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Byline: Jane Bryant Quinn Investors are peering over the valley to sunny, dollar-green hills beyond. But down in the shadows, companies are still laying off workers, and new jobs can [...]

Byline: Jane Bryant Quinn Santa, baby, slip a sable under the tree, for me...' Eartha Kitt, the original material girl, hit pay dirt with that torchy lyric back in 1953. [...]

Byline: Jane Bryant Quinn Q: In October 1999, just before I retired, I switched my mutual funds and various stocks to an account with a new stockbroker. I don't know [...]

Byline: Jane Bryant Quinn Funny how often investing turns into a wrong-way trip. After the stock market cracked a year and a half ago, investors bought stocks almost all the [...]

Byline: Jane Bryant Quinn Q: I'm looking at the new maximum contributions for IRAs and 401(k)s. Would it be better to add more to my 401(k)? Or should I reduce [...]

Everyone is waiting for things to get back to normal. But listen up: there is no 'normal.' We see one set of conditions and learn to run our lives accordingly. [...]

SHOCKED investors did almost nothing with their money in the week following the terrorist attack, as stock markets collapsed and the economic outlook worsened. Before the World Trade Center disaster, [...]

So often, I've written to you about the unforeseen. By definition, we never know what that's going to be. But when you lay plans for the future, you need an [...]

SOME big-name private colleges and universities say they're taking a new tack on student aid. They're going to judge every incoming student by roughly the same set of financial standards. [...]

Phone booths are a part of America's vanishing past. Most users choose credit cards, calling cards tied to their long-distance accounts or prepaid phone cards. When people do reach into [...]

ARE you suddenly feeling too far out on a spending limb? Time to dial back, spend less, save more. But you can't fix all your budget problems at once - [...]

For cheaper prescription drugs, you don't have to wait for the drug-discount program proposed last month by President Bush. Bush is targeting seniors -- more than 10 million of them [...]

When buyers take outsize loans, they wind up with little or no equity in their homes. The same is true for many people who refinance. They don't care because they [...]

It's starting to look like a bubble to me, or at least a bubble-in-waiting. I'm talking about real-estate prices. Buyers are willing to pay almost anything just to own their [...]

Feel very secure about your job before stretching to buy a vacation home. If you refinance, think about shortening the term of your mortgage to 15 years, rather than lengthening [...]

OVER the years, the public has grown more suspicious of financial salespeople who earn commissions. Maybe their advice, is absolutely straight. On the other hand, maybe it's influenced by the [...]

ONCE upon a time, homes were like piggy banks. That's where people saved. Now, you're treating homes as if they were credit cards. That's where you borrow when you're looking [...]

HAVE you been losing money in your 401(k) retirement plan? You're probably in a state of shock. For years, most plans have risen in value as if by magic. Almost [...]

PEOPLE hate being nickled and dimed to death, even when they can afford to pay. That's probably what ticks them off when they read their long-distance telephone bills. Pretty soon, [...]

IF your aging parent isn't firing on all cylinders, find out - fast - who is managing the money. It becomes all too easy for crooks to pick the pockets [...]

THE joys of the Web are its offbeat "con tent" sites. You've almost certainly fallen in love with some of them -- the edgy political commentary, film reviews, gossip, recipes, [...]

THERE'S one group of retirement savers -- maybe 6 million people -- whom I think of as forgotten. They're primarily teachers, health-care workers and employees of nonprofit organizations. They contribute [...]

How much are you "earning" on your Social Security account? Surprise, surprise -- you're doing better than you think! Critics who want to junk the system keep up a drumbeat [...]

For Americans with significant sums of money to manage, the next few years are going to feel like a roll of the dice. Those most vexed will be the older [...]

Note: In May I printed a letter from a reader angry at Fleet Bank. In a mailing Fleet offered a credit card at a 'revolutionary low fixed rate' of 7.99 [...]

Some investors are scared or future earnings drops. Some think the economy won't recover. Some lost so much money in technology stocks and mutual funds that they're frozen in place. [...]

CONGRESS has cobbled together the strangest, most reckless, most -- well -- hilarious estate-tax law ever. Laughter is the only rational response. People who are worth enough to owe estate [...]

YES, the rumors are true. Most of the new tax cuts do go to higher-income people. Among the scraps, there s a little something for moderate earners and almost nothing [...]

THE new tax law is stuffed with welcome changes to America's retirement plans. My desk is strewn with summaries listing all the new choices that savers might have. One problem: [...]

As the population ages, Medicaid spending on nursing homes could easily lurch out of control. That is, unless it's limited to the people who really need it. Medicaid is supposedly [...]

The economic slowdown, as mild as it appears, will be the first stress test of subprime mortgage lending. Subprime loans carry higher rates. Three questions arise: Will more than the [...]

Teaching children about investing is a great investment in their future. Those who try their hands when they're young are much readier to dive into 401 (k) accounts and other […]

Q I've just been laid off. My company offered me five weeks' severance if I sign an agreement not to sue, but only two weeks' if I don't. Is that […]

ARE you ready to start again? I mean, restart the way you think about investing. For the past few years, everything seemed easy. Most stocks rose. Every time you opened [...]

IF you have a life insurance policy that you don't need or want anymore, you might be thinking of selling it. You were probably attracted by an ad for "life [...]

Instead of simply disclosing your credit score as a customer service, most sites will make you pay for it. And while they have your attention, they'll try to sell you [...]

You may not know it, but you have a personal "credit score." Your score indicates how likely you are to pay your bills on time. Lenders use it to help [...]

Buying a car versus leasing: the new math If you're planning to get a new car, here's an inside-the-industry tip: Leasing companies are losing big money these days. When customers […]

WITH general interest rates coming down, when can you expect rates on your own loans to drop? Variable-rate loans will drop on a schedule written into your lending agreement (which [...]

LONG-TERM care insurance is growing ever more complex. As the population ages, larger numbers of people are purchasing coverage. Meanwhile, the industry hopes to reach younger, more affluent buyers by [...]

When the proposed new bankruptcy law is finally signed, you'll be surprised at how complex the process is going to be. Not only will it be harder to wipe out [...]

WHATEVER happened to the mutual funds that used to be called "high growth"? Some of them are off by 40 percent or more, shocking investors to the core. Investors tend [...]

Tech investors who've been "buying the dips" for the past year may have been buying it with Qubes. A Qube is a stock whose ticker symbol is QQQ and mimics [...]

Alas. You'd be a lot richer today if you'd gradually sold some of those stocks over the year and stashed the proceeds in bonds or cash. You didn't even have [...]

What's the outlook for Yahoo or Amazon today? People who bought near the top could hold these stocks half a lifetime and never see that price again. Investors who currently [...]

So you thought stocks were safe? So did everyone who studied the long-term history of Standard & Poor's 500 stock index. That's the basis of most stock-market price studies and [...]

YOU'VE seen your last one-year Treasury bill. The government isn't selling them anymore. One-year bills won't come back as long as the national debt keeps going down. The change was [...]

CAN the Web be made safe for credit cards? Online merchants say it's safe enough, but plenty of shoppers disagree, Various studies show that as many as 80 percent of [...]

Tax update There are virtually no new IRS rules to worry about this year (whew!), so it's a good time to look at what you've done in the past and […]

Most Americans won't be laid off. Of the unlucky few, most will find a new job fast. Still, you never know when the moving finger might tap you on the [...]