6
Getting Personal
Getting Personal
To view this content, Javascript must be enabled and Adobe Flash Player must be installed.
About the author
Christopher Farrell is economics editor of Marketplace Money, a nationally syndicated one-hour weekly personal finance show produced by American Public Media.
I think a lot of Baby Boomers are facing our situation: We don�t know what to do with our retirement funds. We will be retiring in a few months and cannot afford to lose a lot but yet we can accept some risks as we also have a defined benefit plan. A financial planner suggested we consider putting a large percentage of our retirement funds into �Collar Accounts�. He said these accounts limit your losses and they also limit your income. We believe there is a guaranteed income of 6%. I don�t fully understand how this works. It has something to do with having �Puts� and �Calls� on options to buy and sell stocks. He gave us the names of two companies that offer Collar Accounts. (Summit and Asset Mark) Would you please give us your opinion on Collar Accounts and how they work? http://collarinvesting.com/
My wife and I are 25 years old and we bought a house June of 2008. We both have good jobs, growing 401k's, relatively no debt and no children (yet). I received a generous gift of $10,000 from my Grandmother for Christmas. My wife says that paying down the principal of our house is the best investment we can currently make with the cash. While I know my idea of a new car definitely isn't the best plan in terms of ROI, but is paying down the principal the best way to go?
We are planning to save $600 a month to pay for private high school for our two boys. We have about 5 years before we will need to tap into the money. We have 529 accounts for them, but my husband does not want to put the money into those accounts. He wants to put the money into an index fund. My question is...is that a safe enough vehicle for money that we need to have available and intact in 5 years? Should we put half into and index fund, for the higher growth potential, and half in a money market savings? Thank you for your great show!
I want to refinance and consolidate the balance on our home equity line of credit, and am keeping an eye on rates. I have several questions: 1) I was told by a realtor friend that once I apply, I need to lock in a rate within 2 weeks, otherwise the shopping around would affect our credit score (which is very good). Is this true?
2) Although interest rates are very low now, I am wondering if they may yet go down; a 1/4 or 1/2 percent would make a big difference to us.
3) Even though banks are required to give a Good Faith Estimate of closing costs, there are myriad fees which vary widely from bank to bank, and this is confusing. Wachovia has perhaps the most convoluted system I've found. For example, it gives me a range where for a fixed 15 year, minus .125% points (very weird, what happened to simply 0 points?) mortgage with a 4.528 APR and ~ $5,000 in closing costs, up to a 1.25% points with a 4.875 APR, and ~$1800 in closing costs. It is hard to compare mortgages.
I would like to close all of my Chase credit cards, but I'm concerned about the impact on my credit score (about 750), if any. These cards account for a third of my $150,000 available credit for all of my credit cards. I do not owe any money on any Chase cards. Will closing all of them negatively impact my credit score? Thank you.
