It's starting to look like more than just a temporary blip. On June 13, mortgage finance company Freddie Mac announced that mortgage rates rose for the sixth consecutive week -- and the impact on mortgage activity is already starting to be felt.

Mortgage Rates on the March

Freddie Mac reported...

The Bureau of Economic Analysis recently reported that personal savings rates in the United States fell to an average of 2.3 percent in the first quarter of 2013. That's just the latest sign that millions of Americans are heading toward an impoverished old age.

Why do people have so much...

First the stock market soared to new all-time highs. Then came the word that home prices had just posted their first double-digit annual gain since 2006. Are the boom times back for stocks and real estate?

Certainly, recent gains are a sign of hope, but with every bull...

On the first Saturday in May, a horse named Orb won the Kentucky Derby, immediately igniting the annual conversation about whether any horse would again win the Triple Crown. When it failed to win the Preakness two weeks later, it was a reminder of how rare Triple Crown winners have...

From the Loch Ness monster to the latest urban legend, some myths persist even when people ought to know they aren't true. These falsehoods can be fun, unless they are about money -- in which case they can do a great deal of harm.

Here are four financial "facts" you...

Is addiction too strong a word for America's dependence on debt? Given that addiction means needing something so powerfully that it overwhelms rational thought, the description fits the borrowing habits of many Americans only too well.

Here are some facts about this borrowing addiction:

• In the 67 calendar years...

It may be the 21st century, but according to exclusive MoneyRates.com poll data, husbands are still more likely than wives to take the lead in family financial decisions. There are several reasons why this may be a bad idea.

Survey Highlights

The survey polled 1,000 married people, split...

Unless you are a student of history or are planning a Mediterranean vacation, you may never have given the island of Cyprus much thought. Then suddenly, it dominated the headlines for several days. What does a banking crisis in a small and far-off land mean to you?

Here are five...

This month, millions of Americans will spend hours filling out and monitoring their NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament brackets. If they paid the same attention to their retirement planning, perhaps the country's savings programs would be in better shape.

No matter though, because while you are deciding which 12-seed...

The deal to avoid the fiscal cliff solved an immediate problem, but made a long-term problem worse. While the economy was spared the shock of severe tax increases and spending cuts, the deal is expected to exacerbate to growing federal deficit problem.

If that concerns you, then you might want...

There's a good chance that the yield on your savings account has disappointed you lately. But now may be a great time to do something about it.

Last month, the Federal Reserve announced that it would keep interest rates low until unemployment drops below 6.5 percent -- something...

Did you get a little something extra in your paycheck this holiday season?

If you just received a year-end bonus, congratulations. With money tight and the economy uncertain, those extra dollars can be hard to come by. Now the question is: How do you use that hard-earned bonus wisely?

Here...

Thanks to two major X factors -- the fiscal cliff and new bank capitalization standards -- 2013 could be the most eventful period for the banking industry since the crisis years of 2008 and 2009.

Due to its historically low interest rates, the banking environment since the Great Recession has...

Watching the legislative process in Washington can be as unappealing as watching sausages being made. But it helps if you know what to watch and what not to watch.

When it comes to legislation to avoid the fiscal cliff, there is certainly no shortage of people watching. Earlier...

If the three wise men arrived in Bethlehem today, would they come bearing gifts -- or gift cards?

After all, somewhere in the last couple millennia, frankincense and myrrh have fallen out of favor as presents. Gold is still popular, but a little heavy to lug around. So 21st century...

Election Day 2012 delivered three major outcomes:

1. Barack Obama won another term as president.
2. Republicans retained control of the House of Representatives.
3. The Democratic/Independent coalition retained control of the Senate.

In other words, voters signed up for the same general conditions they had before the election. So why might things...

Are you kidding yourself about money? If not, chances are you know someone who is. U.S. personal savings rates remain in the low single digits, and overall consumer debt is at an all-time high.

The Great Recession was supposed to have shown the dangers of overspending, but some...

Following the news that bull markets make people more likely to retire -- and that doing so can put their future finances in danger -- it's important for savers to review how market returns can affect their retirement planning.

On one hand, it's understandable why more retire during strong market...

Rare good news for bank depositors: Some savings account and money market rates actually rose in the third quarter of 2012. But to find those higher rates, you may need to look for a particular type of bank.

The MoneyRates.com America's Best Rates survey found that average online...

Last month the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) issued a surprisingly weak reassessment of second-quarter GDP growth. Previously, the BEA had estimated that real GDP grew at a 1.7 percent growth rate in the second quarter, which was already pretty anemic. Now, the latest estimate has dropped that...