The tax refund poll results are in. The question of the week was “Did you end up owing additional federal taxes this year, or did you get a refund?” and three-quartes of all respondents (74% to be exact) received a refund this year. Just keep in mind that a tax refund is little more than [...]

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This morning around 9AM the people that are buying our house will be having it inspected. It’s a pretty new house (just under four years), and we’ve kept it in great shape, so hopefully all will go well. Once we’ve made it past the inspection we can breathe a sigh of relief, as the only [...]

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Here are this week’s highlights from the MoneyBlogNetwork and beyond…

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I ran across a really useful website the other day and thought that I’d share it with y’all… If you ever need to find bank branch location/contact information just about anywhere in the United States, be sure to check out USA BancShares for a comprehensive list of FDIC-insured institutions broken down on a state-by-state (and [...]

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I just ran across a new story about a Tennessee woman (Debra Martindale) who checked her bank balance only to find that she had erroneously received a $25,289 tax refund when she was expecting just $4,800. Concerned that the IRS would eventually discover their mistake, and then come after her for interest, penalties and/or fines, [...]

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FiveCentNickel participated in two Carnivals this week, and also hosted the Carnival of Personal Finance. Here they are, along with links to my posts that were included in each…
The Carnival of Investing, which is up at pfBlueprint, included “Max that Roth! (Again)“.
The Best of Me Symphony, which is up at The Owner’s Manual, included “Exchanging [...]

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When buying a house, lenders typically require that you either make a 20% down payment, or carry private mortgage insurance (PMI). Obviously, you don’t want to incur unnecessary expenses, such as PMI, but it’s not always possible to come up with the cash for a 20% down payment. If you can’t arrange for a gift [...]

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It’s always irked me that our bank does this, but… Ever since we opened an account with them, they’ve charged $0.25 for PIN-based debit card purchases. Granted, we don’t end up having to do this all that often (maybe two or three times in the past few years), but still… How can they reasonably justify [...]

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In honor of taxes being due today, I thought it would be fun to find out what fraction of you ended up owing additional federal taxes this year vs. those that received (or are at least expecting) a refund. As I’ve noted here previously, we got a sizable refund this year (and it already arrived). [...]

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Good morning, and welcome to the 44th edition of the Carnival of Personal Finance. Coming on the heels of two somewhat ‘elitist’ Carnivals, I’ve decided to return the Carnival to it’s inclusive roots. If an on-topic post was submitted (and pretty much everything was at least loosely on topic), then you should see it below. [...]

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