By Casey Bond

Stock market investing is a scary subject for some. It’s common knowledge that in order to make the highest return on an investment, you have to take on some risk–the higher the risk, the greater the potential reward. Savings accounts and CDs are great ways to protect your money while earning a bit of interest, but if you really want to see some gains, you have to dive into the stock market.

Former students are always looking for ways to ease the pressure of paying back student loans, especially when there are multiple loans to repay. For many, loan consolidation has become a great way to reduce loan payments while eliminating the need to keep up with multiple lenders and interest rates.

You may have heard of a number of consolidation options, including the Direct Consolidation Loan Program. Since it offers a lot of advantages for borrowers looking to consolidate, let’s take a look at what the program is and how you could benefit from it.

If you’ve been following Bank of America news then you know the bank has been working out some deals to resolve a number of issues, including faulty mortgages it sold before the financial crisis of 2008.

While all of the deals among investors are not complete, Bank of America has managed to make one major compromise to date. Let’s take a closer look at why the bank is making these deals and what they entail.

Investors were given good news on Friday from analysts who said financial institutions are ready to pay dividends again after a three-year break. Some of the nation’s largest banks plan to restore dividends in the first half of the year now that they’ve been able to repair some of the damage to their balance sheets.

Billions to Hit Pension Funds

Wouldn’t it be great if you could pay a couple of bucks to make your credit woes disappear? Well, there’s an entire industry out there that claims to do just that. In her video above, Erica Sandberg, contributor to Go Banking Rates, outlines why this may not be your best option. Here’s why:

Potential growth opportunities co-mingled with true safety within the same financial vehicle is rare to find. Investors are either compelled to risk safety for better growth of the funds or succumb to lower growth prospects considering questions of safety. However, with innovations like Equity Indexed Annuity hitting the insurance sector, you can now expect higher returns along with proper security of your investments.

What is an Equity Indexed Annuity?

People have a lot of expectations when buying their first home. Most first time home buyers probably envision opening the doors to their dream house and triumphantly walking into their mansion. The culmination of their hard work and even harder saved dollars are embodied in this perfect piece of property.

While that is a great image to strive for, a more practical approach may be to buy a starter home like a fixer-upper or condo to tide you over as your first purchase. It isn’t as pretty a setting as you’d like, but it could be a much smarter financial decision in the long run. In fact, it could help get you to that perfect home a little sooner.

Photo Courtesy of Ethan0026 via Wikimedia

This article was written by Odysseas Papadimitriou, CEO of CardHub.com, a website that helps consumers compare credit cards, store credit cards, and gift cards.

If you have bad credit, it might feel as if you’re out of options. Your credit score is so important (most lenders and even some employers use it as an evaluative factor) that having a low score could seem almost like an invisible jail cell, trapping you and preventing you from getting a new car, apartment or job.

If you’ve ever considered making a charitable contribution to help a good cause or organization you care about, one form of giving that you should look into is donating stocks or securities as opposed to straight cash. There are some benefits that could really help you maximize your generosity.

Charitable contributions through the form of stock donations is one route many people choose to follow because they can enjoy tax benefits if those assets have appreciated in value. The advantage only really applies if you’ve actually made an unrealized profit on your stock purchase, though–there’s no donated stock tax benefit if your investment has depreciated in value since your purchase.