In its final days in office, the Obama administration sued Navient, one of the nation’s largest student loan servicers(and formally part of Sallie Mae), for misleading borrowers and engaging in fraudulent practices. In light of the allegations, the New York Times gave six tips for avoiding loan repayment traps. KNOW YOUR LOANS:Â How much do you owe, and to whom? INCOME-DRIVEN PAYMENTS: Match your payments to your income. STAY ENROLLED:Â Income-driven plans require annual documentation. Keep up with it. NO FORBEARANCE (IF POSSIBLE): Forbearance is a bad choice as interest continues to accrue. See what other options are available to you. DROPPING More…
MegaMillions Irresponsible And Bizarre Promotion January 1, 2012
It shouldn’t come to our readers that lottery tickets are not a good investment and are certainly not a retirement planning tool. But we were surprised to see “Save For Retirement” prominently featured at megamillions.com presumably as something MegaMillions might allow one to do. This is an irresponsible and dangerous message. We understand that people enjoy buying lottery tickets for the chance it gives them to dream of a major change in their lives. However, lottery tickets are not a retirement saving tool. We call upon MegaMillions and the states behind it to immediately cease this misleading promotion and stick More…
Manilla Organizes Your Bills and Subscriptions in One Place September 20, 2011
We recommended Mint.com as a good option for keeping track of your finances. Mint recently rolled out Bill Reminders. But this doesn’t compare to beta service Manilla. Manilla, owned by the Hearst Corporation, consolidates your financial statements into one account. It will send email/text reminders to remind you when bills are due, allow you to view full statements through the site. The company hopes to offer a less expensive alternative to paper bills. U.S. businesses send 48 billion account notices statements and bills each year, and this can cost up to 75 cents per bill, which adds up. It’s closest More…
Emergency Savings: What Makes Sense? September 13, 2011
A survey by the National Foundation for Credit Counseling revealed that a majority of Americans don’t have enough cash on hand to handle a $1000 emergency expense. Many people do live paycheck to paycheck, with little money free for emergencies. Traditionally, an emergency fund is recommended to be no less than six months worth of your usual expenses. This ensures you will not be caught should you suddenly become unemployed. But, as one blogger pointed out, this was when the average unemployment length rarely exceeded 20 weeks. With the average duration of unemployment having doubled, should your emergency fund double More…
Be One of The People Paying their Credit Card Bills On Time August 17, 2011
Late Credit Card Payments are the lowest they’ve been in seventeen years. This is despite an increase in the use of credit cards. People are cutting back on the number of cards they carry and accumulating less debt in general. Credit cards are great…if you pay them off. It is often too easy to lose track of how many money you have because you can spend much more with a credit card. As long as you pay off the bill by the due date, a credit card is essentially a short-term loan. The downsides only come when you can’t pay. More…
Start with Mint August 8, 2011
We have several different personalities who will be contributing to Dealy Planet, but I wanted to start out talking about my recent attempts to get my own finances organized. Like many, I procrastinated.about this, telling myself I’d get organized when I had some money. Then I realized one simple truth. If I didn’t get organized, I’d never have any money. You can’t instinctively keep track of your finances. Well, maybe YOU can…but I can’t. So, as the title says…Start With Mint. Mint is a web-based personal finance management service available in the United States and Canada, and is a subsidiary More…
Why You Want to be Frugal and Not Cheap August 3, 2011
People use the term cheap as a derogatory term, and they often use the terms frugal and cheap as if they were synonyms. A frugal person is restrained in their acquisition of goods and services. They are not afraid to spend money when necessary, but they do so responsibly, and restrain their impulse buying. You want to be frugal. You do not want to be cheap, although if you are, you can certainly benefit from our thoughts as well. A cheap person avoids spending money at all costs, and does not consider the value of an item, only its monetary More…