The Sun's Financial Diary

For the third time in a month, a bank has decided it’s time to give savers a little more return for their hard-earned money. On the heel of recent announcements from Capital One and SmartyPig that increased the interest rate of their respective savings account, Capital One 1.30% APY and SmartyPig 2.15% APY, Sallie Mae, [...]

For better or worse, the Internal Revenue Service has always maintained a reputation as a black cloud that hangs over us – a Big Brother watching our every financial move.  Ask most people what they fear most about filing their taxes and they’ll likely tell you that an audit from the IRS is number one [...]

Saving money couldn’t be simpler: start to prolong the life of what you already have. From your car to your furniture to your clothing, the longer you’re able to squeeze life out of them, the longer you’re able to keep more cash where it belongs – with you! For generations it’s been said that an [...]

You know, it’s really unfair that only certain people get to make billions on the inability of some consumers to make their house payments each month. It’s also unfair that insurance company executives make money by sometimes disregarding the health of their policyholders. Of course, I’m so distracted by figuring out whether or not Sandra [...]

I know one will not make a trend, but how about two? Early this month, Capital One surprised me with an announcement of rate hike of its InterestPlus savings account. The increase is not significant, only going from 1.25% to 1.30% APY, it’s the move itself that’s maybe more meaningful because most banks are pretty [...]

Depending on whom you listen to and what you choose to believe (if any of it), the greatest recession of our generation finally came to an end about 12 months ago. March 2009 is when the stock market hit its nadir bottoming out at just below Dow 7000. It’s also the point where some economists [...]

The ideal may be to pay off credit card balances each month, but numbers don’t lie. A large number of Americans carry a credit card balance each month, and a large number of those who do often feel managed by their debt instead of the other way around. Even if household economics don’t allow for [...]

The 2010 tax season is officially over. What a relief! I have worked on the returned on and off the past couple of months until I mailed out the forms, together with payment checks, on April 14th. To me, it just means that, hopefully, I don’t have to think about it again until this time [...]