FILAM FINANCE

If you have a lot of credit cards that have a high interest rates, one way to save money is by consolidating them. For most homeowners, the solution is using their home equity line of credit to consolidate those credit cards and loan. One big advantage in doing this is that the interest rates on the home […]

The lowering of the interest rates by the  Federal Reserve means good news for the borrowers but bad news for the savers. The interest rates on most savings and money market funds would normally follow after 30 days of the interest rate adjustment by the Federal Reserve. With the current interest rate at 4% - […]

Pay day loans have really increased its popularity because a lot of people who need a short term financial solution have utilized their services. As I drove by in one of the busiest highway in my area, you can see a lot of payday loans or advance check cashing center.
Nowadays, payday loans are also available […]

With the downturn of the mortgage industry, most banks are now tightening the credit standards. Gone are those days where homebuyers can get loans by exagerrating their income on their application (also called as “stated income”) with a teaser rate (ARM jumbo loans).
For regular personal loans, there are some banks that are really strict that they would check […]

As indicated in my”About” page, I will also keep track of my debts on this blog. Our credit cards debt have been kept to a minimum so I won’t be mentioning it a lot. One of my goals with blogging is to generate income so that it would not only cover the expenses for running […]

One of my friend refinanced his mortgage a couple of years ago to convert his high mortgage rate to a much lower one. Also, he had an adjustable rate back then and he switched to a fixed rate, thus, giving him a peace of mind from the unpredictable swing in the monthly payment every year. […]

It’s all over the news, “Subprime borrowers face losing their homes.” Fingerpointing started to arise as some people are saying that the lenders have taken advantage of the innocent consumers into signing bad loans. However, the lending industry is countering that the consumers should have known how much they can afford. The industry argued that that […]

I am writing this post to give you a quick synopsis of my future F-inancial IL-literacy A-nd M-istakes articles. The first topic, I used to be in the low income household, has already been posted and this one talks about my humble beginnings. The article discussed our family’s migrating to America with little or no money to begin with and being […]

As part of my weekly FILAM articles, I will also be keeping track of the three major debts in my finances: credit card debts, loan on vacant land, and student loan.
Credit Cards
After paying off at least $20,000 of credit card debts in 2002, I have stopped using those plastics for a couple of years. However, I […]