USAinDebt

How many letters do you get in your mailbox per day? 2, 5, 10, 15? How many of them are the annoying “You are Approved” Prescreen Offers from banks, dealerships, cellphone companies, mortgage lenders et cetera et cetera? If you are really tired of getting tons of mail every day, there is this wonderful website, called OptOutPrescreen. Thanks to the FCRA (Fair Credit Reporting Act) you can opt-out of prescreen offers, which stops consumer credit reporting agencies from serving your information to the companies, that like to bombard you with junk mail.

You have a couple of choices: you can electronically opt-out for 5 years, you can permanently opt-out by mail or you can opt-in.

Visit OptOutPrescreen

Tags: prescreen | opt-out | pre-approved

USAinDebt just got updated with a whole bunch of new features added! You can now Digg every post by clicking on the big yellow “Digg it” button. On the bottom of each article there is a “BOOKMARK” button - if you mouse over it, you can add the post to your Yahoo, Google, Del.icio.us, Facebook and many more websites (if yours is not listed, just click on “more”). Comments now have the function to subscribe and be notified when a new comment is posted (valid email required, and check the box “subscribe” at the bottom). Smiles can also be inserted in comments - just click on the one that you want.

All RSS subscriptions are now handled by Feedburner, which makes is easier to subscribe trough you favourite reader. A spam-protected contact form is added as well. The Bogroll is currently expanding as we exchange links with other blogs, and more sites will be added soon. USAinDebt is already registered on many blog directories and it is slowly emerging in the search engines as well.

More updates and new features are to follow! You comments & suggestions a very very appreciated and helpful!

  Tags: usaindebt | update | digg | subscribe | rss | comments

Probably everybody have heard that there is something called 401(k), but a lot of you don’t know what it is. Well, 401(k) is a voluntary retirement investment plan, and in simple words that is money you save for retirement.

There are two types of 401 plans. There is a 401(k) and also a 401(k) SIMPLE (Savings Incentive Match Plan for Employees). What makes them different is their allowances:

The SIMPLE plan is generally for companies that have 100 or less employees. Employees with SIMPLE can contribute maximum of $10000 per calendar year, or 12000 for individuals of age 50 and up. Employers are also required to contribute 2 to 3% employee contributions if SIMPLE 401(k) is offered.

Regular 401(k) plans (for companies with 100+ employees) allow workers to contribute up to $15500 per year, or 20500 for employees of age 50 and older. Employer matching is not required but most companies do match certain percentage.

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A pretty interesting article by Jonathan Clements, who gives some good advice on how to be ready to face recession: reclaim savings, downsize debt. Short tips on 401(k), Roth IR and other savings accounts; mortgage & refinancing; debt.

 Getting Going on WSJ.com

Tags: wall street journal | jonathan clements | savings | debt | cash

$8,993,695,814,457.91 or almost nine trillion us dollars. This is the current debt that our government is liable for. That’s more than the national debt of Japan, Germany and Italy combined. And even though Bush’s administration recently announced that 2007 deficit has dropped $90 billion below the reported in 2006, we’re still up to our ears.

Why is the government sinking in debt? Why is there a deficit? The federal budget deficit is the yearly amount by which spending exceeds revenue. So, they dropped the deficit. Great accomplishment! But in the real world reducing the deficit only means that less is added to the current national debt. Until deficit exists, this thirteen-digit number will continue going up. In the beginning of 2004, it was just above the 7 trillion mark. By November of 2005, this sum was way above 8 trillion. With the an estimated population of the United States already above 300,000,000 souls, each citizen’s share of this debt averages to about $30,000. But that is not all. As every other loan, the US national debt comes with an interest. And for the fiscal year of 2006, $406 Billion of taxpayer’s money were paid in interest to the holders of the national debt.

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The Annual Percentage Yield is a financial formula, used to calculate how much a deposit earns as interest. The higher the APY, the better the investments & the return!

As its name suggests, the Annual Percentage Yield is calculated for the period of one year. APY is a compound interest (you earn interest on your initial deposit + on your earnings). Different companies compound on a different time basis-daily, monthly, quarterly, semi-annual, yearly. Accounts with frequent deposits usually tend to have more frequent compounding periods. Higher compounding frequency means better return, better APY. <!–adsense–>

When choosing investment accounts, inquire about the compounding frequency. The account with the higher frequency is the one you want to put your money in

Tags: apy | credit | apr | investment | interest | compound

WiseBread.com has an interesting article on the slowly “sinking” US currency. The author has pointed out a couple of things that directly affect us because of that.

“It takes more than $1.40 to buy one euro today. It cost less than $1 as recently as late 2002. A Canadian dollar is worth just about exactly a US dollar–a parity not seen since the 1970s. Should Wise Bread readers care? If so, what should they do?”

The sinking dollar on WideBread

Tags: us currency | euro | inflation

USAinDebt just moved to its permanent hosting at SAVVIS data centers in US. We can now enjoy faster loading time and 99.9% server uptime!

More updates are to follow as new features are implemented, some downtime is possible.

Tags: usaindebt | hosting | updates

Introduced just recently (September 18th) Mint is the new “must have” in your Favorites. “Refreshing Money Management” is the company slogan behind this free finance management system.

My first good impression is the design and the usability of Mint’s interface. Light, very intuitive and easy to use. Everything is well-organized and in the right place. Mint offers a whole set of helpful money-management tools. Checking the balance on all your credit cards and bank accounts at the same time is done in a snap. The system can automatically retrieve your financial information from more than 3000 US banks and credit card companies. Email and text alerts can also be set-up to give you an early warning if something goes wrong with your account(s).

Mint categorizes and tracks all your transactions, and displays neat colorful charts that give you better view of your spending. It also has a built-in feature that tracks your spending habits and suggests ways to save funds by finding better credit card deals. You can easily compare and pick what suits your case.

In short, Mint is something to definitely take a look at. With its intuitive interface, helpful tools, accessibility and zero cost to the user, Mint has a great potential to grow further.

Mint

Tags: money management | mint | bank accounts | finance management | balance

jkOnTheRun has an interesting article that can help you out by saving you some $$$ with your cell phone bill. Good tips for Verizon, AT & T, T-Mobile USA and Sprint customers.

 Read full article here

Tags: verizon | t-mobile | at&t | sprint | cingular | save | cellphone