NEWS
By Dan Rodricks | March 8, 2009
I know a longtime real estate agent who is one of the most conservative men in the whole wide world - and I don't mean the typical dittohead who listens to Rush Limbaugh's smug, sarcastic rhetoric and repeats it, with variations, at the slightest provocation. I'm talking old-school conservative: a businessman who lives by a creed of realism, rational caution and common sense. He's well-informed but doesn't express strident political views. He's smart with the dollar, which is why he has a few million of them.
NEWS
By Carolyn Bigda | October 21, 2007
Sometimes the standard prescription for trimming a budget doesn't produce the desired results. So what do you do if you're still broke after fewer lattes and no more Chinese takeout? It's a question that a lot of young professionals seem to be asking themselves. A recent survey from brokerage house Charles Schwab Corp. found that people born between about 1960 and 1985 are struggling with both paying down debt and saving for deep-pocket goals, such as a first home and retirement. With banks becoming stricter about how much money they will lend homebuyers, and fewer employers offering pension plans, it is all the more important to be able to tackle both sets of goals.
NEWS
By McClatchy-Tribune | June 10, 2007
NEW YORK -- There are two kinds of nonsavers, according to certified financial planner and investment adviser Bill DeShurko: people who don't earn enough money to put anything away and people who think they don't. If you're making a reasonable salary and still find yourself living paycheck to paycheck, the problem almost certainly isn't your income - it's your attitude. So says DeShurko, author of a book scheduled to be published next month, The Naked Truth About Your Money. The undressed truth about saving money is that we simply have to seize every single opportunity to sock it away.
NEWS
By Janet Kidd Stewart | June 3, 2007
Like many thirtysomethings, Sarah Francis is hearing the call of homeownership. With a recent price softening in some markets, the 32-year-old Chicagoan thinks it may be a great time to jump into a condo. She worries about borrowing - she has no credit-card or student-loan debt - and she's managed to accumulate about $40,000 in cash from her income as a nurse practitioner over the past several years, saving money by renting a room at a friend's house. She's also socked away almost $68,000 for retirement.
NEWS
By Tami Luhby | March 18, 2007
As Kathryn Moosbrugger plans her September wedding, she has found two effective ways to save money: Keep a firm budget in mind and meet with people face to face. These tenets helped her cut costs when she hired a band last year. She and her fiance, Nick Laganza, met with the production company in its office and told the agent that her budget was $6,000. The band asked for $6,500 for a seven-piece orchestra to play at their reception. After an hour of chatting about music and the wedding, they settled on $6,200.
NEWS
By Gregory Karp | November 5, 2006
Attitude can go a long way toward spending money smarter. And a defeatist attitude will almost certainly mean you end up underachieving with money. Advertisers reinforce easy-but-insidious ideas to get you to spend your money now. It seems to be working, considering consumers' credit card debt levels - an average of nearly $9,200 per household with credit cards last year, according to CardTrak.com - and pitiful savings rates. Below are excuses people use every day for doing dumb things with their money and suggestions for an attitude adjustment.
NEWS
By Tami Luhby | December 26, 2004
From the time she was a little girl, Dorian Rehfield understood the importance of saving money. She has always made sure to set aside enough funds to cover a year's expenses just in case of an emergency. She just never thought she'd actually need to tap into that account, as she is doing now. Rehfield, 42, lost her job as director of marketing services when her Glen Cove, N.Y., company shut down in August. So she's now forced to live off her savings and unemployment, which is paying her about 14 percent of her salary, until it runs out in about three months.
NEWS
By Tawanda W. Johnson | December 22, 2004
They might not be old enough to open their own savings accounts without help from Mom or Dad, but Worthington Elementary School pupils already have learned the important lesson of saving money. That's because, for the past 10 years, the school has had a partnership with Columbia Bank that enables the children to learn about saving with real accounts and meetings with bank representatives. "This just shows them how important it is to save," said Jane Sims, assistant principal at the school, who oversees the program at Worthington with school counselor Milene Pettit.
NEWS
By Eileen Ambrose | November 7, 2001
June McComas of Solomons isn't angry with Alan Greenspan, she just wishes the Federal Reserve chairman understood what a series of interest rate cuts this year means to people like her. "I just think somebody ought to clue him in," said McComas, a 63-year-old retiree who keeps the bulk of her money in certificates of deposit. When one that had been earning more than 7 percent matured this year, McComas found she couldn't reinvest the money at anywhere near the same rate unless she tied it up in another CD for more years than she wanted.
NEWS
By Jamie Smith Hopkins | April 17, 2000
Seven-year-old Harish Lall put a dollar in his account the other day and vowed to keep depositing money until he saved enough to buy a $2,000 laptop computer. Getting to the bank, at least, will be easy: It's at school. Every Friday before class, Harish and other pupils at Swansfield Elementary in Columbia deposit their coins, bills and checks in the school's bank -- an honest-to-goodness, FDIC-insured place to hand over their money. That's because Farmers and Mechanics National Bank is backing the project, and the deposits are transferred to its vaults.