by Stacey Doyle on November 20, 2009
| edited by SVB
| Comment
To follow up on her story about dealing with loan modification companies, we bring you this post by Stacey Doyle.
After paying our mortgage on time for eight years, we found ourselves three months behind. To try to save our home and finances, we are considering a home loan modification. Unfortunately for us, we are past due on other bills, so our credit rating has plummeted. We’ve therefore contemplated on doing a mortgage loan modification, but we worry about what the effect of such a move will be on our credit.
Can A Home Loan Modification Ruin Your Credit?
Homeowners who find themselves unable to catch up on their mortgage payments have several options to get rid of the obligations. But many debt management solutions available today may actually have a negative effect on a borrower’s credit score — and in particular, their FICO score. In those cases when homeowners decide to walk away from their problems, there may be grave financial consequences.
What do the FICO score people have to say about it? According to FICO PR Director, Craig Watts:
“The single worst thing any person can do to his or her FICO credit score is to have serious delinquency such as foreclosure or bankruptcy appear on their credit bureau report. The impact that serious delinquencies have on FICO scores can vary from person to person, based on what other information is on the person’s credit bureau report.”
[click to continue…]
by Silicon Valley Blogger on November 19, 2009
| 6 comments
Those of us doing any kind of work on our personal computers know how crazy things can get when the “infrastructure” goes down. Perhaps you want to start an online business or more likely, you care a lot about what you’ve got stored in your machines. If so, then you should get into the habit of backing up your data. Once, I actually had to shell out $1,450 for data recovery when my computer crashed without a back up system in place. Ouch! On this note, I thought to share the following guest post by Millie Kay G., about a couple of software options one can look into for managing online back ups.
~ooOoo~
For a lot of us, losing our important computer files means losing money. I keep many of my documents and pictures backed up in a portable hard drive, but using a computer backup service like Carbonite or Mozy is something I’ve been considering lately. I took a closer look at these well-known services to see if they are worth trying out.
[click to continue…]
by Silicon Valley Blogger on November 18, 2009
| 6 comments
There have been a lot of developments with Mint.com lately, the biggest of which was their acquisition by Intuit (the makers of Quicken software). Mint is known primarily for their free online budgeting tool, which we’ve enthusiastically recommended here; and if you haven’t had a chance to check them out yet, you may want to give them a try. They’ve vastly improved their software, web site, blog and overall content.
They’ve recently gone on the social media bandwagon and have leveraged the power of Twitter by developing what they call their “Money Tweets” feature, a section of their site that’s devoted to up-to-date, real time personal finance information. This is just one more handy way to organize financial content around the web in one place.
Mint’s Money Tweets Section
In this new section, you’ll find selected tweets covering various personal finance topics such as Saving, Investing, Budgeting, Loans and Retirement. There are additional tabs that share tweets that are “about Mint” and “from Mint” along with a Q & A tab, where you can tweet your answer to Mint’s Question of the Day.
[click to continue…]
by Jacques Sprenger on November 17, 2009
| edited by SVB
| 19 comments
Here’s how to become a millionaire overnight: win the lottery. But before you start playing, know that rich people have their own set of problems. You may have heard about how some of them harbor millionaire secrets, but they’re not the kind you’d want to have.
Image from guardian.co.uk
A study I read several years ago revealed the fate of sudden millionaires through lottery tickets or unexpected inheritance. The panorama was devastating. Very few people are able to survive the fame, the incessant supplications for help, the recent accumulation of “friends”, the hounding from salesmen and, especially, the advice and recommendations for “good” investments.
Sudden Wealth: Too Much, Too Soon
One case in particular caught my attention, since I knew the man personally. One of eight grandchildren, he lived most of his adult life struggling to make ends meet, although he knew that eventually he would inherit a sizable sum from his grandparents. When the time came to receive his share, he was 39 years old and unemployed. I had the opportunity to visit him a couple of months later at his luxury home where he had stashed 8 very expensive automobiles (maybe he figured he was Jay Leno).
Since we were not close friends, I did not see him again for 2 years, until a casual encounter in a local restaurant. When I asked how he was doing, he confessed that he had lost everything and was looking for a job. Here’s what had happened to him: perhaps you remember a craze in Russian bonds several years ago. He had invested over a million dollars (his liquid assets) in these bonds, believing the broker who claimed that returns would be “fantastic”. The Russian government defaulted, and billions of dollars disappeared in smoke.
[click to continue…]
by Guest Blogger on November 16, 2009
| edited by SVB
| 7 comments
Should your college student own a credit card? That’s an interesting question that many parents dwell upon. This much is true: applying for and finally receiving that first credit card is a big step for any individual. I believe that it can be helpful for someone to become exposed to using a credit card early (with caveats), depending on how “ready” for this exposure the individual is. With the appropriate guidance (and guidelines), using the right kind of credit card can prove to be a helpful financial tool for a student. What distinguishes a student credit card from all other cards? Usually, they offer lower interest rates and a lower spending limit than regular credit cards.
Let’s start out by identifying which credit cards may be most suitable for college students. Then we’ll cover some important points about card use.
[click to continue…]
by Silicon Valley Blogger on November 15, 2009
| 17 comments
Last month was actually the third anniversary of this site. On some occasions, it seems like I’ve been blogging forever, while on other days, it feels like it was just yesterday when I began doing this as a hobby. The past year seemed to fly by pretty fast!
Well, to mark the occasion, which also appears to have coincided with our three millionth visitor to the site(!), I’d like to host a giveaway of my favorite budgeting tool: YNAB (You Need A Budget) personal budget software. I’ve mentioned this desktop software package a few times on this site and it’s no secret that I like what it has to offer. While free budgeting tools seem to be the rage these days, those of you who feel more comfortable about doing your money management in your own secure desktop environment will appreciate a tool like YNAB, which has proven to be a great alternative to the more popular Quicken and the now defunct MS Money.
YNAB Pro Download Giveaway Details
YNAB’s current version is called YNAB Pro, and it’s typically available for download at a regular price of $49.95 (you can get it for a 10% discount by using this link and applying the coupon code “digerati” when you order). However, today, I will be giving away free copies of YNAB plus a few other items:
1. A copy of YNAB Pro software (for 2 recipients). Note that YNAB Pro doesn’t run on the Mac though a future version of YNAB to be released shortly, will be. Winners will receive a free upgrade to YNAB 3 when it comes out.
2. One Lending Club t-shirt (size L) bundled with one financial book (for 3 recipients).
As a blogger, I receive a lot of books to give away. So for this opportunity, I’ll be sending out the following books: Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets, Killing Sacred Cows and 10,0001 Ways To Live Large On A Small Budget to three readers. Each book will come with a t-shirt from Lending Club, a top peer to peer lending network. For more information on both Lending Club and YNAB, you can check out this article.
[click to continue…]
by Jacques Sprenger on November 13, 2009
| edited by SVB
| 12 comments
When did you start saving for retirement? Think you’ve missed the boat because you didn’t get a chance to invest early?
Reality Check For Those Nearing or Approaching Retirement Age
Awesome image by Mark Stivers
For many of us who are 65 years or older, we live by our social security checks. In fact, this is literally the situation for a third of seniors who’ve reached retirement age, according to government reports. A good number of people rely completely on social security and wouldn’t survive without this help. We can thank the New Deal of Franklin D. Roosevelt for its creation in 1935: this was really a huge step after the catastrophic crash of the stock market in 1929.
Whenever Wall Street goes through some volatility, we wonder about what happens to those who’ve invested most of their savings into stocks, mutual funds or any other risky financial instrument. The most appropriate answer I can think of? They are going through hell, and if they are over the age of 50, they may well panic and sell for a significant loss. This is all the more reason why many seniors rely so much on their fixed income stipend from the government.
[click to continue…]
by Silicon Valley Blogger on November 12, 2009
| 10 comments
Here’s a strong online savings bank offering decent savings account rates.
Stories about failing banks make front page news, eclipsing a lot of the more positive events that occur in the banking industry. During a time when the economy has been unkind to us and especially to our friends in the financial industry, it’s welcome news to hear about the success stories. So I’d like to give this update on EverBank, which is one of those institutions that has bucked the current economic trend.
Top Online Savings Bank: Why EverBank Remains Solid
EverBank is actually the first online savings bank I took an interest in. I mentioned them on my site a while back, while covering a fascinating investment topic, which was on how to hedge for inflation. During my research, I stumbled on EverBank as the one bank that offered products, particularly high interest savings accounts, that addressed some of my diversification needs (through their foreign currency products). Well, I’m happy to report that they’re actually one of the banks that has done extremely well during the past year:
EverBank recently reported positive earnings gains with a third quarter net income increase of 197% over last year’s third quarter numbers. Also, the growth this past quarter is around 37% compared to the previous quarter of this year. EverBank’s done particularly well in their mortgage banking business, showing strong mortgage asset portfolio returns.
[click to continue…]
