Image by Getty Images via Daylife When word that the cash for clunkers rebate program had started, I emailed my husband: “What if we took the $4,500 rebate on the truck and sold the Passat?” We’d like to get a hybrid. This would take us down to one car, but with HourCar coming to our [...]
Entries Tagged as 'Economy'
Cash For … Nevermind
August 3rd, 2009 2 Comments
Tags: cash4clunkers · emissions · HourCar · hybrid · hybrids · rebate program
Credit Card Rate Hike? Take These Steps To Negotiate
July 29th, 2009 2 Comments
A reader writes: Like most folks, we have lived on credit and have quite a lot to pay down. But several of these cards have interest rates close to 30% which makes paying them down a multi-year process. Our goal is to totally get off the credit train but keep a couple cards for convenience [...]
Tags: Credit bureau · Credit card · opt-out letter · rate hike · rate jacking
Great Gardens! A Confessionary Tale
July 14th, 2009 2 Comments
I have alluded in past posts to getting in over our heads in 2006 with a home equity loan. The loan was to cover getting the house painted and landscaping. That is pretty all true. But here’s what’s true(r): The landscaping part was mostly to get me to shut the hell up about the bleeping [...]
Where We Are Now, and How We Got Here
May 27th, 2009 No Comments
If you’ve got a little time, I have seen no better example that encapsulates, in one man’s story, the mania that preceded the housing bubble and its very painful aftermath. His story is jaw-dropping. A financial correspondent for the NY Times Washington bureau, Edmund L. Andrews’s $120,000 salary was never going to support $4,000 in [...]
Tags:
Credit News Roundup: What The New Law Means for You
May 22nd, 2009 1 Comment
Your Money: Guide to New Credit Card Rules, NY Times President Obama signs the new credit law (Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act) this weekend, which means that by mid-August consumers will be spared some of the most egregious fee charges and rate hikes. (This article by the Christian Science Monitor breaks it all [...]
Tags: credit card law · credit card legislation · credit card rules
Cash Poor? Try a Time Bank
May 18th, 2009 7 Comments
I have just joined a time bank. In exchange for the hours I deposit offering, say, editing services or making ice cream, I will withdraw an equal number of hours in (I hope) yard work. The bank is called Hour Dollars, and they’re up to around 100 members — probably at least 20 or so [...]
Tags: alternative economy · frugal hack · Hour Dollars · time bank
School Change: Seeing the Big Picture
March 24th, 2009 6 Comments
Here’s the problem with the Minneapolis school change process: The administrators are ready for us to all move on together, while we, the parents, are still in the early stages of the Kubler-Ross model’s stages of grief. Denial, anger, and bargaining were paramount tonight at the F2 (Kingfield and East Lake Harriet) neighborhood meeting: “At [...]
Minneapolis Public School Changes Rattle Parents
March 20th, 2009 1 Comment
Politely pissed. That was the vibe in a standing-room-only community meeting at Lake Hiwatha Community School, one of two gatherings last night (March 19th) for citizen input on massive coming changes to the Minneapolis Public School system. If you’re a parent and didn’t get word of this meeting, you weren’t alone. Even though the district [...]
Random Notes: ReFi, Toilets, Money and Mourning
March 3rd, 2009 2 Comments
Image via Wikipedia Because I still don’t have time to write a real post, but miss you enough to ramble: We had the appraisal for the re-fi last Friday. It took him 4 minutes! That’s good, right? A plumber also visited last Friday, and pronounced that we need a new toilet. Also, some of that [...]
Tags: Martin Amis · plumber · refinance
Twin Cities Mortgage Hunters Take Care
February 17th, 2009 No Comments
A recent Twin Cities study found that the color of your skin still affects what mortgage rate you will pay or how likely you are to be denied a mortgage, regardless of your financial circumstances. In a Star Tribune story about it, the president of the Minnesota Mortgage Association said not enough data about credit [...]
Tags: Asians · blacks · Hispanics · mortgage discrimination
