Does this ring true for you guys?

I feel like here in NYC there has always been some type of higher-cost-of-living issue (rent espcially but also groceries, incidentals) but the salaries were vaguely proportionate.

But do you find that your general living costs are now eating up the bulk of your budget rather than your "latte factor" or your ( Read more... )

Subprime victim -- "The chain reported a 14.8 percent drop in second-quarter profit this year, and this could just be the beginning. An estimated two million foreclosures are expected by 2009, with an associated property loss of $106 billion."

If I worked at this company I would want to kill this person!

Holy shit.

Also -- weirdly, Amy Poehler & Will Arnett model for the GAP in most recent ad-campaigns - I love how every comment is like a Gob-inspired COME ON!

Other internetty points of interest today:

Elizabeth Warren points fingers at shady mortgage brokers giving people subprime mortgages when they could have gotten lower fixed rates -- essentially blaming them for at least part of the subprime financial mess the market is in.  Oh, and she's gotten tons of hate mail for this article according to The ( Read more... )

TransUnion is going to be the first credit union to allow us to voluntarily freeze our credit reports!  Usually you can't do this unless you've been a victim of ID theft, which is ridiculous.  It's a good way to protect your credit and unreal that they weren't letting us do this to begin with.

Granted, it will cost a little bit.  I hope Experian and ( Read more... )

If you hadn't heard already.

EDITED:
Newer piece saying it's only going up 10% next year instead. Shitty but better news.

(Still) Boo!

They go the extra mile with a 4 year-old kid who jumps out of the repo-ed car.

And the extra mile trying to shake down a homeless man's unrelated concerned citizen "emergency contact".

On that note: here is this week's Carnival of Personal Finance.

There's a good guest post about Renting vs Owning on today's Get Rich SlowlyAround the PF blogs, you have heard these arguments before for sure. The NYT calculator is pretty interesting though. When I plugged in what my rent is vs what a condo would be (at a mere $300k, a total lowball price for Bklyn - you can barely find them in Kensington for ( Read more... )

Interesting Congress initiative to prevent banks from bending you over.

A while ago, in a show episode, Suze demanded that a single mother get rid of her dogs. They were costing her money she didn't have - get rid of them.

That was probably the first email I sent her stating my displeasure with her advice.

Now TSD has this post on pets. (At one point in another post he listed getting rid of pets as a way to trim ( Read more... )