My Money Blog

Homeowners: Where Did You Get Your Mortgage?

Posted on February 4, 2008 // 67 Comments

I'm curious as to where people initially found their mortgage loans, even if later on it was sold to someone else. Here are the options, along with a brief and very generalized impression of their pros and cons. National Banks. In general have … [Read the rest]

Deep Thoughts While Driving A $150,000 Maserati

Posted on February 3, 2008 // 37 Comments

For some reason, my friend received a postcard from Maserati offering him some Omaha Steaks if he came in for a test drive. You'd think buyers of $150,000 luxury vehicles couldn't be convinced to do a test drive for $50 worth of meat, but I guess … [Read the rest]

NotchUp: Get Paid to Interview For Jobs

Posted on February 1, 2008 // 22 Comments

You read it correctly, a new site called NotchUp is trying to replace pricey headhunters by actually paying people hundreds of dollars to interview. The twist is that they are actually looking for people who are already happily employed! From this … [Read the rest]

Revolution MoneyExchange: New Person-to-Person Payment System and $25 Bonus Promotion

Posted on January 31, 2008 // 62 Comments

Yes, here's yet another new financial service vying for your attention. This time it's RevolutionMoneyExchange, which is a person-to-person payment system similar to PayPal. It's free to send, receive, and withdraw money, but the only funding … [Read the rest]

AAA Basic Only Tows 5 Miles?

Posted on January 30, 2008 // 109 Comments

It seems that my car troubles aren't over yet. So the only financial thing I learned today was that AAA Basic only pays for the first 5 miles of towing. After that, it's $6 a mile. What's up with that? I won't complain though, as a family member … [Read the rest]

Earn Rewards For Paying Your Taxes And More

Posted on January 29, 2008 // 30 Comments

For a while, the site OfficialPayments.com has been offering people a way to pay a variety of federal, state, and local taxes with their credit card. While you can earn rewards for doing so, the 2.49% processing fee usually canceled everything out. … [Read the rest]

Free Credit Score Monitoring With CreditKarma

Posted on January 28, 2008 // 78 Comments

Last week, I pointed out how to get a free Experian credit score via Prosper. You can already get free credit reports from AnnualCreditReport.com as well as in other special situations. But what about services like daily credit score … [Read the rest]

Reasons For Having Only One Spouse Apply For A Mortgage Loan

Posted on January 27, 2008 // 105 Comments

I mentioned before that we plan to have just my wife apply for our new home mortgage loan, and not have my name on the mortgage at all. I had been playing around with this idea for months, but it looks like we will be going through with it. Here … [Read the rest]

Stimulus Package – What Does It Mean For You?

Posted on January 25, 2008 // 53 Comments

Confused about the stimulus package? Here's a quick summary from Bloomberg: Bush and House lawmakers yesterday agreed on a $150 billion economic stimulus package aimed at avoiding an election-year recession. About $100 billion would pay for tax … [Read the rest]

Finding A Buyer’s Agent, Part 2: Screening, Trial and Error, Signing a Contract, Offer Acceptance

Posted on January 24, 2008 // 26 Comments

This my second post on our experience in Finding A Buyer's Agent. In Part 1, we tried our best to figure out what we wanted from an agent. Again, we are first-timers and are not real estate gurus. This is a long post, but it definitely shows a real … [Read the rest]

Free Experian Credit Score via Prosper Lending

Posted on January 23, 2008 // 17 Comments

Prosper person-to-person lending offers up another perk - a free credit score for prospective borrowers. If you're a lender already, it's not too difficult to become a borrower. I just had to verify my address and phone numbers, and they offered up … [Read the rest]

In Escrow: Offer Accepted On House!

Posted on January 23, 2008 // 59 Comments

It's official! We have an signed offer contract on a house, our earnest check is sent, and we are in escrow. Apparently our timing couldn't be worse as the world is apparently about to implode, but ah well. Here are some quick bits of … [Read the rest]