TFB's Stumbles: Week Ending 2008-02-29

February 29, 2008 by TFB

I have thought about whether I should do weekly links to interesting articles on my blog. On one hand I'd like to share with you what I found. On the other hand, it's not easy to gather the links and compile them into a new post. That's until blogger JLP at AllFinancialMatters introduced me to StumbleUpon. StumbleUpon provides a web browser plugin that allows me to discover and rate web pages. When I see an interesting article, I put it into StumbleUpon and write down my thoughts right then and there. On Friday, I can go back to it and round up all the articles I noted during the week and put them into a blog post more easily.

If you also use StumbleUpon, I invite you to add me as a friend. My user name there is TheFinanceBuff. Whether you use StumbleUpon or not, if you'd like to read what I stumbled in a news reader, you can subscribe to a separate RSS feed TFB's Stumbles. Not all my stumbles will make to the posts on Fridays.

Now, here are some of the interesting articles and web sites I found this week:

Bank Lawyers Blog: HUD Stubs Toe On RESPA – Department of Housing and Urban Development allegedly offered illegal kickback to mortgage brokers, violating law HUD itself is supposed to enforce.

Life Insurance Part 2: Should I Buy Whole Life Insurance? at Moolanomy – Running some numbers on whole life insurance, which doesn't make sense for most people. Just remember to buy term life. I also wrote on the same subject in Life Insurance: What To Buy.

Second foreclosure crisis? – A good article from Cleveland area newspaper about how the new owners of previously foreclosed houses are likely to be foreclosed on again. All I can say is it's a free market. Everybody is free to buy and sell. I don't blame the bottom-fishing investment companies. They create a market. Nobody is forcing anyone to buy those houses in poor condition. If the new buyers default, the investment companies don't get the expected profit.

Everything You Need to Know About Credit Card Interchange Fees – A simple picture showing how the credit card interchange fees work. Cardholders ultimately pay more in interchange fees than what they receive back as rewards and rebates. Post says 45% of the interchange fees are paid back as rewards. Translation, the banks keep the other 55%.

Credit Card Companies Want to Eat You Alive! - Paying the credit card company too early can become a problem. The card company wants you to make a minimum payment in every statement period. Making two payments in one period is OK but you still have to make a payment in the next period. That's the deal. Make the minimum payment in every statement period.

Prosper Taxes – P2P lending brings about undue complexity at tax time. Totally not worth it.

The Winner's Curse and Bid-Rigging in Auction Rate Securities - Good analysis. I  read it several times but I'm still not sure I totally understand it. I will have to read it a few more times.

Wachovia's Way2Save: Deal or No Deal? (NetBanker) – Gimmicks banks play for marketing their savings account. Just give us good interest rate and quit playing games, will you?

You've Got Money: Invest It All or Dollar Cost Average? – Long post about lump sum, dollar averaging and value averaging. My thought on the same subject — if you already have the desired assets, would you sell and re-buy them over time? If the answer is no, you should just buy the assets you want in a lump sum. See Buy Now Or Buy Gradually Over Time?

HSH Market Trends, 02/08/08: Fixed Mortgage Rates as Flat as Economy – HSH raised an interesting point on the expansion of conforming loan limit in the economic stimulus package. Just because the limit is raised doesn't mean the larger loans will automatically enjoy the lower rate. If we throw them into a single pool, the added risk will likely raise the mortgage interest rate for everybody, including those who borrow under the old $417k limit.

That's all. Have a good weekend!

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Comments

2 Comments on TFB's Stumbles: Week Ending 2008-02-29

  1. lynnae @ being frugal.net on February 29, 2008 | permalink
    2.  

    Thanks for the mention!

  2. deltaforce on March 1, 2008 | permalink
    3.  

    Syndicating your favorite "Stumble Upon" stories is excellent!!

    Color me impressed!!

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