The current economic crisis is one of the worst in history. While recent recessions didn’t have a major effect on the average person, this crisis has touched just about everyone. Banks have failed, jobs have been cut, homes have been lost, retirement funds have been decimated, and it has become more difficult to borrow money. There have even been questions about the reliability of treasury bonds, and that was previously unheard of. So what’s next – could the savings in your money market account be at risk? All in all, money market accounts are very safe places to keep your...

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Setting up a savings account is an important step in securing your financial future. It allows your money to earn interest, yet allows you easy access to it in the event of an emergency. But most basic savings accounts offer low interest rates compared to those of CDs and other accounts that provide limited access to your money. One way you can keep your money available while earning higher interest is by putting it into a money market account. Money market accounts let you withdraw your money when you need it, yet pay higher interest than your average savings account....

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Gone are the days when you had to make a trip to the bank to open a savings account. Now there are lots of online banks to choose from, and you can open an account with them from the comfort of your own home. Since they do business exclusively online and have no branch locations, they have low overhead and can offer very competitive interest rates and low fees. That’s not to say that there are no disadvantages. If you go with an online bank, the chances of finding a current customer to talk to about his experiences, and whether...

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The Health Savings Account, or HSA, is a relatively new option for U.S. taxpayers. Signed into law in 2003 as part of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act, these accounts were intended to help compensate for the high deductibles and low reimbursements of some healthcare plans. Health Savings Accounts allow workers to make tax-exempt deposits to be used toward medical expenses. The funds can pay for medical bills not covered by insurance, over the counter medications that are prescribed by a doctor, or even non-medical expenses if they are taken after retirement age. Here is some advice and...

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Generally speaking, inflation occurs when the price of goods and services increase over time. For consumers, inflation is usually considered to be a bad thing, because your money will buy fewer and fewer things. If your income is growing at a rate faster than the rate of inflation then you won’t have this reduced spending power. However, many workers are finding that their incomes aren’t rising fast enough to keep up. From a saver’ s perspective, however, inflation isn’t a bad thing. Rising interest rates go hand in hand with rising inflation, including the interest rates that are available...

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The concept of inflation is pretty simple. It is defined as a general rise in prices in an economy over a given amount of time. There is some debate about the causes of inflation, but its effects on consumers are clear. It reduces the value of currency, which means that the same amount of money buys us a lower amount of goods and services than it did before. The rate of inflation varies from year to year. Monetary authorities strive to keep inflation low and steady, but sometimes it rises due to circumstances beyond their control. Fortunately, rising inflation rates...

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Marriage is more than just an affirmation of two people’s love for one another. It’s a joining of two lives. Once you become husband and wife, you become one household with one set of finances. While you might keep separate bank accounts, any money that one spouse makes or any debt that one spouse incurs now belongs to both of you. That’s why it’s so important that newlyweds do some serious financial planning. Ideally, it should start before you tie the knot. At the very least, it needs to get underway as soon as the honeymoon is over. Here is some...

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