By Richard Barrington Think of it as the iceberg of the tax code. And your tax return may be the next Titanic. The alternative minimum tax (AMT) is like an iceberg because it often represents a hidden danger, and one that can have severely damaging effects. You can be sailing along, thinking you’ve conscientiously filed [...]

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By Lisa Tortorello If you are like most people, you probably cringe when it is time to pay the bills. It is a chore almost as dreaded as spending a Saturday afternoon at the post office and dry cleaners. Perhaps the most frustrating and stressful bills to open are those from credit card companies. If [...]

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By Tom Tennant The other day, someone asked me, if given the option, which I preferred: charge cards or credit cards. My answer: “There’s a difference?” There is. And who knew? (If you knew, kudos, because I always thought “charge card” was what our ancient ancestors – Mom and Dad – called the plastic we [...]

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By Ann Cameron Today, it’s often difficult for anyone to get a credit card – whether it’s a zero percent balance transfer card or a best cash back credit card. And if you’re just starting out -or starting over – getting an approval based on your credit score can be even more of a hassle. [...]

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By Joe Taylor Jr. During the real estate boom of the early 2000s, paying off a credit card with help from a home equity loan seemed like a no-brainer. After all, housing prices in most parts of the country were skyrocketing. Why would you pay double-digit interest rates on a credit card when you could [...]

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This is a guest post from Jesse Mecham, founder of You Need a Budget It’s almost that time of year again. I’m not talking about gingerbread houses, cocoa, and caroling; I’m talking about shopping, impulse-buying, digging ourselves into more credit card debt, and raiding our savings accounts. We undoubtedly lose a bit of sanity, self-control, [...]

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By Ana Gonzalez Ribiero Nowadays, transferring money to friends and relatives is easy. Gone are the days when the only option we had was to mail a check that would take days for the recipient to receive it, and then more time for it to clear. That was ages ago! Now you can pay your [...]

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By Peter Andrews Broker ages I have an uncle who’s a multimillionaire. And he’s always talking about the latest call he’s received from his broker. When I was a kid, I somehow pictured the person who called him as a thin, elderly gentleman with parchment-thin skin, wearing a morning coat and wing collar, like one [...]

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By Peter Andrew Student checking accounts in ancient history As a student, I had a novel approach to the management of my personal finances. Let’s call it the Ostrich Strategy because it mainly involved burying my head in the sand. Each semester various bank statements and (I assumed) increasingly threatening letters arrived from my bank, [...]

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By Kelly Richardson The tech revolution encourages us to perform many of life’s tasks on the Internet–and banking is no exception. So rather than fight upstream, I decided a few years ago to try online banking. I was with one of the major players in the industry, so naturally I went with the Internet banking [...]

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