Alex

I'm planning to buy my first house in Texas in the next year and trying to determine how conservative I should be with my down payment. My worst case scenario includes paying out of pocket closing costs and appliances (plus maintaining an emergency fund and paying the initial costs of moving). Since my down payment will be less than 20% and I believe PPI will apply, I'm thinking of just putting 10% down. I'd rather underestimate and make additional payments after a few months - but that only benefits me if pre-payment penalties do not apply to the mortgage. Are they common?

I lost someone very close to me a while back. Almost immediately, I shut out all the bad things and thought of him as prince charming. It took a long time to start to remember the bad things and I had a lot of trouble reconciling the 2 people I had in my head - almost like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

I just found out a coworker passed away. This person had wronged me in the past and I didn’t particularly like him. Already everyone is saying he was great. I’m not going to be the jerk who disagrees during their mourning – they had a different relationship with him. It just brought up my past experience and made me curious about why our minds do this.

It’s a complicated question to ask on this forum, but my google searches haven’t been successful in finding an answer. Anyone know any good resources?

Is there a site that shows the average 401k return for the past few years? I’ve read that stocks tend to average 10% over many years, but that’s not the market we’re in right now. I’m looking for some sort of reference to see if my 401k is performing above/below average.

My provider (JP Morgan) offers a service for advice, but there is a fee. Does anyone have experience or advice regarding this option? I’m not comfortable with my level of stock market knowledge, so I am tempted to pay for help.

FYI, I’m contributing the max company match.

I've rented this apartment in Texas for more than 3 years. There is a rent drop box inside the apartment office and one with outside drop access. My lease clearly indicates late fees will be assessed if paid after the 2nd of the month. It also has a section regarding payment where 2 boxes are checked:

Rent and Charges. You will pay $___ per month for rent, in advance and without demand:

x at the on-site manager's office

x at rent drop box

After hours today I found the rent drop box has been sealed with notification that it is no longer in use.

Questions:

1) does the complex have the right to remove after hours rent drop box considering it was in the written lease and has always been available until now? Note, online payment is not an option.

2) if so, aren't they required to offer an after hours alternative?

3) aren't they required to notify residence in advance, something other than a note posted on the drop box?

Oscar, my 10 year old weiner dog, had a back problem about a year ago. Thankfully steroids and anti-inflammatories were enough to get him back to feeling well. We've got doggy stairs inside and I carry him over large jumps when playing outside.

I started giving him glocosamine and chondroitin as a preventative treatment, but he doesn't like the chewables I bought. He'll eat them, but it takes a bit of coaxing. Does anyone have advice on good tasting tablets?

10 days after surgery, the vet tech removed my dog's stitches. Today I used tweezers to pull out almost an entire stitch that was barely sticking out of his skin. I might see the edge of another one, but I'm not sure... I'm afraid I'll have to hurt him and re-open the wound a little to get to it. If there were pieces of sutures left in the wound, will the body heal around them or force them out? I.e. is it worth the risk for the possibility of preventing further harm.

The recent ads for perkstreet with 2% cash back rewards are appealing, but I’m not sure it’s right for me. It sounds like that “2% cash back” is in the form of gift cards to their preferred vendors and there are limitations on depositing/withdrawing funds. Online banks offer better interest rates because they don’t have the cost of a physical bank. It makes sense, but I’m still not quite convinced. Am I just stuck in “the way I’ve always done it” or am I right to be cautious about online bank accounts? I am interested in opinions of perkstreet or any other online bank. Thanks in advance for your advice.

I'm a corporate financial analyst. I saw a manager thumbing through resumes for a similar position and noticed they all were 2-3 pages. Feedback from online resume reviews stated my resume was "wordy," so I cut mine to one page. Am I sabotaging myself by being so brief?

I'm looking for professional advice on how to best handle old collection accounts including the credit score and tax implications. The yahoo answers community provides great information about specific questions, but I think I need to pay for services from a professional to review my personal circumstances. Is this a tax lawyer? Credit lawyer?

If anyone has experience in this situation, I'd really appreciate advice/information about the process and finding someone trustworthy.

Thank you

My charged off account is past the statute of limitation and will fall off my credit report this year. I am saving money in anticipation of owed income taxes. However, the IRS will only expect taxes once the collection agency resigns to not collecting (please correct me if I'm wrong). Will they give up once the 7.5 years has passed? What's their incentive for continuing efforts to collect after that point?

My credit reporting service says a major inhibitor to my credit score is low credit limit. I am considering opening a secured credit card to increase my credit limit, but am unsure of the amount to put aside.

What determines a less-than-low credit limit: is it a specific dollar amount or is it relative to some other credit determining factor? If a specific dollar amount, what is that amount?

Thank you for your help

I'm looking to open a secured credit card to improve my credit score, but I don't want another hard inquiry on my credit report. Are there any secured credit cards that will not check my credit, but still report to the credit reporting agencies?

I may be asking too much, but I figured I'd ask anyway :)

Is a creditor required to send me notification or a legal form showing the income (like an employer is required to send a W-2)?

I previously settled some debts, received no such form, and the IRS came calling for the back taxes a couple years later. I have other debts that, after inability to pay, consideration of credit report limits, and statute of limitations for claim suit, I have decided not to pay. How will I know when this is considered income by the IRS?