Online Business Blog

Try to be a wine connoisseur in Dickinson, N.D.

Gordon and Sandee Schnell had a hard time until the state changed its rules in 2001 and allowed wineries to buy permits to ship directly to residents — one case of wine per person, per month.

But now Congress is considering legislation that could limit wineries’ ability to sell and ship directly to consumers. The wholesale distributors who proposed the legislation say it will keep wine from minors, limit alcohol consumption and ensure states control sales.

It’s left the Schnells puzzled.

“The argument against it was that young kids would be buying wine,” Gordon Schnell asked. Read Full Post…

Long before there was MoneyGram and Western Union, people in South Asian countries often used an informal network of brokers, called an “hawala,” to transfer money over long distances when it was too inconvenient or dangerous to send cash by courier.

Today, the centuries-old system still exists and is used to move billions of dollars annually in and out of countries like Pakistan, Afghanistan and Somalia — often to the chagrin of U.S. law enforcement.

Authorities have been investigating whethere Faisal Shahzad, a U.S. Read Full Post…

Marie and Arry Joseph didn’t want to live on one income, at least at first.

Arry, an electrician, lost his job and was out of work for several months, so the Atlanta-area couple lived on her income as a computer analyst. By the time he found steady full-time work again, they were used to their new lifestyle. They continued to live on her paychecks and started to save his, and were quickly “surprised at how much money we had.”"If he had only been laid off for three months, we probably would have gone right back to consuming,” said Marie, who blogs about her personal finances as Moneymonk. “We got a lot of practice (saving money) . . .

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At least once in your life — maybe even once a week or once a day, for that matter — you have fantasized about coming into a lot of money. What would you do if you were worth millions or even billions? Some of you may do nothing at all. Believe it or not, there are millionaires and billionaires among us who masquerade as relatively normal, money-conscious people. Take a peek at some of the most frugal wealthy people in the world.

Warren Buffett

Millions of people read Warren Buffett’s books and follow every move of his company, Berkshire Hathaway. But the real secret to Buffett’s personal fortune may be his penchant for frugality.

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With the Federal Reserve out of the mortgage market and the economy gaining strength, some economists are warning that mortgage rates, still near historical lows, will soon start rising.

That presents a tough choice for borrowers with adjustable-rate mortgages or home-equity lines of credit: Should they trade their low-rate loans for more-expensive fixed-rate loans? Or should they stick with a cheap rate and gamble that it won’t adjust sharply higher?

The answer depends on how long borrowers plan to live in their homes and how much interest rates are going to rise.

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Forget “Hey, baby, what’s your sign?” For anyone looking to buy a house with a spouse someday, “What’s your credit score?” may be a better pickup line.

The lower a person’s credit score is, the higher the conventional mortgage loan rate. In the case of couples who apply for a mortgage together, one spouse’s stellar score won’t make up for the other’s lousy one. The lender bases the rates only on the lower of the two credit scores.

“Current underwriting guidelines require that the lender default to the lower score to make a credit risk determination,” says Robert McDonald, principal at Mass Mortgage Group in Medford, Mass.

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Reverse mortgages have long been considered one of the most expensive ways to extract cash from your house. But that is changing as some of the country’s biggest reverse-mortgage lenders are slicing closing costs, helping even some affluent homeowners who want to generate additional income.These mortgages allow people who are 62 years old or older to convert their home equity into cash. Instead of a homeowner writing a check to a bank each month, the bank pays the homeowner, who can elect to receive a lump sum, a line of credit or monthly payments. The loan is due, with interest, when the borrower dies, moves, sells the house or fails to pay property taxes or homeowners insurance.

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