Bankrate Information
IRA withdrawal may aid home buyer (Detroit News) Q.My husband and I are purchasing our first home. I was planning on liquidating my IRA (less than $10,000) for the house. I'm confused about the "qualified acquisition expense" term. No Web site tells me what that truly means. They say it's for building or rebuilding. Is rebuilding another term for remodeling? We would like to use the money to remodel and not put down on the house.
Consumer Shopping Bag (Denver Post) Q: I saw in The Post the list of FDIC-insured CDs and their rates. I called one of them but the line was not in service, and another number was answered by someone who didn't seem to know what was going on. How would I know if it's a legitimate business?? Monica O'Brien Wolfe, Lakewood
Better savings rate possible (The Columbus Dispatch) NEW YORK -- As interest rates have fallen, so have the yields on your savings. High-yield CDs, which are currently averaging 3.4 percent, are down from more than 5 percent a year and a half ago. Money-market accounts are yielding only 2.3 percent on average.
Creative ideas for inexpensive Father's Day gifts (Akron Beacon Journal) From Bankrate.com's Laura Shanahan, consider these five ideas for Father's Day gifts that won't break the bank:
Debt treadmill (Bankrate.com) Savings are at an all-time low in America, while the debt load continues to climb. How bad is it? Americans have a love-hate relationship with debt.
Has the credit crunch hit your home equity line? (The Christian Science Monitor) Lenders are shrinking these lines of credit, making it harder for Americans to finance major expenses.
Get the most out of your credit card rewards (Poughkeepsie Journal) You've stopped going out to eat, canceled your cable TV service and learned to cut your own hair. But you still have to buy groceries and gas. And the kids have promised to stop making fun of your hair if you take them on vacation this summer. Will re-wards programs help you stretch your tattered dollars during these tough economic times?
Expert: Don Taylor, Ph.D., CFA, CFP (Bankrate.com) Dear Dr. Don, I know you are able to get one free credit report a year from each of the credit bureaus, which I already do. But I've also read that you are able to set up free fraud alerts with them.
Financial lessons from dear, old dad (Bankrate.com via Yahoo! Finance) Bankrate readers share words of financial wisdom from their fathers.
Security freeze better than fraud alert (Bankrate.com via Yahoo! Finance) A security freeze offers stronger protection than a fraud alert, says Dr. Don Taylor.
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