The True Cost of Commuting

Great text about "The True Cost of Commuting"

Buying a House? Get $7500 of free money

If you are first time home buyer this can be opportunity of a lifetime. Only homes purchased on or after April 9, 2008 and before July 1, 2009 are eligible.
Find out more

Free Citi ThankYou Network Points

You want some free ThankYou points?
Use this link, log in, and then use "CITICCI508IN" (without quotations) as the promotional code, and there you go, you should have 100 points more on your account (and that's $1).
Update: You could also try this 100 points code: DPR1CDW408WK

An Average Consumer's Spending

Each month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics gathers 84,000 prices in over 200 categories (gasoline, food, housing, education, communication...), and then they use that data to form the Consumer Price Index, real measurement of inflation.

On next image you can see an estimate of what the average American spends:


Source

Get free car, home, life, health insurance quotes

Kanetix.com is a free online service which can show you auto insurance quotes, property insurance quotes or health insurance quotes. From anywhere on the kanetix site, click on the Quotemaker button, choose the type of insurance you are looking for, enter your ZIP and proceed to complete the online questionnaire.

Manage your money online with mint

Mint.com is new way for you to manage your money online. It is free and it is easy to set up and use. All you have to do is to register anonymously using any valid email address, and then add the log-in information for the online bank, credit union and credit card accounts you want to consolidate in Mint. Mint is connected to over 3,500 US financial institutions. Mint can give you suggestion what to do with your money. For example, if you have $20,000 in a non-interest bank account, Mint might recommend a high interest rate savings account that could give you an extra $900 in interest income over a year.

Stockalicious improves your stock portfolio performance.

Stockalicious is a website that hopes to improve your stock portfolio performance.

Did I sell too early?

• Track how your stocks fare after you sold them

Did I beat the market?

• Compare your portfolio performance against the market

Am I always right?

• See how many more times you are right than wrong

When did I buy this stock?

• Keep a history of your trades with our portfolios

Dang! Why did I buy this stock?

• Write down the reasons for your trades with our portfolios

If only my friends knew what a genius trader I am...

• Spam your friends

Err... Did Internet kill subtlety?

• Ok. Embed your portfolio in your blog instead.

The True Cost of Owning a Home

The True Cost of Owning a Home

If you're entertaining thoughts of buying your first home now that the housing market is cooling off and prices are coming down, take note: The cost of home ownership might be a lot more than you think.

Where the money goes

Insurance
Property taxes
Remodeling
Furniture
Appliances
Utilites
House repair and maintenance
Yard care
Pest control
...








source

How to Know When You're Ready to Buy

I found this article which explains how to know when you're ready to buy real estate.
Long story short: You are ready to buy when…
1. You have a budget -- and you know how to use it.
2. You have a sizeable down payment.
3. You have a reliable source of income.
4. You have an emergency savings fund.
5. You have your debts under control.
6. Your credit report is in good shape.
7. You can make a long-term commitment.
8. You are prepared to become your own landlord.

StockFriend investors social network

Founded in February 2006 and headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area, StockFriend is a new social network for investors sharing and collaborating on investment ideas with friends.

What Is StockFriend?

StockFriend is a new social network for investors that allows you to make predictions about stocks, see others' stock picks, aggregate community opinions, track their performance, and make new friends. By putting together lots of information, from a variety of sources, we hope to provide participants with a way to have fun and learn to make better investment decisions.Stockfriend is for all levels of stock investors. Everyone can share your picks or analysis with friends or track your or others' performance.

With StockFriend, people can:

Share, Rate, pick and virtual trade stocks
Browse other people stock picks, profile, performance and learn how to invest.
Manage your portfolio, participate in discussion.
Find, Join and create groups to connect with people who have similar interests.
Become a specialist analyst.

Member benefits:

Real trading environment (enter trades & watch them fill via our data feeds - the same ones used by the brokerages).
Timely reports on your portfolio's performance to help you evaluate & improve.
Full history of your trades.
Proper calculation of your returns over time to gauge your ability.

12 secrets your car insurer won't tell you

Getting a good deal on auto insurance is hard enough. Keeping your premiums from rising? That can feel like playing a game where the rule maker refuses to tell you the rules. I found this list of tips to help you save:

1. If you have good credit, you'll pay less. Tip: If your credit history is shaky, clean it up as soon as you can.
2. Your car model affects your premium. Tip: Search online for the latest top 10 lists on the most expensive cars to insure, and the least.
3. Pay in full to avoid installment fees. Tip: Ask about fees for paying in installments.
4. That Pearl Jam CD in your car isn't covered. Tip: It's wise to take photos or video of any expensive personal items before they go missing.
5. You'll pay for your bad driving. Tip: Ask your company if it has a forgiveness policy and how to qualify.
6. You'll pay for your friend's bad driving, too. Tip: Don't lend out your car.
7. The value of your "totaled" car may surprise you.
8. Check into "diminished value."
9. You may not owe sales tax on your replacement car.
10. Hit by an uninsured motorist? Try to "stack."
11. You can wait to add your teenager to your policy until he or she is licensed.
12. You must officially cancel your insurance policy when you switch insurers.

Pay less for tax: Own your own business

I found this text written by Jeff Schnepper. He is writing: The surest way to reduce your taxes is to convert personal expenditures into allowable deductions. Turn even a hobby into a business and you'll cut your tax bill.

I think that this is realy good advice which can save you a lot of money...

Remeber The Milk: Online to do list and task management

The best way to manage your tasks.
Never forget the milk (or anything else) again.

With this web application you can:

• Manage tasks quickly and easily. An intuitive interface makes managing tasks fun. Set due dates easily with next Friday or in 2 weeks. Extensive keyboard shortcuts make task management quicker than ever.

• Get reminded, anywhere. Receive reminders via email, SMS, and instant messenger (AIM, Gadu-Gadu, Google Talk, ICQ, Jabber, MSN, Skype and Yahoo! are all supported).

• Plan your time. See what's due today and tomorrow, and the things you've missed. Prioritize, estimate your time, and postpone with ease. Set tasks to repeat every week or after 2 months.

• Organize the way you want to. Are you a list lover? Create as many lists as you need. Into tagging? Use the task cloud to easily see what you have to do. Want to store notes along with your tasks? You can do that too.

• Work together to get things done. Share, send and publish tasks and lists with your contacts or the world. Remind your significant other to do their household chores.

• Add tasks wherever you are. Adding tasks is as simple as firing off an email (even from your phone). See an important date on the web? Add it to your list with Quick Add.

• Take your tasks with you. Access your tasks on your web-enabled mobile device. Print your entire list or a handy weekly planner which shows upcoming tasks. View your tasks on your calendar with Apple iCal or Google Calendar. Subscribe to feeds with Atom/RSS.

• Search your tasks the smart way. Find the tasks you want with advanced searching. Save your searches as Smart Lists, and easily see tasks that match your desired criteria.

• Locate your tasks. Use the map to see where your tasks are located in the real world. See what's nearby or on your way, and plan the best way to get things done.

• Enjoy getting organized. The helpful 'undo' feature means you never need to worry about making a mistake. So signup, start playing, and discover Remember The Milk.

The 13 Most Overlooked Tax Deductions

I found this text on the 13 most overlooked tax deductions:

• State sales taxes.
• $250 educators expenses.
• College tuition.
• Student loan interest paid by mom and dad.
• Out-of-pocket charitable contributions.
• Moving expense to take first job.
• Military reservists travel expenses.
• Child-care credit.
• Estate tax on income in respect of a decedent.
• State tax you paid last spring.
• Refinancing points.
• Reinvested dividends.
• Jury pay paid to employer.

Read more on this site.

Differences between Debt and Equity

I found this article that can help you to understand difference between Debt and Equity.

Debt	Equity
Must be repaid or refinanced.	Can usually be kept permanently.
Requires regular interest payments. Company must generate cash flow to pay.	No payment requirements. May receive dividends, but only out of retained earnings.
Collateral assets must usually be available.	No collateral required.
Debt providers are conservative. They cannot share any upside or profits. Therefore, they want to eliminate all possible loss or downside risks.	Equity providers are aggressive. They can accept downside risks because they fully share the upside as well.
Interest payments are tax deductible.	Dividend payments are not tax deductible.
Debt has little or no impact on control of the company.	Equity requires shared control of the company and may impose restrictions.
Debt allows leverage of company profits.	Shareholders share the company profits.

Financial dictionaries

If you are reading text about finances and some word is unknown to you you can try this online financial dictionaries:

• Special Investor dictionary
• American banker online glossary
• CBA online glossary
• Banking Terminology
• Glossary of Economic Terms...

List of bankrupt celebrities

History is filled with examples of wealthy people who have squandered their fortunes through poor money management. (Here’s a long list of bankrupt celebrities.)
Maybe you are not celebrity, but you can learn some tricks to improve your money management skills.

Free FICO Score with 15-Minute Lesson

You can view your FICO score for free here if you are willing to go through a 15 minute tutorial on credit basics, credit cards, and building your credit, but it appears to be limited to the first 5,000 students:

We’ve arranged with the Fair Isaac Corporation to pick up the tab on the first 5000 students who want to check their credit score. That’s right. It’s absolutely free.

So enter your info below to start. We’ll take you through a 15 minute tutorial on credit basics, credit cards, and building your credit. Once you’ve completed this 15 minute lesson, you’ll receive a free code and a link to MyFICO.com. Once you’re there, drop the code into the discount box and save yourself the $15.95.

What is FICO score?

A FICO score is a credit score developed by Fair Isaac & Co. Credit scoring is a method of determining the likelihood that credit users will pay their bills. Fair, Isaac began its pioneering work with credit scoring in the late 1950s and, since then, scoring has become widely accepted by lenders as a reliable means of credit evaluation. A credit score attempts to condense a borrowers credit history into a single number. Fair, Isaac & Co. and the credit bureaus do not reveal how these scores are computed. The Federal Trade Commission has ruled this to be acceptable.

Loan Calculator Plus

Loan*Calculator! Plus 2.6 is an application which includes seven easy-to-use calculators in one program. The program is easy to use. Just start it up, select a calculator and answer the questions by filling in the-blanks. Click on the [CALC] button and you´ll have an instant answer to your question. The results from any calculator can be copied to the clipboard for inclusion in another program including email or printed to any printer.

Additionally, you can run multiple instances of a calculator in order to make fast side-by-side comparisons. We´ve also included an easy uninstall option in the event that you try this program and decide that it is not to your liking. Loan*Calculator! Plus fully supports Windows Add/Remove program feature.

Features:

• Loan calculator
• Compound/Simple Interest & Calendar Math calculator
• Remaining Balance calculator
• Accelerated Payment calculator
• Balloon Payment calculator
• Amortization Schedule (Basic)
• Refinance Advisor