Your rates of bank

Dear Terry,
We purchased a 2003 Cadillac CTS with a loan amount of $23,442 at 7.75 percent. Our monthly payment is $474 over five years. The car has 32,000 miles and is in excellent condition.
My husband wants to trade for a car that uses less gas. We don’t average more than 40 miles a week, since we’re retired. I think he is wrong. Please advise.
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Bernanke’s testimony

Bernanke’s Congressional testimony

Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke gave his semiannual testimony on the economy. I’ll make this quick, sparing you the cut-and-paste of his various comments that I usually resort to in favor of some brief comments.

–Bernanke made it clear that no interest moves, up or down, appear forthcoming. He continued to talk tough on inflation but noted the various pressures affecting the economy as increasing the downside risk to the economy. He even stated that the FOMC needs time to monitor incoming information. Sounds to me like he doesn’t want to paint, or talk, himself into a corner.

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It’s getting harder to find a car to lease these days. Chrysler’s financial arm recently pulled out of the car leasing business, and Ford Motor Credit, GMAC and many large banks also have announced pullbacks.- advertisement -

The reason? Lease financing companies, particularly the Big Three automakers’ captive finance arms, are being pummeled by the falling residual values of trucks and SUVs coming off lease, which have fallen as much as 20 percent in just the last few months.

The impact? If you’ve got excellent credit — 700 credit score or above — and are looking to lease outside of the Big Three, you’ll likely still qualify for a decent deal. Otherwise, you’ll either be out of luck or will face much higher lease payments.

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Dear Terry,
We owe $17,379.40 on our auto loan. We have already purchased a smaller vehicle that gets better gas mileage and has a slightly lower monthly payment. You said to give back the original car to the dealer or the finance company only as a last resort. Help.
— Gregory Merkel

Dear Gregory,
If you simply turn the old vehicle back to the finance company without paying off the balance, it will damage your credit score the same as a repossession. Try selling the old vehicle. Since I assume you owe more than it’s worth, try to find the cash to cover the shortfall. (more…)

Dear Terry,
I’d like to dispute your statements about the major drawbacks to diesels.
You wrote: “There are two big drawbacks to U.S. consumers buying diesels: The fact that a gallon of diesel costs more than a gallon of regular gasoline and the $1,000 to $3,000 extra a buyer will pay when purchasing a diesel model instead of a comparable gas-powered model.”

True, gas is currently around a dollar less than the same quantity of diesel. However, you can go farther on that gallon of diesel than a gallon of gas. Just check the EPA Web site, that actually lists the costs per gallon of fuel for cars and trucks. You’ll find that diesel fuel costs less despite costing more at the pump.

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Are you thinking about buying a new car, but dreading the dealer haggles that come with the purchase? There are a number of car-buying services that say they’ll do the negotiating dirty work for you, and save you thousands of dollars in the process.- advertisement -

These services are often just a mouse click or phone call away. Fees range from free (if you’re a member of one of their affiliates) to anywhere from $200 to $400, with about half of the amount due upfront.

Buyers typically begin by calling the car-buying service or filling out information online.

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If you’ve ever aimlessly wandered around in a crowded parking lot, you probably have a notion of what it feels like to have your vehicle stolen. There’s that sense of dread, unease and confusion as you think, “It has to be here somewhere. My car couldn’t have just driven away.”- advertisement -

Well, yes — it could.

Every 26.4 seconds, another car is stolen in the United States, according to a report by the National Insurance Crime Bureau. The good news is that the number of car thefts has been decreasing over the last three years. The bad news is that the recovery rate of stolen autos is also down.

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Dear Terry,
I bought a car in 2006 and my daughter bought a similar car in 2006. My car was purchased June 29 and hers was purchased around July.
Something went wrong with the paperwork on my car and I had to redo it. There was also a problem later with my daughter’s paperwork. According to the salesman, they needed my signature on both papers and my daughter had to also re-sign her papers.

My daughter defaulted on her car loan, and now her loan company is after me for payment. According to her loan company, my name is the only one on the deal. They came and took her car and sold it.

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Dear Terry,
I have a five-year loan for my 2006 Acura at 5.4 percent. My monthly payment is $620 a month.
I have 36 months left and am considering refinancing my car to lower the monthly payments to pay for some unexpected life events.

Is this a wise time in the market to do this or will it hurt me in the long run? Will refinancing hurt my credit score?
— Brandy

Dear Brandy,
You can always refinance and it shouldn’t hurt your credit score. But I doubt you can do better than a 5.4 percent loan in today’s market. (more…)

Washington Mutual, Wachovia and National City are among the financial institutions that have announced huge losses and are looking for billions of dollars from private equity firms or others in the industry just to keep their doors open. In all likelihood, the bigger banks and savings and loan associations will survive the mortgage debacle and ensuing credit crunch, albeit somewhat battered and bruised.- advertisement -

But smaller banks may not fare as well, although it doesn’t appear that we’ll see a cascade of bank failures. Nevertheless, the increased risk has prompted the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., or FDIC, to beef up its staffing in anticipation of banks going belly-up.

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Dear Terry,
I have a car loan with my ex. He has the car at this time and once again is not paying for it.
Do I have any option to get my name off of this car since I have not had it for almost three years? The loan was signed as “AND,” not “OR.” Is there anything I can do now, or do I have to wait until the car is found by the loan company?
— Cassandra

Dear Cassandra,
Unfortunately, you’re stuck, unless you have something in your divorce decree that mitigates the situation. (more…)

Some ways to get help in providing medical care for your pets.

Help for your pets

1.Pet clinical trials2.Student programs3.Veterinarian payment plans4.Helping Pets Fund5.Humane Society grant program6.Pet care insurance7.Practice preventative health care8.Food issues9.Foster homes/breed rescue10.Pet credit card

Pet clinical trials
“There are many clinical studies that are ongoing at The University of Tennessee as there are at other universities,” says Joe Bartges, DVM, Ph.D., a professor at the College of Veterinary Medicine of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. “Many clinical studies provide care and treatment and follow-up at no expense to pet owners, while others subsidize the cost of providing the medical care.”

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Troubles in the U.S. credit markets may have an impact on how you buy your next car or truck.

Leases subsidized by manufacturers — those deals that make a lot of luxury vehicles affordable on a monthly payment basis for many consumers — may become highly restricted.

Chrysler Financial has announced it is pulling out of the lease financing business. GMAC Financial Services — the largest auto financing company in the United States — and Ford Motor Credit Co. have said that they will be less involved in pushing subsidized leases.

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PPI heightens inflation worries

Untitled DocumentProducer prices heighten inflation worries

The Producer Price Index, or PPI, was released this morning, and while this reading is often overshadowed by the Consumer Price Index and certainly the Fed’s favored gauge, the Personal Consumption Expenditures Index, this month it raises its own concerns.

The headline PPI was up a modest 0.2 percent in April, but that doesn’t reflect the continued surge in oil prices we’ve seen this month. In the past 12 months, the headline PPI has advanced 6.5 percent.

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In this age of flash-in-the-pan pop stars, the steady longevity of Steve Winwood can be hard to fathom. Now 60, Winwood began performing as a teenager, scoring his first hits at the age of 17, when his band The Spencer Davis Group rocked the charts with “Gimme Some Loving” and “I’m a Man.”- advertisement -

Over the next decade he formed the supergroup Blind Faith with Cream refugee Eric Clapton, then followed it with the popular ’70s act Traffic, releasing classics including “The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys” and “Dear Mr. Fantasy.”

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Millions of people know actor John O’Hurley as the man with the stentorian voice who entertained us as Elaine Benes’ boss on “Seinfeld.” His witty and wry portrayal of J. Peterman led to many successful print and TV ads for major companies.- advertisement -

Or maybe you remember him for mesmerizing us with his fancy footwork as the runner-up celebrity dancer in the first season of “Dancing With The Stars,” where he ended up in a dance-off with soap star Kelly Monaco. In winning the September 2005 rematch against Monaco, he earned $126,000 for the charity Golfers Against Cancer.

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Dear Terry,
I leased a 2007 auto about 20 months ago. I lost my job about six months into the lease, and between my house, car and credit cards, I got three months behind on everything before going back to work.
I got caught up on the house, but once I was 90 days behind on the car, they wanted the vehicle back. Well, my credit was so bad I couldn’t get another car, so I asked them to accept a three-month catch-up payment once I had the money. They said I missed being able to do that by two days. They told me someone would come get the car. (more…)

Dear Terry,
I recently went into a dealer looking to buy a car. When we started talking about financing, the dealer brought me interest rates that were higher than usual.
When I confronted the dealer about how high the rates were, he asked what I would like to see. I told him in the range of between 4 percent to 5 percent.

About two minutes later, he came back to me with about what I wanted. Do the dealers get any kind of bigger kickback to finance autos at a higher rate? Or do they just not care and go with the lender they normally work with?

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Divorce is rarely an easy process. But falling home values and sluggish real estate sales are combining to make it particularly difficult right now.- advertisement -

Couples aren’t fighting over who gets to keep the house. They’re scrambling to get away from the burden of it. It’s too soon to see the trend reflected in official statistics; the most recent marriage and divorce numbers compiled by the National Center for Health Statistics date back to 2005 — just when real estate markets started to turn down from their boom years. But lawyers and financial planners anecdotally say they are seeing more clients stay married — if only for the time being — simply because they cannot afford to break up.

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The federal government has put its foot down: A lender can’t give you a subprime mortgage unless you are able to repay it. And that goes for jumbo mortgages, too — maybe.- advertisement -

You’re probably wondering why the feds find it necessary to tell lenders that they shouldn’t hand over the money before figuring out whether borrowers can afford the monthly mortgage payments. That seems awfully basic. But for a while, verifying a borrower’s ability to pay was out of fashion.

Like bell-bottom jeans, the practice of verifying a mortgage borrower’s ability to repay was wildly popular when Led Zeppelin ruled the airwaves, then became hopelessly uncool, and now is popular again.

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They should call Chase at the phone number that is on their mortgage statement.- advertisement -

When should borrowers call you — before they’re late with their first payment, or sometime later on (e.g., 60 to 90 days after missing the first payment)?
Borrowers concerned they may miss a payment should call their lender. It is never too early to start the discussion.

Should a borrower ask to speak with someone specific?
If a borrower calls Chase to discuss possible payment difficulties, the initial discussions will be handled through the customer care department.

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Dear Terry,
I have severe buyer’s remorse after taking delivery of a new Mazda 3i three days ago. I’ve only driven the car 15 miles since I bought it, and actually did not take it to work today out of fear.
The day after I bought the car (mind you it is a newer model than the one I traded in), I saw that it is not as well rated for safety as other cars of its size and class. I am concerned because I am on the road 100 miles a day (50 to and from work). (more…)

Prior to becoming the captivating star she is on the hit TV show “CSI,” Marg Helgenberger had a very interesting career path while living in Nebraska. Besides being the local weather girl, she also worked in the meat packing plant where her father was a meat inspector.- advertisement -

But Helgenberger had bigger plans in her sights. Just two weeks after graduating from Northwestern University with a drama degree, she moved to New York City and landed a role on the daytime soap, “Ryan’s Hope.” But it was her turn as the drug-addicted prostitute K.C. on the TV series “China Beach” in the late 1980s that really established Helgenberger’s career and personal life.

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