Archive for 'Credit – Debt' Category
Average College Debt in the US
Well, this wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, but I guess the main thing to realize is that this is the average. If you are helping to increase the average, I’d say you are in bad shape, but if you are able to complete a college degree with average debt or lower, [...]
Our Budget – A Look Back
I was browsing through my “Personal Finance” folder on my computer a couple of days ago and stumbled upon an old copy of my master budget/net worth spreadsheet from about 4 years ago. I’ve always enjoyed looking back at old copies of our finances because it reminds me of how far we’ve come. As I [...]
Massive Debt for a Mediocre College Education
I was just reading an article about Cortney Munna. She has $97,000 in college debt and is struggling to pay it back and is questioning her decision to amass the debt in the first place. The article talks a lot about who is responsible. At one point in the article the author questions New York [...]
Confession: Coming Clean About Our Expenses
I’ve been spending a lot of time lately peering in to my personal finance spreadsheet. This is the spreadsheet that shows all of our major assets, our income, our expenses and our liabilities. The assets and liabilities really haven’t changed much. Here’s a quick rundown of the major stuff: House: $340K Lake House: $155K Toyota [...]
Guess Who Got Charged a Late Fee
For the first time in my life, I finally got nailed by a $25 late fee. When I opened the letter I was very disappointed to see that somehow I hadn’t paid the monthly bill on our credit union credit card. We always pay the entire balance off each month and last month somehow we [...]
Want to See if Your Bank is in Trouble?
MSNBC has a feature on their website that lets you check the health of your bank or credit union. I took a look at my credit union and found that they have a troubled asset ratio of 18. That’s actually pretty good. There are over 389 banks (as of Dec 31 2009) that had a [...]
Looking Forward to the Day Our House is Paid Off
When I was younger, I think I always expected I’d have a house payment forever. As I’ve gotten older I have realized that debt is evil and the sooner we can pay off the mortgage, the better. I can’t wait until the day that I can walk through the front door of my house with [...]
Is This the End of the American Way of Life?
It’s been a tough week. There’s really no other way to put it. Layoffs at work have hit closer to home than they ever have before and the overall mood in the office is absolutely horrible. Since last Friday I’ve been slowly hearing about many friends and really good employees that have been given their [...]
Are We Prepared For a Layoff?
This week is a really tough week at work. People at all levels of the company are getting laid off so there is a lot of “staring at the ground” going on as people deal with the prospect of losing their income. While this has happened many times before at my large company, it’s hitting [...]
Yet Another Reason to Choose a Credit Union
Yahoo has an article up that shows how much customer misery there is out there with the big banks. Check out these stats: The report, Forrester’s annual Customer Advocacy rankings, ranks nearly 50 financial services firms in the United States by the percentage of each firm’s customers who agree with the statement: "My financial provider [...]