On May - 30 - 2011
O2 customers have ‘fastest broadband download speeds’ O2 customers enjoy the fastest download speeds via broadband, according to Ofcom, but Orange and T-Mobile trailing in the bottom two spots. Read more…
Archive for May, 2011
On May - 29 - 2011
I recently received this email from a reader named Jeff:
Ron, how much does it take to set up an account at one of the online brokerages you’ve written about? I don’t have much to get started but I’d like to open a Roth IRA and maybe even a regular taxable investment account. Thanks for your reply and I love your site. You have a TON of information and I’m trying to sort through it all. I have especially enjoyed your recent series on Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs).
Thanks Jeff. Investing in your future really doesn’t cost that much, though some brokerages do have minimum starting investment amounts, others allow you to set up your account without funding it at all. Of course, that does you no good – to earn a return you have to put up some money somewhere.
And please, DO look at it as an investment in your future. One of the
On May - 24 - 2011
Okay, you’ve received an offer to buy your home (don’t forget to read the Do’s and Don’ts When You Receive An Offer). Maybe the offer to purchase is exactly what you hoped for, maybe it isn’t. Either way, when you receive an offer to buy your home, it’s time to calm down and evaluate it. Though it IS highly important, there is more to consider when you receive an offer than just price and there are more ways to respond to ANY offer to buy your home than just a simple yes or no.
If you thought buying a home was a complicated process, get ready. Selling your home can be just as crazy, exciting, worrisome, thrilling, and maddening as buying it was.
Use ZipRealty to List Your Home and SAVE UP TO 25%
Though highly important, price isn’t the only factor you should consider. If you’re sel
On May - 22 - 2011
Orange and Barclaycard launch mobile phone payment scheme The UK’s first technology that allows people to use their mobile phones to pay for goods has been launched, known as ‘Quick Tap’. Read more…
On May - 18 - 2011
Consumers have managed to lower their credit card defaults and late payments with the top six card companies in April, says a new report from The Associated Press. The report revealed that more card users are in control of their spending than they have been in some time.
According to the report, card issuers saw major drops in defaults (balances considered uncollectible, or charge offs) and late payments in April:
- Capital One Financial Corp.: Cap One reported a drop in defaults to 4.97 percent annualized, which is the biggest drop among the card issuers and is a level not seen since late 2007.
- American Express Co.: Amex celebrated the lowest default rate, which was 3.5 percent. Th
On May - 18 - 2011
The most recent statistics issued by the real estate tracking firm the Warren Group showed that the number of foreclosure petitions filed in the Bay State rose to 1,192 in April, up 14 percent from March, according to a report from the Boston Globe. This was also the highest rate observed in the state since September. Typically, these actions are taken when consumers fall three months or more behind on paying their home loan bills.
“Banks are picking up their foreclosure activity,” Nadine Cohen, a managing attorney for a nonprofit that works with low-income clients, told the newspaper. “The economy is never going to improve until we deal with the foreclosure crisis.”
However, despite the increases in March and April, the state’s foreclosure rate is still well below the number of actions taken through the first four months of 2010, the report said. In all, t
On May - 15 - 2011
The United States has reached its self-imposed debt ceiling of $14.29 billion, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told Congress on Monday. The federal government will have to dip into retirement funds for federal employees just to stay open, Geithner said.
The announcement immediately heightened political tensions in Washington. The Obama administration is urging Congress to increase the debt limit or risk a repeat of the global recession.
“As the recent financial crisis demonstrated, a severe and sudden blow to confidence in the financial markets can spark a panic that threatens the health of our entire global economy and the jobs of millions of Americans,” Geithner wrote in a letter to Sen. Mic
On May - 10 - 2011
A free service that lets consumers digitally store all their passwords for their various website logins now suspects it was hit by hackers, leaving millions of accounts of all types vulnerable.
Currently, more than 1 million consumers utilize the password manager LastPass, but now the company, fearful that it has been victimized by a targeted hacking scheme, will force its customers to change their master login information, according to a report from The New York Times. Anyone who gained access to a LastPass user’s account would be able to find the unencrypted login data for every site they regularly visit, from email servers and social networks to banking sites.
The service suspects but cannot confirm the attack because of two separate “traffic anomalies” that it could not identify, the report said. One of