Filed under: Credit, Banking, Credit Cards
Consumers’ wallets are really getting the squeeze. Free checking is becoming even rarer, and fees for banking services and penalties for bounced checks are on the rise, according to Bankrate’s checking study released today.
Filed under: Family Money, Debt
After a long spell in which one or both spouses were unemployed, a couple with three kids finds themselves $50,000 in debt. Now, with wife and husband back at work, they’re aiming to get all their financial pins in a row and bowl a strike. DailyFinance’s Laura Rowley offers a strategy for success.
Filed under: Investing, Taxes, Banking
Alabama’s massive sewer debt crisis is coming to a close. Commissioners of Jefferson County voted 4-1 on Friday to accept a term sheet with creditors, allowing it restructure and partially write off its $3.14 billion debt, the Birmingham News reported. The decision provides a framework for a formal deal and signals that — for now — the county will not file for Chapter 9 protection. Had it done so, it would have been the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history.
The deal brings state lawmakers into the negotiations, and county commissioners say bankruptcy is still a possibility. A central tenet of the settlement increases sewer prices for residents over the next several years, including an average $3-a-month increase in citizens’ wastewater bills in the first year of the rate hike. The settlement also outlines a program for low-income assistance.
Filed under: Economy, Credit, Debt, Credit Cards
Habits are hard to break: Just when you think you’re firmly in control, you backslide again. Such may be the case with Americans debt addiction.
Filed under: Personal Finance, Debt
For many households, it’s a personal fiance dilemma: Should they try to pay down debt first, or build up savings? In the aftermath of the Great Recession, opinions have clearly tipped toward the ditch-your-debt side.
According to the August poll by the National Foundation for Credit Counseling, Americans are choosing to deal with what they owe: 89% of those surveyed said they value paying down debt over saving money; just 11% chose saving first.
Filed under: Company News, Economy, Credit, Personal Finance, Debt
Janet Barbour wanted to take her 11-year-old grandson Brian to Disney World, but money had been tight since her husband’s death. So the 63-year-old Barbour arranged a loan through an Internet pawn broker called Pawngo. She put up seven diamond and emerald rings as collateral for $700 at 6% a month interest, and off the two went from their Charlotte, N.C., home to the Magic Kingdom in Orlando, Fla. “It didn’t cover it all, but it did cover tickets and part of the gas,” she told DailyFinance.
Filed under: Citigroup, Banking, The Price of Fame
Maybe Jackson Hurst’s gorgeous mug got him ahead in show business, but he looks even better when you consider his banking background. Hurst, the 32-year-old star of Lifetime’s Drop Dead Diva (9 p.m. Sundays), worked in high finance at Citigroup (C) before shedding his gray flannel to become an actor.
Filed under: Bank of America, Real Estate, Credit, Banking, Personal Finance
Bank of America representatives clad in red polo shirts manned the entrances to the Marriott’s 11th floor in midtown Manhattan on a recent Thursday. Tables were stocked with ballpoint pens and breath mints. Signage in English and Spanish pointed distressed New York City-area homeowners and their families to the registration desk, and onward through a flow of rooms that contained all the resources required to arrange a loan modification, get counseling, or make a plan to transition out of a home they could no longer afford.
Filed under: Credit, Consumer Ally, Debt
The reverse mortgage was invented decades ago to help seniors facing economic hardship access the equity in their homes. Between 1990 and 2010, more than 660,000 reverse mortgages were issued, according to the AARP. Today, the products are aggressively marketed through ads featuring Boomer-friendly spokespeople such as Henry Winkler (the Fonz from Happy Days). But these products are complicated, expensive and ripe for abuse, which lead a reader named Fred to ask:
Filed under: Wells Fargo & Co, Banking
A new report emerged Tuesday that Wells Fargo (WFC) will begin charging some customers $3 every month to use their debit card — further indication that banks are putting on the squeeze as new swipe-card regulations are set to take effect.
Wells Fargo already sent letters to customers in Georgia, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon and Washington that the fees will begin Oct. 14, according to MyBankTracker.com. That’s just two weeks after Federal Reserve-mandated rules slash the amount banks can charge retailers for every debit card purchase. Regulators reduced the maximum bank take on each transaction from 44 cents to 24 cents.