Is Your Bank Targeting You with Overdraft Notices?

Wondering why you’ve been bombarded with literature urging you to opt in for overdraft protection at your bank?

You may be the subject of a highly focused campaign meant to target consumers most likely to spend in excess of their balance.

Starting August 15, new Federal Reserve rules will require that banks can no longer automatically cover overdrafts and then levy a fee ($27 on average, per Moebs Services Inc.) as they had been; they’ll now need to get customers to opt ..read more

Nevada job market plummets from first to worst

What happens when your home state goes from having the best job market in the nation…to the worst?

Just five years ago, Nevada was the state with the best economic conditions for workers, according to a study released last week.  Now it’s dead last. Unsurprisingly, other states that boomed in the real-estate bubble — Florida, California and Arizona — joined the Silver State at the bottom of the state-by-state mid-year employment rankings published by the business news site Portfolio.com and American City ..read more

IRAs inspire uneven loyalty

Only a fraction of Americans contribute to an IRA, but the ones that do tend to take it to the max.

That’s one of the findings from a recent study of 10 million individual retirement accounts conducted by the Investment Company Institute, a mutual fund industry trade organization. The study — which also indicates that women are more likely to contribute to an IRA than men are, that the wealthy are more likely to contribute than the poor, and that ..read more

Should you opt in for overdraft protection?

You can officially say goodbye to that $40 cup of coffee — that is, if your bank doesn’t badger you into paying for it all over again.

Thanks to new Federal Reserve rules, you now can decide what happens when you pull out a debit card to pay for a purchase but don’t have enough money in your checking account to cover it.

Previously, if you didn’t have enough in your account to make a purchase, your bank would generally cover it ..read more

What if the housing bubble never happened?

Ever wonder where home prices would be today if the real estate market never overheated? Now you can get a clue, thanks to a new online tool from MacroMarkets, the company founded by housing economist Robert Shiller of the Case-Shiller home price index.

To crunch the numbers for the application, called the Gap Gauge, the firm assumes that after 2000, when many markets started to bubble, home prices instead simply continued to increase at the same pace at which they had ..read more

Your Midyear Tax Checkup, day 3: Three write-offs to plan for

You may not like thinking about taxes this far out from April 15, but you like saving money, don’t you? To the tax planners go the spoils. So all this week we’ve been highlighting things you can do now to make the next tax day more bearable, if not enjoyable.

So far, we’ve covered how to estimate your tax bill for the year to see if you’ll be square and how to sell investments strategically. Today’s lesson is about maximizing your ..read more

Your Midyear Tax Checkup, day 2: Sell investments strategically

Having hit the midpoint of 2010, we’re doing a week-long spree of tax planning posts this week (check out the earlier one on figuring out if you’ll be square with Uncle Sam). As any tax pro knows, a little foresight can go a long way toward making your next April 15 a little more pleasant.

Today’s topic: Investing strategy.

If you sold an investment in ‘07, ‘08, or early ‘09 for less than you bought it for — as many people ..read more

Your midyear tax checkup, day 1: Make sure you're square with Uncle Sam

Believe it or not, 2010 is already half over. And while you’re seeking relief indoors from the triple-digit July misery outside — it’s currently a brain-melting 102°F here in New York — you might make use of this respite to think about your taxes.

Yeah, yeah. That’s not the summer fun you’d planned. We get it. But as Hunt Valley, Md. financial planner and CPA Drew Tignanelli puts it,”The best time to do tax planning is in the year you’re planning ..read more

Investors are treating Wall Street like Detroit

It was only a decade ago that the U.S. stock market was considered the place where average Joes could achieve the American Dream, much like workers viewed Detroit’s once-gleaming auto industry. But after the technology bubble burst in 2000, the market’s reputation was tarnished — and folks started to favor flashier foreign stocks instead.

That may have been understandable back then, since U.S equities weren’t just laggards following the tech crash; they were still pricey to boot. But how do you ..read more

Most-hated-fee contest: Round 4

If you’re sick of getting nickel-and-dimed, now’s your chance to express your aggravation. In preparation for a story about 15 irritating fees — and how to avoid them — MONEY asked readers for the most frustrating fees they’ve been charged by banks, airlines and other businesses. We received 2,000 responses.

Now we’re crowning the biggest loser: The Most-Hated Fee of All. This week, we’re asking you to narrow down the field of 15 outrageous fees by picking your least-favorite surcharge among ..read more

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