Long-term health care legislation could introduce another automatic savings plan.

Don’t raid your 401k if you can help it.

An emergency fund can help you avoid complete financial chaos.

I prefer a tax return of $0

I have a high yield savings account at Citi. I also have a Upromise credit card with Citi. But I’m starting to wonder if it’s time to pull back business i’m sending to Citi. The company is kind of ticking me off a bit. First of all, the Citi is slashing jobs in an effort to stop the hemhorraging it has been doing in terms of cash. I can see that. Cost cutting is an effort to save oneself.
But, while cutting jobs in large numbers seems to be a no-brainer, Citi can’t seem to make the decision to cut executive …read more

When I wrote a few days ago about overdraft protection, I received this interesting comment from James (capitalcouplesfinance.com):
Overdraft protection can be worth it…but not if it’s tied to a line of credit. I don’t know if all banks are like this, but mine allows you to tie it to another account that you hold there, such as your savings account. Then you only get hit with the transaction fee. No annual. No interest.
I thought this was interesting, and asked my bank about it, only to find that it is not a possibility. The “customer service manager” told me that the …read more

As I followed my husband around the store today, watching him take whatever he felt like and put in the cart, I asked if maybe we could start shopping with a list. After all, inflation is something that is starting to creep up on us. I’ve been very tolerant of this non-list way of shopping for seven years. But as I stood there watching the grocery total climb (while my stomach sank), it was really hard to think that not having a list was a good thing. So we’re going to try out a list next week. And hopefully …read more

As I mentioned before, the string of interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve has severely hit the annual percentage yield (APY) on my cash investments, including my high yield savings account.
So it’s rather refreshing that at least one bank is upping its APY, even if by a rather small amount. E*Trade Bank is increasing its APY on the high yield savings account. Does this mean that other banks (including mine, maybe) will follow suit?

The subject of today’s Ask the Piggy Bank has to do with playing the lottery. Many people regularly play the lottery, buying tickets about once a week. Those $1 tickets don’t seem like much, but they can sure add up. So, here is the question posed:
What wealth would someone accumulate if from 18 to 65 they saved $1 a week instead of buying lottery ticket?
A fabulous question. I’m going to do things very simply. Mainly because we can’t all be accountants, and I’m not an accountant. But it should give you an idea of what the general …read more

One of the slowest investments is a savings account. Oh, it’s an investment. You just don’t think of it that way because it happens to grow at such a snail’s pace. But it’s an investment. If you want to boost your yield (and you should want to!), you should take a different approach. An online savings account can give you one of the safest investments, and quintuple your annual percentage yield.
Online savings account
When you go to a traditional brick and mortar bank and open a savinga account, the pitiful return seems hardly worth it. Less than 1%. But if you …read more