Nov 08
Tablets, smartphones and mobile devices will increasingly become the primary tools used to access online banking services, and young adults are the most likely to carry their bank in their pockets but a growing number of other age groups are likely to join them in the very near future.
Those are among the findings of Intuit Financial Services Fourth Annual Financial Management Survey, a study fielded in October 2011 involving 1,000 participants across the United States.
Two out of every five participants in the study said they own a smartphone, but only one in five said they use it to check balances, transactions, make payments, etc. 17% said they plan to try it in 2012.
Gen-Y is a different story. They live and bank on mobile devices.
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Nov 05
German Chancellor Angela Merkel told the press today that very few in the G20 signed on to the euro rescue plan, sending stocks down for the day. In more positive news, the US labor market added 80,000 jobs in October according to a recent report, though the employment outlook remained effectively flat. Daily deals site Groupon had its IPO today, with its stock rising 30 percent in today’s trading. Meanwhile LinkedIn , another tech company that went public recently, saw massive revenue growth this quarter but was still punished in the markets for a net loss. Read more…
Nov 02
Readers Question: What does the Government spend its money on?
The government spends money for a variety of reasons:
- Reduce inequality (welfare payments like unemployment benefit).
- Provide public goods (fire, police, national defence)
- Provide important public services like education and health (merit Goods)
- Debt interest payments.
- Transport
In the UK, the biggest department for public money is social security. This takes almost a quarter of all public spending.
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Oct 31
There are few things as alluring as the promise of free travel to exotic destinations. The banks know this, and have long offered travel rewards to their customers for receiving and using their credit cards. In turn, savvy credit card users have learned how to exploit these offers to travel in comfort and style well beyond their means.
Recently, I was explaining this to an European executive sitting next to me in Lufthansa’s Airbus A380 business class while returning home from a vacation in Italy. I told him that my family and I could not possibly have paid for our three, $7,000 tickets for this flight. But thanks to my travel rewards credit cards, my journey was all but free after some taxes and fees. Through careful selection and use of these product, these kinds of trips have become an annual occurrence for our family. W Read more…
Oct 29
Here are some firewood tips to consider as you begin stockpiling wood for your fireplace or stove this heating season:
To help avoid insect or pests, never store firewood on the ground or touching your house.
Burn only dry, seasoned and clean natural wood. Wood should be cut, split and stacked in a covered area for about six months before burning. Well-seasoned logs will seem lighter in weight and have dark cut ends with cracks or splits.
Some of the wood with the most heat value includes American beech, apple, ironwood, red oak, shagbark hickory, sugar maple, white ash, white oak, and yellow birch.
Wood is often sold by the cord or 1/2 cord. A cord of wood is a pile of logs 4 feet wide by 4 feet high by 8 feet long and weighs about 2 tons.
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Oct 24
More than half of British families are putting themselves at risk by failing to make adequate arrangements for their financial future, according to a new survey.
The Future of Retirement: Why Family Matters Report from HSBC found that 48% of UK parents currently have no life insurance, while 59% of childless adults are in the same position.
The study also found that people with children are less likely to put money away for their retirement and that only two-thirds of parents questioned for the survey had made a will. Despite this, only parents in Canada were more likely to have made a will than their UK counterparts.
Some 17,000 people in 17 countries, including 1,000 in the UK, were questioned for the report.
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