your bank account. As the ultimate “go-green” option, thrift store and garage sale shoppers can reap even bigger savings and better value with the following list of strategies. Not sure, keep it in your cart anyway. While shopping in traditional stores, consumers have the [...]

Today, The Money Writers open up their wallet to show what they have in their wallet. Before taking you to see theirs, let me show you what’s in mine first. First, credit cards. I am a credit card person,  so naturally, credit cards make up a big part of the contents in my wallet. Even though [...]

Over the next couple of months, employees all across the country will begin receiving their annual open enrollment information packets from Human Resources.  For most, this will be the one chance a year to select which insurance plans and benefits you’ll have for all of 2011.  With only one shot, it’s not a process you [...]

The club of investors who can claim to have a net worth of over $1,000,000 isn’t nearly as elite as it used to be decades but that doesn’t mean that being able to call yourself a millionaire carries any less allure.  So many people think that obtaining the title of millionaire is an unobtainable Everest-like [...]

With mortgage rates are record lows, did you refinance your loan recently? We did. We started the refinancing process in late August, when the rate of 15-year fixed mortgage dropped to as low as 3.75% APR. At that time, we were only a few months into our original 15-year loan, which carried an interest rate [...]

The art of negotiation is an important one, especially when it comes to your finances. Anyone who has ever had to work out a debt repayment plan or get their credit card interest rate lowered knows that negotiation plays a big role in how things turn out. Even if your financial situation is in perfect [...]

Sure, ideally you’d be able to pay everything right when the bill comes. But, sadly, in this economic climate that ideal can be very far from reality. The good news is, though, that opting to fork over a usually nominal convenience can often help you save even more money than if you didn’t as well [...]