You wouldn't remember anyone's birthday without Facebook, and your resume and contacts on LinkedIn have led to several good job leads. So while there's no doubt social networking sites can be a huge time suck, they certainly have their advantages. Now it's time to turn your attention to Twitter—because it just might save you some dough.
The Twitter mascot.
For the uninitiated: Twitter is a "microblogging" site that lets users MORE
Ismat Sarah Mangla - Mar 31, 2009 2:05 PM ET
As Washington dives into the great health care reform debate v. 2.0, Fidelity Investments released its latest estimate of health care costs for retirees.
If you're not sitting down, we'll wait.
Okay, here goes: A 65 year old couple retiring in 2009 will need about $240,000 to cover their health care costs in retirement. Yes, nearly a cool quarter-million or so. That sickening sum is 50% more than the 2002 Fidelity estimate. MORE
Pat Regnier - Mar 30, 2009 9:10 AM ET
There are some ads for Citibank out now which annoy me nearly as much as those AIG ads I posted about a little while ago. In the ads -- arty productions, with up-to-the-minute indie rock soundtracks -- an assortment of everyday people pass on their little money-saving tips to friends. One guy tells an officemate he's started biking to work. A woman in an elevator suggests buying only solid MORE
Pat Regnier - Mar 27, 2009 11:16 AM ET
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is on Capitol Hill today, testifying before the House Financial Services Committee. The headline news is how he's calling for establishment of a single regulator to manage system-wide risk in the financial markets and regulate firms whose failure would be catastrophic for the economy.
But there's another part of his prepared testimony that's important: The promise to beef up consumer and investor protections:
The choice of what home MORE
George Mannes - Mar 26, 2009 12:18 PM ET
Less than two weeks remain to submit comments to the Federal Reserve about bank overdraft fees, the charge assessed when you overdraw on your checking account. On the table are new regs for how the fees are levied.
Currently, most banks offer some kind of overdraft program, according to a study by the FDIC. The problem is that the service is often provided automatically, without the consumer's explicit consent. So pull out MORE
Carolyn Bigda - Mar 25, 2009 7:00 AM ET
Wall Street gave an initial thumb's up to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's plans to buy up billions of dollars in bad loan assets.
Bank stocks surged and the Dow rose nearly 500 points Monday, extending a two-week rally in stocks that's brought the S&P 500 up nearly 20%. While it remains to be seen just how effective Geithner's latest plan is in stabilizing the financial system, the market's reaction certainly makes MORE
Donna Rosato - Mar 23, 2009 1:16 PM ET
We've said it before and we'll say it again: Credit unions often offer some of the best deals in banking. But on Friday night, federal regulators seized two corporate credit unions with assets totaling $57 billion. So what does that mean for the sterling rep credit unions have managed to build?
The two institutions put into conservatorship, US Central Federal Credit Union in Lenexa, Kansas, and Western Corporate Federal Credit Union MORE
Ismat Sarah Mangla - Mar 23, 2009 11:29 AM ET
Do you remember the good old days, back before AIG exploded all over us in a flaming explosion of ineptitude, arrogance and greed? Back when AIG was a somewhat mysterious financial megacorp with a series of slick, smug ads, many of them starring annoyingly precocious children?
You don't have to remember, because the ads are still there on YouTube, in all their preening, presumptuous glory. Looking at them now, each ad MORE
So Bernie Madoff is guilty. He's in jail, and it's likely, following his scheduled June sentencing, he'll stay there for the rest of his life. Unlike his victims (and the rest of us), the 70-year-old crook doesn't have to worry about how he'll spend his retirement, or whether he has enough money to support himself. Lucky him.
Madoff hasn't said much about what was going on in his head while he MORE
George Mannes - Mar 19, 2009 7:00 AM ET
Few people like to be the first to arrive to a party. The same might be said for investors.
According to a recent report from Lipper, which tracks mutual fund data, investors yanked $6.4 billion out of U.S. large-cap equity funds in February. Interestingly, the last time investors added money to the category was back in June 2008--just as stocks officially dropped into bear-market territory (defined as a loss of 20% MORE
Carolyn Bigda - Mar 18, 2009 2:26 PM ET
When Archie and Edith sang "mister, we could use a man like Herbert Hoover again" at the start of every episode of All in the Family, it was supposed to be a joke: no one but a reactionary old coot would feel actual nostalgia for the president who turned a stock market crash into the Great Depression.
But these days, there are a lot of politicians who are singing that MORE
Pat Regnier - Mar 18, 2009 9:44 AM ET
by JEANNE FLEMING, PH.D. and LEONARD SCHWARZ
Question: A good friend is investing $25,000 in an alternative-energy deal that looks very promising. He says he can arrange for me to get into it, but in exchange he wants 10% of whatever profit I make. I think he's being incredibly greedy, but he says that he deserves to be compensated for opening an otherwise closed door. Does he?
Answer: If the dealmaker's MORE
kp - Mar 17, 2009 12:37 PM ET
Happy St. Patrick's Day! Do you have a credit card? If so, you may need to borrow some of that luck of the Irish. It seems like everyday I read about another credit card horror story, and the victims are increasingly folks with good credit and payment histories. One of my favorite sites, CreditMattersBlog, detailed one of these stories last week.
CMB reader Ryan had been a Bank of America customer MORE
Ismat Sarah Mangla - Mar 17, 2009 12:34 PM ET
Tough economic times make fertile breeding ground for scammers and this recession is no different. I was at the Consumer Federation of America conference in Washington, DC last week, where several state consumer protection regulators spoke about the sharp increase in financial and consumer scams. Here are five scams on the rise and how you can avoid falling for them:
- Stimulus grant scams. Since the $787 billion stimulus bill became law MORE
Donna Rosato - Mar 16, 2009 2:51 PM ET
Whether you are looking to buy a condo or refinance a townhouse, be prepared for a cold and costly reception in lender land. Sinking values, oodles of overbuilding and a clamp- down on condos bought as investment properties has spurred lenders and private mortgage insurers to introduce new risk-based fees for all "attached" homes, such as condos and townhouses.
The federal government is the main cog in the imposition of these MORE
Pat Regnier - Mar 16, 2009 9:30 AM ET
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