Apparently, a life of leisure is not all it’s cracked up to be. Or working until age 65 is simply not enough to keep the retirement account going until the end. Whether through desire or necessity, ...
At MoneyAisle.com, a consumer can view an “auction” for a top rate on a bank C.D. This one ended at 4.02 percent. IN some bazaars, vendors call out their prices, lowering them on the spot as they vie with one another for ...
Good financial advisers have the examination skills of an ace psychologist. But some of them actually were psychologists before they switched to helping people manage their money for a living. And as you might imagine, they’ve been awfully busy in recent days. ...
So Congress finally passed the bill. Breathe a sigh of relief that all of that is behind us. Now, consider how little we ...
The economic bailout package contains an assortment of benefits for consumers. Kirk Condyles It more than doubles the amount of insurance backing bank deposits and protects millions of taxpayers from paying ...
DETROIT — The few consumers who are buying new cars are being forced into bigger down payments or all-cash deals in the latest sign of how the credit crisis is battering an already weak auto market. The average down payment on ...
It’s a question we’ve all asked in our darker moments of late: Why not just put all of our investments in cash, 100 percent, just for a little while, until things calm down? Brendan McDermid/Reuters Some people ...
It’s been nearly impossible to think about much other than retirement, college or other savings in recent days. The pain has been all too acute and, unfortunately, the damage is not contained. Lurking beyond the devastation in the markets are other problems, like the fact that consumers are ...
The four most dangerous words for investors are: This time is different. Ruby Washington/ In 1999, technology companies with no earnings or sales were valued at billions of dollars. But this ...
A year ago, Robert Paynter was comfortably retired and looking forward to years of refurbishing old cars and boating from his dock on Lake Norman in North Carolina. Over a 17-year career at Wachovia, he amassed a pile of stock and options from the bank that ...
Allen Brisson-Smith Meal deals, or all the ingredients to make a meal, are displayed at Cub Foods in Stillwater, Minn. Home economics, that lost art in which generations of students learned to keep a household going on a tight budget, is making ...
AS devastating as it is to hear about the global financial crisis, to watch institutions collapse and investors panic, it’s not exactly a picnic out here on the sidelines. Countless ordinary Americans are now dealing with a crisis of a ...
Dan Stefanski Ron Stefanski of Ann Arbor, Mich., and his family splurged on a 38-foot sailboat, a decision the family does not regret. In the last month or so, it has become much harder to take out our wallets without feeling guilty. ...
BY at least one measure, investors late last week were more fearful than they had ever been before. On Thursday, a main gauge of market anxiety, commonly known as the VIX — its formal name is the Chicago Board Options Exchange ...
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images If prices continue to plummet, the homes of about 19 million owners will be worth less than their underlying mortgages by 2010. In the government’s ever-morphing efforts to save the financial system, the moment when the nation’s homeowners get ...
Sally Ryan Lori Stewart is trying to decide whether to discontinue the Alzheimer’s medications of her mother, Eleanor Stewart, 66. For the first time in at least a decade, the nation’s consumers are trying to get by on fewer prescription drugs. ...
James Rajotte Lori Van Dusen left Citigroup’s Smith Barney unit in August and went to work for an independent advisory business. David B. Armstrong was proud for a long time to be part of Merrill Lynch’s thundering herd — the brokers ...
One of the hardest parts about working in (or writing about) the personal finance industry these days is that there are no consoling words to offer up to people in their 60s and older who had a lot of money in stocks. ...
THE search for wisdom in personal finance will take you sooner or later to John C. Bogle, who founded Vanguard, created the first index mutual fund and still preaches the gospel of long-term, low-cost, diversified investing. ...
Consumer confidence fell to its lowest level in at least 40 years, a survey said Tuesday, as falling home prices and steep declines in the stock market took a sharp toll on the faith of Americans in the economy. ...
First came the mortgage crisis. Now comes the credit card crisis. Graphic Interactive Feature The Debt Trap After years of flooding ...
VINTON, La. — Doug Guidry gave up drag racing and boating last summer when gasoline prices shot up. Billy Castaneda put off trips to Houston to see his grandchildren. Randal Shul stopped playing paintball with his buddies to save gas. ...
Kirk Condyles Jeff Friedman, left, and Andrew Zwerin with their 5-year-old, Joshua. A thick stack of documents proves they are a family. Three states — Massachusetts, California and Connecticut — have legalized same-sex marriage. And now, three states, California among them, have ...
CRITICS of market timing argue that it’s hard, if not impossible, to consistently beat a buy-and-hold approach by jumping back and forth between stocks and cash. But new research raises the tantalizing possibility that you can do as ...
Delta Air Lines, the nation’s biggest carrier, said Wednesday that it would charge some passengers to check their first bag, but that it was eliminating the fuel surcharges to book tickets using frequent-flier miles. Delta, whose merger with Northwest ...
HEALTH care stocks were all but forgotten for years as investors focused their attention on industries that offered more action, up or down. The neglect hurt returns for a while, but in a market like this, being ignored can lead to an outperformance. ...
Chris Hondros/Getty Images General Motors employees attended a seminar that offered job-seeking tips to soon-to-be unemployed workers. WHEN my husband’s company abruptly announced significant layoffs recently, he waited for three hours after he came home to tell me — until our ...
Minh Uong The federal bailouts of the last few months raise a variety of thorny questions, including who benefits at whose expense. But the question that hits home the hardest is the one that isn’t getting enough discussion around kitchen tables: ...
The global economic slump that has curbed energy demand and pushed oil prices down in recent months may provide only a short-lived respite for consumers, according to the world’s top energy forecaster. Jens Schlueter/Agence France-Presse ...
TOKYO — A global stock rout and fears of worldwide recession have sent millions of professional investors into panicked flight. But here a growing breed of contrarian investors sees opportunity after the Tokyo stock market reached a 26-year low recently. ...