Finance Gourmet Blog

In depth knowlege about personal finance, investing, planning, and saving.

Entries for the ‘Personal Finance’ Category

Free Credit Score at My Credit Union

Several years ago when I was a wild-eyed fresh out of college computer guy, I got my first “real” job with a local company. The company had around a 100 employees or so which meant that the HR person was the Office Manager. On my first day, the Office Manager went through [...]

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Privacy Policies — Did You Notice Them? Good, They Didn’t Want You To

If, like me you file away all of your various tax statements and reports as they come in, you might just now be opening them. What you might not have noticed in your quest to pull out your 1099-DIV or what have you is that the company’s legally required once per year Privacy Policy [...]

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Avoiding Bad Financial Products

As a professional financial planner, I often come across finanical products that are such bad ideas that I don’t even know how (or why?) someone got them to market. Usually the answer is flat out greed. A company willing to make a buck at the expense of its customers is always out there.
A [...]

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Inflation Jumps

In news that will not be met with happiness on Wall Street, the inflation data for January was not good. A 0.3 jump in the core CPI index spells the end of rate cuts from the Fed.
Wondering what the big deal is? The CPI or Consumer Price Index is a widely watched measure [...]

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How to Get a Bonus On Your Tax Rebate!

Ok, it’s official. Pretty much everyone in America is getting a tax rebate this summer. The IRS says they’ll start mailing checks in May. So how would you like to get a nice tax-free bonus on your tax rebate? Here’s how.
Your tax-rebate is part of the economic stimulus package recently [...]

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Put Your Tax Rebate In an IRA or 529 Plan - GENIUS!

A client asked me what they should do with their economic stimulus tax rebate they will get later this year. (So will you!). Usually I tell people to pay down debt if they have any. They don’t have any. They also have already maxed out their IRAs for 2008. But, they have kids! So I [...]

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Credit Reports and Credit Scores

Hey, a quick reminder that we are collecting rewards catalogs for any reward cards you might have. A lot of credit card companies make it very hard for people to find the reward information BEFORE they have the card. Help out your fellow savvy financiers by emailing us your catalog.
You can’t talk about credit cards [...]

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