Analysis Topic: Personal Finance
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Monday, January 03, 2011
United States Postal Service Announces Forever Stamps / Personal_Finance / Inflation
By: Peter_Schiff
The United States Postal Service announced this week that all future first class postage stamps sold will be the so-called "forever stamps" that have no face value but are guaranteed to cover the cost of mailing a first class letter, regardless of how high that cost may rise in the future. Currently these stamps are sold for 44 cents, but will increase in price if and when the Post Office hikes rates.
Monday, January 03, 2011
Stop Accumulating Additional Debt, 2011 To-Do List / Personal_Finance / Debt & Loans
By: Andy_Sutton
Many people I’ve spoken with over the past 6 months or so have expressed extreme dissatisfaction with their individual and/or collective ability to affect change in government. Sure, there have been some small victories here and there, but by and large our biggest problems continue to rage on unabated. For quite some time I shared in their frustration, and still do, but have realized that sometimes the actions of the masses need to take place on a different level to change the bigger paradigms. To use some old adages, we shouldn’t throw stones from a glass house, and we should certainly tend to our own backyard before criticizing that of our neighbor. On this last day of 2010, let’s take a look at what we can do in our own financial lives to improve our situations. Let’s call it trickle-up responsibility.
Monday, December 27, 2010
Is Putin pitiable, or is the FT corrupt? / Personal_Finance / Mainstream Media
By: Eric_Kraus
Reading the FT on Russia, what is interesting is not what they write – it is why they write it. A friend of T&B was told face-to-face about six months ago by an FT editor that, as a journalist here, one’s role has to be ”to write about how awful Russia is”. (While, admittedly, T&B does not know many FT journalists in Poland, Belgium or Mexico, we strongly suspect that they have an entirely different mandate. Only in Russia has the paper descended to outright advocacy…)
Monday, December 27, 2010
UK Sales Bank Holiday Monday, Discounts List Update and Buying Tips / Personal_Finance / Money Saving
By: Nadeem_Walayat
SALES - 27th DEC 2010 UPDATE - The worst weather for decades coupled with economic austerity and the January 4th VAT hike from 17.5% to 20%, set the scene for shoppers to enjoy deep discounts in the annual sales with many distressed retailers making deep discounts of at least 50% and as much as 75%.
Friday, December 24, 2010
Northern Rock ESaver4, Best Instant Access Savings Account For 2011 Start / Personal_Finance / Savings Accounts
By: Nadeem_Walayat
With the new year less than 10 days away, now is a good time to check the savings rates on your instant access deposit accounts and make the switch so as to maximise interest income, especially as many providers are stilling paying a pittance of less than 1% and virtually all deploy the bonus rate trick to hook customers in then drop the rates to a pittance after a year.
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Friday, December 24, 2010
UK Royal Mail Postage Stamps to Soar in Price by 14% During 2011, Stock Up Now! / Personal_Finance / Money Saving
By: Nadeem_Walayat
The Royal Mail has announced that they intend pushing up the price of postage costs in April 2010 by as much as an eye watering 14%.
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Thursday, December 23, 2010
UK Christmas and Boxing Day Holiday Sales, Shop to Beat the VAT Hike / Personal_Finance / Money Saving
By: Nadeem_Walayat
SALES - 27th DEC 2010 UPDATE - The worst weather for decades coupled with economic austerity and the January 4th VAT hike from 17.5% to 20%, set the scene for shoppers to enjoy deep discounts in the annual sales with many distressed retailers making deep discounts of at least 50% and as much as 75%.
Thursday, December 23, 2010
How Rapidly Inflation Eats Away at Money Tucked Away in CDs / Personal_Finance / Savings Accounts
By: Jared_Levy
Behind the meaning of one of the most famous sayings ever coined lies a fundamental flaw that our friend Benjamin Franklin didn't warn you about. While Mr. Franklin noted how hard it was to make a buck, his emphasis was on how much harder it was to save it. Unfortunately, he had no idea what the world would look like in 2011.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
UK Savers in Losing Battle to Maintain Purchasing Power of Savings Against Inflation / Personal_Finance / Savings Accounts
By: MoneyFacts
Inflation figures out today show the Consumer Price Index has risen to 3.3%.
To maintain the purchasing power of their savings, a basic rate tax payer needs to find a savings account paying 4.13% pa, while a higher rate tax payer at 40% needs to find an account paying 5.5%.
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Wednesday, December 08, 2010
Liquidate IRAs and 401Ks or Suffer Grievous Losses / Personal_Finance / Pensions & Retirement
By: Mac_Slavo
As government ramps up spending and continues its attempts to stimulate the US economy, Americans are being further burdened with an irreversible debt liability. The fact of the matter is that US government tax revenues, which are roughly $4 trillion per year, are nowhere close to providing the amount of money that government needs for current and future expenditures.
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Tuesday, December 07, 2010
American Retirement Funds at Serious Risk of Being Seized / Personal_Finance / Pensions & Retirement
By: Jeb_Handwerger
The news of Hungary effectively seizing private pension fund assets to pay for the debt obligations of the state last week should come as yet another reminder of the urgent need to get tax-sheltered retirement savings away from the clutches of the state before it's too late. Hungary is just the latest country to decide that it's citizens retirement savings are the property of the state.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Not Much Time Left for Year-end Financial and Portfolio Tax Moves! / Personal_Finance / Investing 2010
By: Nilus_Mattive
Lots of meals with friends and family. Hundreds of e-mails about shopping deals. And even a trip into the woods to saw down a nine-foot douglas fir for our living room. Yes, this past weekend clearly kicked off another major holiday season!
Of course, now that we’re coming into the home stretch of 2010, I’d also like to remind you that — amid all the general madness — you should also take a little time to revisit your finances.
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Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Fixed Interest Rate Bond Providers Do Battle For Maturing Funds / Personal_Finance / Savings Accounts
By: MoneyFacts
Bank base rate has been on hold for the last 20 months and in that time the average one year fixed rate bond rate has varied by 0.71%.
November 2009 saw National Savings and Investments topping best buy tables and large volumes of savers rushed to take advantage of top rates from a provider offering 100% protection.
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Friday, November 26, 2010
Euro Debt Crisis Bankruptcy Bailout Queue, Protect Savings & Deposits From Banks Going Bankrupt! / Personal_Finance / Credit Crisis 2010
By: Nadeem_Walayat
The global banking system that publicly went bankrupt during September 2008 prompting government interventions in the form of capital injections, buying of toxic assets, insurance of bad debts and even outright nationalisation's has started to bankrupt the states that bailed them out, starting with the smaller states with Iceland setting the ball rolling, and this year the bailiffs came knocking on the doors of the Eurozone club members, with first Greece, and now Ireland requiring a Euro-zone bailout (German) to prevent debt default bankruptcy, where if one falls then soon would all of the dominos tumble.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
How Wall Street Ratings Deception Entrapped Two Million Americans in Failed Insurance / Personal_Finance / Insurance
By: Martin_D_Weiss
Let’s say you put a big chunk of your nest egg in a life insurance policy with an A+ company.
You invest another sizable amount in a portfolio of high-rated corporate bonds and tax-free municipal bonds.
Then, feeling safe and secure with most of your funds, you take a flyer on a few stocks that a dozen separate research analysts have unanimously rated as a “buy” or at least a “hold.”
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Tuesday, November 16, 2010
UK Savers Continue to be Punished by High Inflation / Personal_Finance / Savings Accounts
By: MoneyFacts
Inflation figures out today show a rise in Consumer Price Index to 3.20%.
To maintain the purchasing power of their savings, a basic rate tax payer needs to find a savings account paying 4.00 % pa, while a higher rate tax payer at 40% needs to find an account paying 5.33%.
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Tuesday, November 09, 2010
Russians Don't Borrow Money From Friends / Personal_Finance / Russia
By: Pravda
Russians prefer to borrow from relatives, but are always willing to lend money to their friends. However, friends do not rush to ask for financial support, unwilling to ruin the friendly relations with money matters. However, respondents of the research center Superjob.ru do not always favor the requests of their relatives who want to borrow significant amounts of money.
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Wednesday, October 27, 2010
New Junior Cash ISA's to Replace Child Trust Funds / Personal_Finance / ISA's
By: Nadeem_Walayat
The Coalition government has announced plans to replace the Child Trust Funds with Junior ISA's. CTF's proved an abysmal failure as usually only the state would make contributions into a limited range of funds available, all of which have lost money after inflation and therefore acted purely as a vehicle for financial institutions to earn commissions and therefore a proved a waste of over £6 billion of tax payers money.
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Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Top Three Ways to Boost Your Credit Rating / Personal_Finance / Credit Cards & Scoring
By: Credit_Choices
Your credit rating is calculated by a credit reference agency. The agency will carry out a credit rating check by compiling information based on a variety of sources, such as the electoral role, financial data and court records. This information is sold onto lenders who will use it to decide whether to lend money or what deals to make available to the customer.
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Thursday, October 07, 2010
How 40% Tax Payer Families Can Keep Child Benefit Using Pensions / Personal_Finance / Taxes
By: Nadeem_Walayat
Firstly, virtually all of the mainstream press are WRONG in the assumption that the 40% tax band kicks in next tax year from £44,000 because they have failed to take into account tax changes announced in the June emergency budget that in effect reduces the higher rate tax band towards a rate of approx £42,500 (pending release of September RPI later this month).
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