I’m always being asked for the best tax tips to manage financial losses. In a recent edition of TalkBiz News, Paul Myers described a common problem—paying someone thousands of dollars and getting nothing in return. He wrote: One guy I spoke with recently spent $7,000 with someone who failed to deliver anything he promised. The [...]
Stock Market Capitulation on the Ilyce Glink Show September 25, 2011: Barron's columnist Alan Abelson, a professional I really respect, wrote a piece yesterday entitled September Massacre. In it, Abelson discusses this week's gruesome losses on Wall Street and how the markets are undergoing a sort of capitulation, something we last experienced in March of [...]
A reader considers a strategic default on her home mortgage loan. Q: I am pushing 73 and my house is underwater. I have a first loan of about $140,000 and a second loan of about $18,000 with a 7.85 percent interest rate. My second loan has a balloon payment coming due soon. I was lied to [...]
With the price of gold recently reaching $1,900 per troy ounce and expected to hit $2,500 per troy ounce by year’s end, the temptation to sell gold is high for many consumers looking for investing advice. An uncertain stock market and the recent downgrade in the United States’ credit rating have created a major demand [...]
I grew up with a dad who worked in the insurance business and who never bought a brand-new vehicle, so I have pretty strongly ingrained views on the new versus used car debate. However, there are advantages (and disadvantages) on both sides of the equation. Insuring your new car When you buy a new car, [...]
I met Roger B. Adams on the Internet, and he quickly became one of my best friends. At the time, he was just learning about taxes as a volunteer at the U.S. embassy in Lisbon, Portugal, helping Americans overseas file their tax returns. During the first couple of years of our acquaintance, Roger got hooked [...]
Life insurance and auto insurance are very different. People are used to buying both a car and the insurance for that car on the same day in order to drive out of the lot. With life insurance, put your seatbelt on. It’s a different transaction altogether. It can be hard for some people to understand [...]
Q: I lost the major portion of my income and I am looking to lower my mortgage payments, but my concern is that my income will now be too low for me to qualify for a refinance. I hate to spend the $500 for an appraisal and then be told that my income won’t allow [...]
Q: My mother has a reverse mortgage. I am 59 and my husband and I are moving into my mother's house to take care of her. My brother and sister and I are currently in mom's will to inherit the house. With mom's and my siblings' concurrence, my husband and I will begin paying off [...]
At my 20th high school reunion, I learned that one of my classmates was homeschooling her two children. I was fascinated with the concept, though my main concern was about her children’s socialization with others their own age. No worries here—her children were actively involved with their own age group in church and in clubs. [...]
