The Sun's Financial Diary

If it wasn’t the rate increase announcement from ING yesterday, I probably won’t check my INGDirect account any time soon as ING is no longer my primary savings account and I only have about $500 with them now. However, when I logged in last night, I noticed something new: the ING Direct Electric Orange Checking [...]

Jeff Schnepper at MSN Money has some year-end moves that could reduce your 2006 tax bill. The following are the summary of the article. For details, click here. The easy stuff Charitable deductions. Make the charitable donations before December 31. Use up your flexible spending account (FSA) dollars. Use them  or lose them. The IRS allows [...]

Got this email this morning from Commission Junction that INGDirect has increased the rate of its Orange Savings Account to 4.50% APY. I then checked with INGDirect and found that newest rate has also appeared on their website. It seems that ING finally decided to play some catch up, while other popular internet banks hold [...]

One week after I called Ameriprise for our car and home insurance, the paper works from Ameriprise arrived last night. The estimated premiums and coverage options are exactly the same as what I got a week ago: home insurance one-year premium $207.27 and auto insurance six-month premium $666. However, I am not sure if all [...]

While we are still mulling the year-end moves, CNNMoney already has some ideas on what we can do for 2007: Best investment idea: Invest in Vanguard Growth Index Fund (VIGRX). Best home-buying idea: Start the bidding at least 15% below the asking price for the house you really want. Best home-selling idea: Price your house [...]

In case you didn't notice, USAToday is running a six-week series on Young & In Debt, featuring 20-somethings' financial situation, the way they manage their money, and advices on how to cope with debt. The series started in the week of November 20th and already have a couple of publications. Though I am not in [...]

The last segment of the five-part series of Kiplinger’s “The Five Keys to Investing Success” focuses on portfolio diversification. The reason to diversify is simple: spread the risk over different sectors, different asset classes so that they won’t have the same fate at the same time, i.e., when one sector/asset class performs poorly, other may [...]

Early this month, Consumer Reports released its ratings on vehicle reliabilities and Japanese cars got 39 nods on the list. Today, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety announced its ratings on car safety and foreign cars again take the spotlight aways from American cars as no car from US automakers made the cut. This year, [...]