Every day I get up and look through the Forbes list of the richest people in America. If I’m not there, I go to work.

- Robert Orben

A fool and his money are soon parted.

- Anonymous

God gave me my money. I believe the power to make money is a gift from God… to be developed & used to the best of our ability for the good of mankind. Having been endowed with the gift I possess, I believe it is my duty to make money & still more money & to use the money I make for the good of my fellow man according to the dictates of my conscience.

- John D. Rockefeller
1905, 1839-1937, the richest man of all time, worth $200 billion (in 2001 USD)

If women didn’t exist, all the money in the world would have no meaning.

- Aristotle Onassis

If you are not happy while getting rich, chances are that you will not be happy when you do get rich.

-Robert Kiyosaki

If you lend someone $20, and never see that person again; it was probably worth it.

- Anonymous

If you want to know what a man is really like, make notice how he acts when he loses money.

- Proverb

Money isn’t everything, but it’s right up there with oxygen.

- Anonymous

Rule No.1: Never lose money. Rule No.2: Never forget rule No.1.

- Warren Buffet

The aim in life is not to die rich. It is to spend as much money as you can afford.

- Harry Triguboff

When I was young I used to think that money was the most important thing in life. Now that I am old, I know it is.

- Oscar Wilde

Wall Street is the only place that people ride to in a Rolls Royce to get advice from those who take the subway.

- Warren Buffet

We live by the Golden Rule. Those who have the gold make the rules.

-Buzzie Bavasi

The economy depends about as much on economists as the weather does on weather forecasters.

- Jean-Paul Kauffmann

Inflation is taxation without legislation.

- Milton Friedman

Money and women. They’re two of the strongest things in the world. The things you do for a woman you wouldn’t do for anything else. Same with money.

-Satchel Paige

It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.

- Upton Beall Sinclair

Most investors say “Don’t take risks.” The rich investor takes risks.

- Robert Kiyosaki

The gratification of wealth is not found in mere possession or in lavish expenditure, but in its wise application.

- Miguel de Cervantes

The hardest thing in the world to understand is income tax.

- Albert Einstein.

If you would like to know the value of money, go and try to borrow some.

- Benjamin Franklin

I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor: Rich is better.

- Sophie Tucker

I’m spending a year dead for tax reasons.

- Douglas Adams.

October: This is one of the particularly dangerous months to invest in stocks. Other dangerous months are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August and February.

-Mark Twain

There are three ways of losing money: Racing is the quickest, women the most pleasant, and farming the most certain.

- Lord Amherst

Technorati Tags: quotes on money, money sayings, finance quotes

The Bush administration has recently declared the FHA Secure Expansion with the aim to provide mortgage help to borrowers struggling with their high cost subprime loans. Under this plan, the Federal Housing administration (FHA) will be insuring more loans on which borrowers are late twice/thrice and have even received a principal write-down from the lenders.

Thus, if you’re looking to refinance to get out of the existing mortgage, and you aren’t getting approval for conventional loans, then FHA Secure Expansion may be the right choice for you.

As expected by the FHA, the program is likely to provide mortgage help to 500,000 families thereby allowing them to refinance into FHA loans by the end of this year. But perhaps it’s too early to contemplate such a huge effect. However, the best thing about this program is that, it includes borrowers who’ve been late on their payments unlike what the previous FHA Secure program demanded as its eligibility criteria.

However, borrowers willing to come under this plan will have to fulfill certain eligibility criteria as available at http://www.mortgagefit.com/foreclosure/fhasecure-expansion.html .

Technorati Tags: mortgage help, fha secure expansion, fha refinance

Have you noticed random comments made to your posts? The comments are of little or no relevance at all. Now as your site accepts and displays hyperlinks it becomes an easy prey for these spamdexing experts. If a spammer is trying to promote his site, it becomes easier for him to paste a link in your site and hence get the traffic directed to his. It was in 2003 that spamming took its first step taking advantage of the openness of the commenting feature present in software like “Movable Type”. As technology advanced these spammers took up fresh ways of spamming by adding Trackback Submitter as a tool to their misdeeds. If they can take advantage of technology why should we lag behind in protecting ourselves? (more…)

1) Annual Charges:

Do you think of it as a better option? It is better if you consider paying for that again. This is just robbing you off money. Now if you find the reward outweighing the annual fee you can consider opting for this.

2) Rewards??

Did you read the fine print properly? The free air ticket that they are providing brings in more trouble than relief. Can you imagine booking a year in advance, or flying on particular dates, to particular places, staying at a particular place which are pre determined? Do you call them rewards?

3) Convenience checks:

These come with low rate balance transfer offers. Can you believe these are actually treated as cash advances? A sudden bill of 3% or a minimum of $5 to $ 10 is a shock. If you go for a stop payment you are handed a bill of $30 to pay for a so called convenience check which added to all your inconvenience. (more…)

Pros:
Once you terminate your old job and switch over to a new employer,

• You need not pay back the loan within a short period of 2 months (as in traditional 401k loan).
• You can repay the 401k loan within 5 years of taking it regardless of whether you are employed or unemployed.
• You can avoid paying huge taxes and early withdrawal penalties.

Cons:

• With a debit card, you get easy access to money therefore chances are you can be tempted to borrow unnecessarily.

(more…)

All of us must have heard it 101 times! But what many of us have not heard is that now cyber criminals have come up with a new type of phishing email to trick Paypal customers. The email, which appears as if it has come from PayPal, notifies the recipient of fraudulent activities in his or her account.

Dear Customer,

We recently noticed that few attempts have been made to log in to your account from a foreign IP address.

If you had accessed your account while travelling, then the unusual login attempts may have been initiated by you.

However, if the logins are not initiated by you then please call the given number as soon as possible to verify your identity.

This is a security measure to protect your PayPal account.

Thank you for your patience as we work together to protect your account.

To get started, please call the given number

Best Regards,

PayPal Security Center

Unlike the usual phishing emails, there is no link given in the mail. Instead, the email urges the recipient to call a phone number to confirm their credit card details. When dialed, users are greeted by an automated voice saying:

“Welcome to our account verification. Please enter your 16 digit card number.”

Once the card information is entered, the con artists are free to steal it for their own use.

What does it actually do?

It causes

• Cancers

• High blood pressure

• Stomach ulcers

• Bronchitis or pneumonia

• Coronary disease and heart attack

This is why, the smokers tend to seek for frequent reimbursement from the health insurance. Shortly, there has been a raging controversy in fixing higher premium for the health insurance. Some companies have however started charging more from the active smokers. They believe that they bear a higher risk from the smokers than non-smoker. The smokers not only pay more for the health insurance but the insurance companies also charge a higher premium fro other insurances as well. Know about the insurance budgeting of a smoker and a nonsmoker .

For almost four years Patricia Helen Sherman had been piling bills of $100 while walking out of her office where she held the position of the Head Teller. Over these years $7 million has been procured form the credit union and spent in gambling at the Ohio River casinos. She is now facing lifetime imprisonment.

The overtly shocking fact is that the feedback received from people and colleagues known to her were all positive. She was a very nice person and perfectly professional it seems.

It was only recently that the theft was recognized, that too after a confession made by the thief herself. Obelisk incurred a loss of $5 million that they had to write off as expense. Nothing much could be recovered from her because the money had been spent over the years. As a head teller she used to order and refill the vaults. She was in charge of the vault activities. This made it easy to hide the wrong doings from the supervisory committee. She submitted altered ledger balances to keep up with the supervision.

Such a grand crime committed by an insider, happened under our nose of the authority and all we found out from people was that the lady was very nice and professional. Employing deceitful people can incur such amount of loss; this is a lesson to learn from.

Experian is not happy with this whole issue. Recently it has sued Lifelock for selling this product illegally. The case is still pending at the Federal court in Ca. According to FTC, Experian does not have a clean record as well. In the Year 2005 they were also sued by an agency for using deceptive services and providing free offers on the freecreditreport[dot]com website and had to pay a $1 million as a settlement.

Just for you to rejuvenate your knowledge regarding the different security measures read more: (more…)

• Indemnity Policies (Traditional Fee-for-Service Insurance)

• Preferred Provider Organization (PPO)

• Health Maintenance Organization (HMO)

• Multiple Employer Welfare Arrangements (MEWA)

• The Self-insured Employer-Sponsored Plans

(more…)

• Putting Day to Day Expenses on Credit

If you are borrowing money for your everyday expenses like paying for groceries or utility bills then you need to take a stock of your money situation. If you can’t afford basic necessities like food, gasoline, electricity and rent, you are probably over your head. You must address the problem as soon as possible or else you will have a harder and harder time digging out of debt.

• You can only afford to make the minimum payments on your card

You are in serious trouble if you are only paying off the minimum amounts due on your accounts, or maybe even less than the minimums. Making the minimum on cards will undoubtedly keep the collectors from calling but will take a really long time to wipe off the debt. When you are paying the minimum to cards, you are actually paying off the interest rate, but no actual principal. (more…)

How does this work?

When a company offers a 401k plan to any employee, the latter has to transfer the approved loan into a Reserve Plus account online. Then the employee receives a debit card which they can use to take out less than 35% of the loan amount they have been approved for.

The loan starts off as soon as an employee removes cash from the account. The employees receive the bills directly and not through payroll deduction. They can pay back the loan in the same way as they pay off their credit cards. Depending upon the employer, the employee may also get a revolving loan thereby taking out money and paying it back within a specific time period.

Since 2003, there have been a growing number of employees applying for the ReservePlus debit cards and as such experts feel, the program has lured even the reluctant consumers to participate in retirement plans.

Interested to know the pros and cons? Well, you have to wait for my next post:)

Technorati Tags: 401k loan and debit card, reserveplus

Two major banks Citibank and BoFA are offering these special credit card programs which help reducing the total medical expenditure in a year. BoFA is offering point based programs. In case you have insurance through Aetna, you can turn your accumulated points to “cash direct deposits to a health savings account, or other standard rewards.” Members of Caremark are eligible or awards but not cash deposit.

For Citibank the offer remains open for all. It offers discounts through PrescriptionDiscountBenefit [dot] com.

These credit card interests vary from 10% to 11%.

Here are four sure shot ways to fight insurance frauds.

•  The government has opened a wide range of fraud busting units all over the country to fight insurance frauds. You may contact them if required.

• The consumer awareness drives have become very popular among the consumers.This would help you to overcome insurance frauds to a great extent.

• The consumer awareness drive have become very common among people. Fraud trapped people tend to seek help from them.

• The National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB) collects data to fight insurance fraud cases.

In recent times, the BBB has received complaints at an alarming rate from victims of foreclosure rescue fraudsters. Vulnerable homeowners seeking financial guidance are easily exploited and scammed by the so called foreclosure “rescue” companies. One of the common scams to be on the lookout for is: (more…)

1. Mortgage Debt forgiveness: There are homeowners who are not able to carry on with their mortgage payments and as such they may opt for foreclosure, short sale, deed-in-lieu and the like. While doing so, they may not be able to recover the entire debt. This is when the lender has no option but to forgive the debt.

The amount of debt canceled is considered as income and hence taxes should be paid on it. But with the Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act, 2007 coming into effect, homeowners can exclude the taxes on this debt amount.

2. Mortgage Insurance: Homeowners opting for loans with private mortgage insurance can deduct their premiums from the taxes and this will continue for the nest 3 years.

(more…)

You want to use cards then; the best way to get it is by buying it. Some people find it smart to get it free. The best advantage of a pre-paid gas card is that you can avoid any Gas station identity fraud. However one fact is that many gas stations give you upto 5% cash back immediately for the usage of cash instead of a card. So why not go for a cash pay?

Want to find more about this? (more…)

Find out what is account re-aging.

Here goes the five guidelines:

1) Check your credit report

Annual Credit Report [dot] com provides you with free credit reports from all the three bureaus Equifax, Experian, TransUnion. Order it for free once in a year or you can call 1-877-322-8228 for ordering free report. Read the report thoroughly and check all the items both relevant and irrelevant. This enables to find out any probable inaccuracy.

2) Dispute incorrect items:

The first point of contact should be the credit bureaus for any mistaken item in your file. Rather than disputing online send a certified mail with your complete name and address. Write meticulously regarding each item that you dispute and the reason. Request for early correction of the items. Usually it gets done within a month.

To know the other guidelines go ahead (more…)