Recent content by bankaround

Hi, I'm new to this forum. I, like everyone else here, am looking forward to an early retirement but am trying to get my parents to retire first as they have been working 14-16hr days for the past 25 years+!

I believe FDIC legally can take up to 100 years to repay you but if that ever happens, it would cause a lot of chaos.

Do you have a WAMU in your area? You don't really even need one in your area as WAMU lets you open accounts online. I think they have a 12 month CD at 4.5% that you can try to use that as leverage?

You are relatively young, and definitely want to stick money in some mutual fund or at least index fund so that your money has a chance to grow and not just keep the same purchasing power. Inflation is probably only going to get worse.

danno1, another way you can try to convince them is to find a bank or two in your area and tell them, look, I can go here and here to get a higher rate but I really enjoy banking with you guys, etc... and if you can match what they can give me, I'll be more than happy to stay.

JW, forgot to add that since you are in socal like me, do you have your own home? I would buy a home for yourself first. If you do have your own home, buying a property local to your area (then you can manage it yourself) may not be a bad idea in a year or two if you can cashflow. Just don't...

I bought a number of rental properties at a young age. Single family homes are tough to cashflow. It's more a buy and hold for 7-10 years type deal and hope the value of the home has gone up a bit and inflation has increased rent (depending on the local market). You have to ask yourself, what...

While the chances of GE sinking is slim, we all thought the same about Enron a few years ago. Plus 33% is way too much. I agree with a few of the posters in saying I wouldn't go out and sell it right away but look into buying stocks from a few different sectors so that not so much money is...

I think the USD still has plenty of problems. The economy isn't going to start booming again overnight but the USD was so beaten up and commodities had just gone up too much too quick.

Most of the time, if you have a large amount of money in the bank and the new rate is not much more than maybe 1% than your previous rate, you should be able to convince them to give it to you.