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 charge you a constant interest rate for up to the entire term of the mortgage, regardless of how... 

Welcome to Wise Bread’s Best Money Tips roundup. Today, we’re giving you all you need to tackle that nasty stove top, some tips for picking a credit counselor, and a chance to reminisce about the joys of Pudding Pops! Top 5 Articles 8 Cleaning Tips for Crusty Stove Tops — Ewww…We’ll let you get started on your nasty cooking surfaces, after a few tips from this article! Tip Nut How NOT To Buy Gift Cards on Ebay... 

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 was hard to believe because I couldn’t imagine too many people buying a gift card this way.  Yet a number of sellers were doing it.... 

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, blog, etc.) Starting up a blog, for example, is not fast money.  (Take it from someone who knows.)  It can... 

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 site: A search engine points to an interesting article at GiveMeUrEmailz.com but the... 

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, presumably with a lower payment, shorter payback time, either, or both. The catch is that... 

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: “I got an 18 cent tip today!” Not 18%.  Eighteen cents, as in a dime, a nickel, and three cents.  He later apologized for appearing... 

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, but haven’t rewards programs gotten a lot more restrictive recently?  Credit... 

The Sun’s Financial Diary The Digerati Life Lazy Man And Money My Two Dollars Money Smart Life Mighty Bargain Hunter FIRE Finance Five Cent Nickel Moolanomy CoolSavings Wise Bread PT Money Saving to Invest GreenSherpa Your Finances 101 Blogroll Links Plugin – Wordpress Plugin to display your Blogroll in its own page or post Blogroll was first posted on July 2, 2010 at 7:24 am. ©2006-2010 ” Not Made Of Money “. Use of... 

The majority of Americans are homeowners, and many of them carry mortgages for much of their adult lives, if not all of it.  A mortgage is a loan that has a house as collateral, and it’s usually the biggest loan a family will take out. In this post, I’ll describe and compare two kinds of mortgages:  fixed-rate mortgages and adjustable-rate mortgages.  Hopefully this will help you decide as you compare mortgage options . But first,... 

Well, my Bargaineering Bucks were burning a virtual hole in my electronic pseudo bank account, so I bid on Gregory Karp’s The 1-2-3 Money Plan: The Three Most Important Steps to Saving and Spending Smart , and won the auction. I was impressed with the book.  It covers a broad variety of financial topics, including estate planning, discretionary spending, banking, insurance, telecom expenses, how to buy used things, saving for college,... 

Commenter Marlene on my post on how to value gold jewelry asked this: Is 14k Italian gold different in price than gold in the USA? The answer depends on which gold price we’re talking about. On the one hand, there is the retail price of the gold jewelry.  This is what you’d pay at a jewelry store, secondhand store, or pawn shop.  I’m by no means an expert on Italian-made gold jewelry, but from what I gather on the internet... 

Here’s some big news in the personal finance space that I only got wind of now around a week later. As someone who enjoys following innovation in the field of money, I was rather captivated by this article on Fast Company which covers not just the downfall of one promising personal finance site (Filife.com), but also takes the pulse of the financial online start up and business community. What Happened To FiLife.com? Here’s an interesting... 

Here’s some big news in the personal finance space that I only got wind of now around a week later. As someone who enjoys following innovation in the field of money, I was rather captivated by this article on Fast Company which covers not just the downfall of one promising personal finance site (Filife.com), but also takes the pulse of the financial online start up and business community. What Happened To…  Read More →

AOL and I will never, ever be BFF.  EVER.  They even told me so.  Here’s my story: Let’s go waaaaaaay back to 2000.  Back to a time when every American’s mailbox was absolutely stuffed to the gills with AOL discs.  One fine mid-Atlantic day I wanted some World Wide Web on my computer.  I knew Netzero still had some free numbers around, but the only place I knew to find them was on … the World Wide Web.  Which I...