The difference between new mortgage loan rates and the average existing mortgage is now more than 3%. According to the NY Times article A Huge Number of Homeowners Have Mortgage Rates Too Good to Give Up (gift article), this is estimated to be … [Read the rest]
Update: Unfortunately, it "sold out" already! Due to an overwhelming response, the 2024 Camp BOOK IT! summer program is now closed. Registration live for Summer 2024 as of June 1st. If you were a kid in the 80s and 90s, you may … [Read the rest]
Barnes & Noble is running their Summer Reading Program for kids in Grades 1-6. I like that the steps are pretty simple: Read any eight books this summer and record them in this Summer Reading Journal [printable PDF]. Tell us which part of the … [Read the rest]
FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) is certainly a catchy acronym, but it always seems to confuse people because the word "retire" suggests a line between working and not working. What does it mean to "Retire Early"? What if you only … [Read the rest]
Update July 2024: Upside closed my account effective immediately and without prior warning because I used "unauthorized" promo codes. Just FYI, I would cash out now and whenever you have enough of a balance. Original post: (Update: Added … [Read the rest]
Updated May 2024 with refreshed rates, new Preferred Deposit online initial deposit option, lower $1 minimum on money market funds. Merrill Edge is a self-directed brokerage arm of Bank of America and Merrill Lynch. They are a decent broker … [Read the rest]
What happens when the technology behind a Fintech app breaks down? We found out last week, when unfortunately millions of users lost access to their funds (and still haven't gotten it back as far as I can tell, as of this writing 5pm ET 5/20/24). … [Read the rest]
Buy a $50 IKEA eGift card, get bonus $10 eGift Card. That's $10 off every $60 of IKEA stuff, which seems pretty good. Limit $500 total gift cards purchased ($100 in bonus gift cards). The website URL is funky, but it is linked directly from the … [Read the rest]
Morningstar has published their 2024 Diversification Landscape Update (direct link to PDF), another useful whitepaper for DIY investors that looks closer at the correlations between different asset classes. In their Key Takeaways, they note the … [Read the rest]
Limited-time Referral Bonus Boost: The Raisin referral bonus for new accounts has been hiked for a limited time, doubled on some tiers and now up to $200. The new tiers are below. At the $5,000 and $10,000 amounts, the bonus works out to 1% of … [Read the rest]
Update May 2024: Juno just sent out the following e-mail today, which may be the best of example of public relations double-speak that I've seen in a while. Look at all those meaningless words! 😳 Juno paid out a lot of above-average … [Read the rest]
The 2024 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholder Meeting occurred on May 4th, 2024, and while there are lots of articles offering highlights (including this one), it's never the same feeling as tuning into the actual thing. I always find a few nuggets … [Read the rest]
The Best Credit Card Bonus Offers – 2025
Big List of Free Stocks from Brokerage Apps
Best Interest Rates on Cash - 2025
Free Credit Scores x 3 + Free Credit Monitoring
Best No Fee 0% APR Balance Transfer Offers
Little-Known Cellular Data Plans That Can Save Big Money
How To Haggle Your Cable or Direct TV Bill
Big List of Free Consumer Data Reports (Credit, Rent, Work)