Please note all posts have moved to my new blog: Science and Money. Please check it out for the latest ideas.
Carnival of Personal Finance
The 208th Carnival of Personal Finance is now up at Money Under 30. The host included my post on Who Benefits from Employee Benefits?.
I also enjoyed the post on Balance Transfer Credit Card Tips, Facts and Traps at The Digerati Life.
PennyJobs points out in Should I Stop My Mortgage Escrow? that some states have laws allowing you to opt out of escrowing your taxes and insurance, after you’ve had the mortgage a few years. I’ve always negotiated out of having my insurance premiums escrowed, but I’ve never tried to remove my taxes. I think that’s worth pursuing, as I could collect more interest than the miserly 0.10% paid by my current mortgage company by using a savings account of my choice. Thanks for the tip!
The theme for this week’s carnival was the Maine celebration of the Lobster Roll. While I commend you on your culinary creations, I’d also like to congratulate the LGBT community of Maine on the recent legislation giving them the right to marry. So for all you LGBT folks in Maine who might have questions about the legal and financial implications of getting hitched, I recommend you check out Queercents, a personal finance blog for our community. This might be filed under “shameless self-promotion,” as I do write for Queercents, but seriously, they have a lot of good advice collectively among their many writers.
Affine Tips Feed
I’ve never heard of the Carnival but I’ll be clicking over there when I’m done here.
I stopped mortgage escrow not so that I could get better interest (although I will) but so that I can bunch my property tax payments (which are high in Texas since we have no income tax) into every other year and take the standard deduction in the other years. By my calculation it will save me about $430 in taxes every two years and that number will increase.
Great point, Debra! Can you tell me about the process that you used to stop escrowing your taxes? Did it take a lot of work or just a phone call?
Thanks!