The next two weeks are an unusually opportune time to buy Series I Savings Bonds, both the Wall Street Journal and Savings Bond Advisor say. If you buy before May 1, you’ll earn 4.28 percent for the next six months. The rate…

The broker-sold version of the Missouri Saving for Tuition plan is no longer on Morningstar’s list of worst college-savings plans. In releasing this year’s list, the analysis firm says:

… one of 2007’s worst, Missouri’s MOST 529 Advisor Plan, made its way off…

Americans aren’t terribly well prepared for retirement anyway, and rising health-care costs make the situation worse, Boston University’s Center for Retirement Research finds in a new study. Fully 61 percent of households are at risk of not being able to…

A new fee study by Joseph Hurley’s SavingforCollege.com finds that Illinois’ Bright Start is among the least costly college-savings plans. In fact, among plans that are available nationwide, only Ohio’s CollegeAdvantage  has lower costs than Bright Start. (Louisiana, Utah, Oregon and Kansas have cheaper options…

When I urged people to save their “stimulus” checks, not spend them, I had no idea that my advice would strike a sympathetic chord with the majority of Americans. But according to a survey just released by American Century Investments,…

As the owner of both a Roth IRA and a conventional (that is, tax-deductible) 401k account, I’m an avid reader of articles on the relative merits of saving on taxes now vs. having an account that is tax-free forever. Three Boston…

A reader named Pat emails me with a question that’s timely, given the current bidding war for bank deposits:

Would you consider doing a column on what considerations the average person should use in deciding where to purchase CDs and…

One possible justification for using a stockbroker — as opposed to being a do-it-yourself investor, or working with a fee-based planner  – is that the broker may give you good advice about when to buy stocks. Alternatively, he/she may perform…

A lot of investing books, good and bad,  come across my desk, but few look as dangerous to investors as the one that arrived yesterday. “The Blue Way: How to Profit by Investing in a Better World”  has a simple and…

Wouldn’t it be nice if academic economists and all of their complicated formulas could help you with personal financial decisions? In a new National Bureau of Economic Research working paper, Sumit Agarwal, John C. Driscoll  and  David Laibson attempt to do just…