Just a word of advice for those of you tickled by the thought of owning a television or refrigerator by paying only the minimums on a 0% interest finance deal… see, the one thing that most stores don’t mention is that after the promotional period has ended, the interest that would’ve accrued during the promotional period will be packed onto the loan immediately!

My advice is to read the fine print to find out what the hidden interest rate is while the 0% promotional offer is in effect, sometimes it can be ridiculous. Second, only buy these products if you can pay off the entire thing before the promotional period ends. If you can’t, try to secure some better financing terms before the promotional period ends so you aren’t stuck paying ridiculous rates for a few months.

Finally, remember that it’s a loan so it’ll appear on your credit report and ding your credit score. If you plan on any big purchases, house or car, then you might want to hold off on the new flat screen.

I’ve been to a bunch of weddings lately and FMF’s article about the cost of weddings going up for attendees is pretty on point.

JLP asks if you’d buy a $31,000 110-hp 55 mpg vehicle… my answer is no. First off, $31,000 is outside my budget for a vehicle… 110-hp is a little too little for me even though 55 mpg is mighty impressive. You can do the math but I can tell you the tradeoff analysis won’t ever give you a reason to buy a 55 mpg $31,000 car.

Nickel writes about how he’s maxed out his FSA for the year… He also discusses how he has used it all up but won’t be around to make the rest of the payments. While it’s alright to feel guilty, ultimately the system works because it likely has a roughly net-zero effect across all accounts. Some overuse, most underuse. I also work it down to $0 but then again I pick up tails-up pennies on the ground (whichever ones are bad luck).

Flexo writes about how Kevin Federline supports the penny… I want to know how Federline is married to Britney Spears.

MBH has another Prosper related article, this time he worries about those borrowers who only borrow to lend it back out to other Prosper users. Sure you can score a 7% loan and lend back out to someone for a little more, but isn’t it easier to borrow at 0% and get a guaranteed 4.x% from an online savings account?

Usually the questions sent into Walter Updegrave, a Money magazine senior editor, are like softball pitches - pretty transparent and easy to knock out of the park. This week’s question is a little bit trickier… Victor of Boca Raton, FL asks whether he should take the monthly annuity payments from his pension of $3,600 or a lump-sum payment of $775,000. He has half a million in his 401(k) and IRAs. There is a second question, would he get more if he took the lump sum and invested it in an income annuity. If this is a softball pitch, I’d have struck out.

(read full article…)

An article on CNN estimates that $52 billion in office supplies are taken from employers each year. In the 18-24 age category, 20% felt that taking office supplies wasn’t wrong and 25% actually took supplies home. Comparatively, only 8% of the 65 and up group took supplies home.

I’ve taken home office supplies. Shocker… I use pens and I stick them in my pocket, I change my pants and the next thing I know I have like 50 blue Bic pens at home and no real reason. Sometimes I bring a handful into work and stick them in my desk but most of the time I just use them at home. I take notebooks to use in my classes, justified in the fact that my employer reimburses me for those classes so a notebook doesn’t really matter. In fact, I take so many notes I’ve used same two notebooks in like 10 classes. Do I take tape? I do have a dispenser at home (little plastic ones where you can’t replace the tape after it’s used up) but I don’t have anything else.

Do I care if someone takes office supplies? No. Do I think it’s wrong? If you take a couple pens, some notebooks, some post-it notes, I don’t think it’s a big deal. If you take an LCD monitor… yeah that’s stealing.

How about you?

I had a friend ask me whether the proceeds from a car sale were considered income and so I thought I’d do a little digging outside of my off-the-cuff answer of “no.”

Usually when you buy a car, you drive it around, it loses value, and you sell it sometime later at a price under what you paid for it. You don’t claim depreciation while you drive it and so your cost basis for the car is at what you paid for it. When you sell it, it’s at a loss and so you’ve generated no income from the sale. You do not claim the proceeds as income on your tax return.

There are situations where you are supposed to declare it as income. Let’s say you’re a car buff, you buy a junker at $500, fix it up and sell it at $2000. You’ve generated $1,500 of income from that sale and so you must declare that as income. Of course, you can deduct the use of your garage, tools, etc. The second situation is if you’re a business and you’ve been depreciating the vehicle on an accelerated schedule - if you sell before the schedule expires then you have to recapture the deductions (chances are you’re not, but if you want more information then consult IRS Pub 946 - How To Depreciate Property)

Yep, HSBCDirect, who has been offering some of the more aggressive rates amongst well know names, and Emigrant Direct, which has seemingly followed lockstep, have increased their online savings account rates to 4.80%. Comparatively, slowpoke ING Direct is still down there at 4.25%.

Promotions: ING Direct offers a $25 referral if you deposit $250, use this self-serve $25 ING Direct promotion page if you want a referral. HSBC is offering a $25 Best Buy card for new account openings (though the fine print says “Must be a Best Buy cardholder to qualify for gift card offer.” and I don’t know what that means).

I’ve since been told it will be 10% off whatever the rate BG&E charges, in this case only a 15% hike. So… the contents of the article below appear to be wrong.

Much thanks to risk for looking into this. For everyone who signed up with WGES, before the recent developments, in order to get 10% off what they thought would be a 72% rate hike by BG&E - you want to cancel and go back to having BG&E being your provider. BG&E’s rates will only increase 15% by July 1st and won’t reach full market rates until January 2008… the 10% off that you get is 10% off market rates, or 72% of what they are now (on average).

I erroneously thought you’d get 10% off whatever BG&E charged (since their site states “10% OFF New BGE Summer Generation Rates”) but you are will be charged full market rates.

risk called up WGES, what I should’ve done but was simply too eager to accept my own common sense interpretation (otherwise known as being lazy), and a representative confirmed that you’d be getting 10% off the market rates. I’m going to break my contract asap.

jim, I just called WGE, the CSR told me the 10% off is off from the market price (aka 72% hike price)… She also told me that given the new solution, WGE could let the customer switch back to BGE, aka break the one-year contract, without penalty. I probably will check with WGE late 2008