For an elderly person with few assets, a reverse mortgage can be a lifesaver: It enables cash-poor retirees to tap equity in their house for living expenses, home repairs or health care needs. If you're 62 or older, reverse mortgages allow you to borrow against the value of your home and not repay the loan until you sell the house, move out or die. If the amount owed is more MORE
Donna Rosato - Jun 30, 2009 7:00 AM ET
President Obama is a pretty good persuader, but he's been having a hard time selling his health care reform plan. His health care town hall meeting on ABC last Wednesday drew dismal ratings, garnering fewer viewers than a rerun of CSI: New York (and drawing gleeful responses from many of his non-fans). Meanwhile, some of his putative allies in the Democratic party have been sniping away at the plan, and MORE
David Futrelle - Jun 28, 2009 3:14 PM ET
Good news or bad news? The National Association of Realtors reported Tuesday that 33% of May existing-home sales were distressed (read: foreclosures and short sales) and the median sales price is now $173,000.
If you're employed by the glass-half-full NAR, you need to spin that as good news, and the eternal optimists did not disappoint. The trade association pointed out that the share of sales that were distressed has declined from MORE
Carla Fried - Jun 27, 2009 7:41 AM ET
The new credit card reform law is full of good consumer protections, but here's one you might not know about: It's going to require companies like FreeCreditReport.com (owned by credit bureau Experian) to clearly state that their services aren't actually free.
Who doesn't love those FreeCreditReport.com commercials? You know, the ones featuring the lovable 20-something singing about his credit troubles in a variety of musical genres? In the first, he's dressed MORE
Ismat Sarah Mangla - Jun 26, 2009 12:24 PM ET
Just about all parents tell the same war stories from childhood: "When I was your age, I had to walk two miles -- in 3 feet of snow -- to get to school." Or, "When I was your age, we had only one TV in the house." But pretty soon, parents may add this one, too: "When I was your age, I didn't have an IRA."
The Obama administration wants to MORE
Carolyn Bigda - Jun 25, 2009 2:30 PM ET
No one can predict exactly when Bernie Madoff will die. But the date of his death, I bet, will come far later than his lawyer says it will.
The question of Madoff's expected lifespan is extremely relevant to next Monday's scheduled sentencing for Madoff, who has pleaded guilty to running a Ponzi scheme that cost more than 1,300 investors a total of more than $13 billion. The 71-year-old Madoff faces a MORE
George Mannes - Jun 25, 2009 3:00 AM ET
Do recessions ruin friendships? That's the premise of an interesting, if rather depressing, post by Emily Bazelon on the XX Blog. Class differences can wreak havoc on relationships even in good times, she notes, in all sorts of subtle and not-so subtle ways: Inviting someone to dinner at a fancy restaurant can be tricky if you don't know whether he or she can afford it. (You may recall the movie MORE
David Futrelle - Jun 24, 2009 3:00 AM ET
Convert some of your retirement savings into a lifetime annuity and you could snag a big tax break, if a new bill recently introduced in the House sees the light of day.
The rationale behind the Retirement Security Needs Lifetime Pay Act (H.R. 2748) is that we are going to screw up withdrawals from our retirement accounts and run out of money way too soon. Indeed, more than 40% of respondents MORE
Carla Fried - Jun 23, 2009 10:45 AM ET
Whether or not the 401(k) is the nation's best-designed retirement savings vehicle, for most people, it's the only retirement plan they've got. Unfortunately, the most compelling feature about the 401(k) -- the matching contribution from your employer -- is disappearing fast. To save money, one-quarter of U.S. employers have eliminated matching contributions to employee 401(k) retirement plans since September, according to a recent survey of senior finance and HR executives MORE
Donna Rosato - Jun 22, 2009 3:49 PM ET
According to two leading surveys of our collective financial mood we have been feeling less pessimistic these days. The latest Reuters/University of Michigan consumer survey for June shows a slight uptick to 69 from 68.7. And at the end of May the Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index clocked in with another strong gain, rising to 54.9 from 40.8 in April. Now of course, that's still far from optimistic; back in MORE
Carla Fried - Jun 22, 2009 11:05 AM ET
Three signs of our hard times, in order of ascending weirdness:
1) Dollar stores are doing top dollar business. In Newsweek, Daniel Gross looks at buyout firm Kohlberg Kravis & Roberts' one big success (amidst a bevy of big failures) over the past year: its $7.3 billion investment in Dollar General, up a smart 30.8 percent since KKR purchased the bargain-bin company in July 2007. (Other dollar store chains are also MORE
David Futrelle - Jun 19, 2009 4:00 AM ET
Are you drooling over the new iPhone 3G S, anxious to get your hands on Apple's latest creation this Friday? If you plunk your money down for the shiny new toy, maybe you need to take another look at your finances.
At least that's what suggested by the blogger who runs Free From Broke, which he bills as "A Personal Finance Blog for Regular Folks." In a recent post, FFB collected MORE
Ismat Sarah Mangla - Jun 18, 2009 10:59 AM ET
The sweeping financial reforms President Obama announced today would bring about one important victory for consumers — a new financial product safety commission.
As described in a Treasury Department white paper, the Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA) would have jurisdiction over credit cards, mortgages and other payment products, which were previously regulated by various banking agencies. The agency's mission would be to ensure that consumers have a clear understanding of the MORE
Penelope Wang - Jun 17, 2009 5:35 PM ET
Even as President Barack Obama unveils his financial regulatory reform proposals, critics are hammering the weaknesses in his plan—everything from continued reliance on ineffective federal agencies to setting up a dubious council of regulators to the too-big-to-fail bank problem.
Still, there is some praise for one of Obama's proposed reforms — the creation of a consumer financial product safety commission that would monitor the marketing of mortgages, credit cards and other loan MORE
Penelope Wang - Jun 17, 2009 7:00 AM ET
Last week Senator Johnny Isakson introduced legislation that would extend a $15,000 tax credit to any and all home buyers. And I do mean any and all. The current maximum tax credit for home buyers is limited to $8,000 for first-timers with adjusted gross income below $75,000 ($150,000 for joint filers). The Republican senator from Georgia -- who made his fortune as a real estate broker, I should point out MORE
Carla Fried - Jun 16, 2009 2:59 PM ET
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