My car just hit 100,000 miles. Should I replace it with something new?
There is something about all those zeros appearing on the odometer that makes people think their car is going to blow up on them in any moment. Even my own mother is guilty of this, recently mentioning during dinner that their Toyota Corolla has almost 100,000 on it and it was becoming less reliable. A Toyota, of all cars! This came up because that little check engine light popped on when she was driving it one day and she immediately turned around and went back home.
After a cold and snowy winter in many parts of the country, temperatures are starting to warm up. The days are already longer with the extra hour of daylight from daylight savings. The arrival of spring also brings with it a familiar sight of cars and everything else covered in a layer of yellow pollen.
For most people, professionally managed investing means buying mutual funds. For the wealthy, this may mean getting access to hedge funds, the exclusive investment vehicle available only to qualified investors. For outsiders looking in, hedge funds are how the rich get richer.
RIP Toys R Us and Geoffrey the Giraffe. After 70 years, Toys R Us along with Babies R Us are going out of business and closing their doors for the last time.
JPMorgan Chase is the second largest card issuer of credit cards in the U.S. with over 80 million cardholders and $131 billion in outstanding credit card loans. In recent years, the Chase Sapphire Preferred and Reserved cards have been extremely popular with bonus points chasers and many card-enthusiasts thanks to 2x and 3x points on travel and dining and no foreign transaction fees. Those cards however have an annual fee, which in the case of the Chase Sapphire Reserved is a hefty $450.
Capital One is the third largest credit card issuer in the United States so when their commercials ask “What’s In Your Wallet”, if you don’t have a Chase or Citi credit card, you probably have a Capital One.
Are you thinking of closing a Citi credit card? Maybe you’ve taken advantage of some of the lucrative American Airline bonus miles that Citi was offering with the Aavantage Executive card and now you are facing a big annual fee for the next year. Or maybe you have too many cards in your wallet that your back is starting to hurt and you want to lighten the load.
While American Express credit and charge cards come with a lot of impressive member benefits, sometimes cardholders decide to cancel their cards. It may be because they no longer use the card regularly or they do not want to continue paying the annual fee, which on American Express cards are higher than many other issuers.
When you are getting a loan, a new credit card, or even a quote for car insurance, a little three-digit number determines whether you are approved and what rates you will pay. This number is your credit score and it is calculated from everything that is in your credit report to determine your credit worthiness. Lenders use your credit score to quickly decide the chances that you will repay your loan obligations if they do business with you.
Before I started doing my taxes myself, I had a CPA and each year I would receive a manila folder from him that was almost an inch thick containing a copy of my tax return and all the supporting worksheets. I think that was his way of justifying how much I was paying him for tax services. That folder would join the other folders from previous years in a big file cabinet never to be taken out again… until last fall when I had to move the cabinet to paint the room.