Credit Cards

Fed Cuts Interest Rates to Zero – How Does This Affect Your Mortgage, Home Equity Line, and Credit Cards

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The phones are blowing up all over as news of the Federal Reserve Board’s decision to cut interest rates to between 0% and 0.25% spreads.  Here is what it means to you. First off, this is a strange deal.  The Fed always sets a hard number for its interest rate target.  So, this range thing is a little bit strange.  But, it is basically either 0% or 0.25% depending upon how you want to look at it. Second, although the Fed Funds target rate is an important benchmark for lending, it actually has nothing to do with you or your loans.  Most loans are tied to the PRIME RATE which generally moves in similar ways to the Fed’s interest rate.  Most of the time, when a loan or credit cards specifies the prime rate, they mean the Wall Street Journal Prime Rate.  Here is the thing you need to understand.  Your loan agreement says exactly when it is affected by the prime rate.  So, your loan may say something like, the prime rate as published in the Wall Street Journal on the first Monday of each month.  If that is the case, then today’s move does not affect your interest …

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Find The Capital One No Hassle Rewards Site

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It seems that several visitors are finding their way to the Finance Gourmet because they are trying to figure out how to access the Captial One No Hassle Rewards information on the Captial One website. Some people just wanted a mailed printed Capital One Rewards catalog, but they aren’t very common. It isn’t exactly hidden, but if you are one of those people who wants your webpages to be pretty clear, you might be a little frustrated.  There are two ways to get there that I know of: If you login to your Capital One credit card account online, you will see a screen like this one.  You’ll notice that there is a “Rewards Summary” link in two spots on the main card management screen.  Click it and you’ll get information on how many points you have earned.  On that screen is a button that says “View and Redeem Rewards.”  Click that, and you are in business. If you would rather just go there directly, the address is https://nohasslerewards.capitalone.com From there, you can look at what rewards are available and order your rewards directly from the site.  Keep in mind that you’ll need to have cookies enabled (especially if you …

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Credit Counseling Scams

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Not too long ago, I wrote about monitoring your credit report on the non-blog Finance Gourmet site.  In it I included a warning about the various services offering to “fix” your credit and lower you monthly payment.  Now a much bigger site has an “insider” confession from just such an outfit.  A little independent confirmation always is good.

Top 10 Fine Print Gotchas

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Being a smart consumer, or smart investor, or smart anything really is all about knowledge. Understanding the world you are playing in just makes good sense. I can spot most finance scams by reading the title. The reason? I’ve spent plenty of time reading the fine print and have grown accustomed to what fine print goes with that BLARINGINGLY GOOD TITLE! So, without further ado, here are the Top 10 Fine Print Gotchas: That’s Not It One of the most common fine print gotchas is when the really great picture you see isn’t actually what they are talking about. For cars you’ll see a fully equipped XJT9X version in the picture when the ad is talking about the base no-options model. For others, the fine print will point out that the picture is only “representative” of the product, meaning it is pretty much like that, but not just like that. Rebates The one I really hate these days is rebates. Electronic store ads are filled with them. A great deal on a monitor for $199? Sure, but you will pay $279 today. Then, you can get a rebate from the store (but it’s an “easy” rebate) for $40 and then you …

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Free Credit Score at My Credit Union

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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 all the basics with me: payday, W-4 forms, copies of my Social Security Card (or passport), and so on. We also went over my “Benefits.” Now, at the time, I didn’t much understand what benefits were or why I cared (other than insurance and vacation time) but, I understood what the word benefit meant, so I nodded along and paid close attention. One of my benefits was the right to join a credit union. Back in those days credit unions were a little bit tighter in their membership requirements, still it wasn’t too hard to join one. But, since it was one of my benefits, I marched down right away and opened an account. It wouldn’t be until years later that I would understand that the reason my company offered me this benefit was because the credit union offered me another benefit which was the ability to have …

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Avoiding Bad Financial Products

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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 posting over at Wise Bread talks about some of these bad ideas. The one at the top of the list is the new 401(k) credit card / debit card. No doubt, this idea orgininated with the goal of allowing retirees to access their 401(k)s in an easier manner so that they could consider leaving the balance in the 401(k) plan instead of rolling it out into an IRA. (Rolling it out is almost always better – keep an eye out for the coming article on Finance Gourmet.) Now, however, some companies are offering these cards to everyone!

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Credit Card Rewards Catalog

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One of the toughest things about comparing all the different rewards credit cards out there is that the credit card companies aren’t very good about showing you what your points can buy until AFTER you sign up. Go ahead, try and find the rewards catalog for a reward credit card without logging into the site. Most reward programs sound the same. Earn 1 point for every $1 you spend with some specials here and there thrown in to maybe give you more points at grocery stores, gas stations or elsewhere. The catch though is that it doesn’t matter how many points you earn, what matters is what you can get with those points. Remember Chuck e Cheese and Showbiz Pizza? 10,000 tickets gets you an 8″ stuffed animal. What do 10,000 points get you from your credit card? Less than two years ago I used 40,000 points on my Capital One Miles Reward card to get $400 worth of gift certificates to Baby’s R Us. I pretty much furnished the nursery for free. It was a great deal. I logged in at Christmas time this year (2007) looking to do the same for a pregnant friend. Imagine my shock when …

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