The Sun's Financial Diary

This isn’t the first time I complained about PNC Bank, with which I opened a business checking account at the end of January, but I hope it’s the last. I heard some nice words about PNC before deciding to use it. However, my short relationship with the bank so far turned out to be a [...]

Like last year, I mailed out our tax forms one day ahead of the tax deadline, which is today. In the past I usually waited till the last minute to file, and, as you can imagine, it was never a pleasant trip to the post office on April 15th. I know, I could have used [...]

There’s an article on Consumer Reports website last week with the organization’s latest test results on toilet papers (which will also appear in the May issue of Consumer Report magazine). The article has some interesting findings that could affect which brand we will buy in the future. We have been using Scott 1000-sheet single ply [...]

Good bank deals are rare these days. You are lucky if your bank pays you 3.0% or more for your money, unless you use one of those high-yield rewards checking accounts that always have a cap on how much money you can put into the account to earn the sometime 5+% yield. And, as you [...]

Yesterday, I wrote a post on why it may not be a good idea to pay your federal taxes with credit cards. The reason is that fees charged by service providers (at 2.49% of the amount paid) cannot make cardholders benefit from the transaction, unless the card has a rewards program that can compensate the [...]

The answer is Yes. The question isn’t really whether you can use plastics to pay taxes or not, but rather whether paying taxes with credit cards is worth it or not. How Much Does It Cost to Pay Taxes by Credit Cards? The IRS has two authorized partners which provide the convenience service of letting [...]

As always, I am still working on our 2008 tax returns even as the deadline to file 2008 income taxes, which is April 15th, 2009, is just a week away. Despite the delay, we already have all the files and documents we need, therefore, we won’t seek an extension to our filings. In our case, [...]

Back in March, I ordered an Abraham Lincoln Commemorative Silver Dollar from U.S. Mint. After some lengthy delays (the product was on back order), the coin was finally shipped out on April 2 and a USPS tracking number was provided. As I usually do with all the packages sending to me, I went to USPS [...]