It’s available for iphone too.
http://quicken.intuit.com/online-banking-finances.jsp

We have a lot of bells and whistles that cause us to have a much more comfortable life than our predecessors or those living in most of the rest of the world. We have more time now for such enjoyable pursuits as updating our Facebook, or responding to comments on blogs.

I’m with you on the student loan debt. Still, the people in this country discount one’s abilities if they don’t have that piece of paper. Why is that? Who is perpetuating that myth? One would think the Bill Gates story would have had some impact…but no.

You (and others) lose me when you point to other countries vs. our own historical data. Right or wrong, we don’t want to be like other countries.

What other country are we supposed to be emulating in your example?

I don’t recall any U.S. data showing 15% of income being relevant…unless it is 10 years later or more, and they are still living in the same house.

When people who comment pull too far outside of any known historical reality…frankly, it causes me to “tune out”. If the discussion has no basis in reality, it ceases to be a discussion.

Please do not think about this as “people should be forced to put their family of five in a shitty apartment”. Its, “people should be able to put their family of five in a normal house for only 15% of their income”. This is very similar to both healthcare and student loans. The US far overspends other countries on healthcare and it comes out of your pocket. Where does it go? Into insurance companies and other middlemen, who in my opinion use it less wisely and productively than it could be if freed up for the consumer. Or student loan debt, young people are now basically forced into a $300-1000/month obligation for 10 years in order to get a decent job. The country would be much better off if that money was going broadly out into the economy, rather than funneled into a select few megabanks who use it build stupid islands in Dubai or to leverage short the stocks in your 401k.

Basically we are funneling an ever increasing amount of our income into the financial sector, the largest method being mortgage payments for both owners of homes and owners of rentals. Our economy would be better served if that same money was instead being spread around to many other sectors. Of course some of it would still end up in finance, via you sticking it in a savings account, etc, but much more of it would go around the rest of the economy. The financial sector as a percentage of GDP has blown up since the 1980’s to something like 30% now.

The person in my “post” is my daughter.

The first person in comment #23 is yes…about WAMU.

The second person in my comment #23 is about B of A.

Used to be smarmy finance companies charged exhorbitant rates…now it’s your friendly neighborhood, heretofore highly respected, bank.

When I was in banking there were usury laws that capped the rate a bank could charge. I believe they differ state to state as I remember card processing moving from PA do DE so they could charge higher rates.

Seems to me moving too much (and borrowing against your equity) is the culprit. Anyone I know who has no or a very comfortable mortgage payment, has owned their current home for a very long time.