The Sun's Financial Diary

The most common question that we see at Ask Mr. Credit Card is simple. People want to know, “How can I raise my credit score?” Most of them are looking for a quick fix; they need a loan, or want to open up a rewards card, but they know their score is too low. I [...]

Update: Check out the Dollar Savings Direct review post for more detailed discussion on DollarSavingsDirect bank and my account opening experience. And latest rates can be found on the Online Savings Account Interest Rate History page. When ING Direct lowered its rate to 2.75% APY last week after the latest 0.50% rate cut by the [...]

Are you using any online money management tool, such as Mint.com or Yoodle? If you are, then there’s one more choice for you: Quicken Online is FREE for everybody starting October 13, 2008. Before the product is free to try, but it will cost you $2.99 a month if you decide to use it. I [...]

With all the turmoil in the financial market and the increasing number of failed banks, big and small, one of the questions people ask a lot these days is “Is my money safe?” Since we put our hard-earned money in banks as opposed to under the mattress, the question can be partly translated to “Is [...]

Are you using UPromise? UPromise recently (as far as I know) introduced a new program called eCoupon that allows participants to save money when shopping at local grocery stops and, at the same time, get college savings. How this program works is like this: If you don’t have a UPromise account, get one. Register your [...]

Well, it didn’t take long for banks to follow the Federal Reserve’s surprising rate cut yesterday to lower their own rates. As I mentioned early, the rate cut, from 2.00% to 1.50%, didn’t help to save the stock market as the Dow took another 2% hit yesterday, but one thing sure to happen is lowered [...]

One day after the Federal Reserve Chairman signaled that it’s ready to cut interest rate, the central bank, in a coordinated action with central banks around the world, lowered its benchmark rate by 50 basis points to 1.5%. The emergency rate reduction by the Fed came after the Dow Jones Industrial Average Index lost more [...]

There is a common misconception that just paying your bills on time will increase your credit score. While the reverse is true, which means, if you do not pay your bills on time, your credit score will decrease. Simply paying bills on time will increase your credit score till a certain point but after that [...]