Thirty-year mortgages rates haven’t been this cheap in my lifetime. Considering this was the year of my 20th high school reunion, that’s a fairly long time. A fixed-rate mortgage costs more to obtain than an adjustable-rate mortgage of the same term because the lender bears the interest-rate risk. The means that the lender agrees to … Read more
I don’t remember what prompted me to poke around on eBay to check for gift cards. I do remember that there had been some restrictions placed on gift card sales on eBay because of rising occurrence of fraudulent activity. However, I did find a new practice that I found a little hard to believe. It … Read more
My Google fast-flip brought up this article on the U.S. News site: 21 Ways to Make Extra Money In Retirement. It was aimed at present retirees. The advice ranged from one-time money raisers (sell your stuff) to on-going money savers (ask for discounts, use a rewards credit card) to on-going money makers (consult, temp, garden, … Read more
My wife knows how to do so many things well. One of her (and my daughter’s) favorite activities is drawing and coloring. For a five-year-old she colors quite well. (Ariel is her favorite subject.) She called me at work to ask if she could splurge on some Prismacolor art pencils. (She’s also very good at … Read more
User davr over at a new web applications question-and-answer site is looking for BugMeNot alternatives that don’t suck. For those of you not familiar with BugMeNot.com, this is a site that collects username and password combinations that allow access to web material that is behind a free registration firewall. Here’s how someone would use the … Read more
The rates on 30-year, fixed rate mortgages hit historic lows this past week — 4.57% according to Freddie Mac’s data collection. These low rates may provide a rare opportunity for saving a substantial amount of money through mortgage refinancing. The essence of mortgage refinancing is just paying off a current mortgage with a new mortgage, … Read more
A friend recently took a job as a restaurant server to stop a mercifully-brief bout with unemployment. He’s a quick study: after only a week his tips are averaging 20% and only one server is doing better. Not a poor server by any stretch. A few days ago comes this little gem in his updates: … Read more
Customer reward programs go by a number of different names: customer loyalty programs, frequent flier programs, shoppers’ club, and so forth. In exchange for some of your personal information and the ability to laser-target their advertising to you by tracking your purchases, you get discounts or rebates on your purchases. Maybe it’s just my opinion, … Read more