Thank you! This is why I enjoy Lifehacker. You guys are very responsive and you take feedback constructively.

There are a few things wrong with the Investopedia article. Their use of a credit card balance as an example of where this could play out is facetious. A credit card’s minimum balance includes all outstanding interest and fees plus at least 1% of principal (per federal regulations) so you aren’t paying “interest on…

Edited. See my top-level comment.

As a bank regulator, thank you for pointing this out. APY is not relevant for or used in lending calculations. Your payment amortization schedule is based on the stated rate (or simple interest rate, as you mention), ie. the rate that you are quoted on your promissory note or HUD-1/GFE form if it is a residential…

My wife and I built a house last year. As far as deciding when we were ready, it was the same as others have said for buying their houses: it was cheaper to own than rent. We got input from our parents and others for planning the layout and we also discussed it for almost a year before we pulled the trigger. We had…

Interesting, I haven’t experienced that but I figured somebody might have. Thanks for sharing!

Correct, but the way I understand it is that all the bags that are checked at the gate are unloaded and put in the jet bridge because they have no way of knowing if that’s your final destination or if you’re continuing on to the next stop, so you should be able to grab your bag at that point. I guess I’m not as…

Are you referring to checking your bag at the gate when a flight is too full? If that’s what you mean, you don’t need to worry about the hidden city method not working. If you check your carry-on bag at the gate due to lack of space in the overhead bins, it will be available plane side on the gate at your destination.

Can you clarify in the article how the rollover requires a minimum distribution only if you’ve reached the minimum distribution age? I know it partially mentions it in the piece you quoted, but your lead-in is a little vague about the requirements. If someone under age 70.5 rolls over an IRA from one company into…

They can do it because they’re giving you tax breaks to use IRAs. You’re more than able to put your after-tax income into brokerage accounts in whatever amounts you’d like, subject only to your whims.

Unfortunately, with mortgage rates as low as they are, it's tough to pay enough interest each year to qualify for the mortgage interest deduction. A lot of people will be better off using the standard deduction on their tax returns instead of itemizing, which is required if you want to deduct mortgage interest. Not…

Yep, that's not too much of an oversimplification. If your mortgage rate is less than 4.5%, it benefits you more to pay down the 401(k) loan. I know what you mean about not having someone to ask. We need for personal finance to be taught in schools. People are far too uneducated on things like investing for…

CPA here, but still do your own research. If your 401(k) loan has a rate of 4.5%, paying that off gives you an effective return on your refund of 4.5%, which I'd wager is much higher than what you'd get in a savings account. Yes, you're putting that money back into your retirement account but it isn't growing in your…

Yeah, but that's only for whichever account you currently have selected. If I have a couple Gmail accounts, I want to be able to see all the mail from each account at the same time, like you can in the Email app.

Any word on whether the update allows a combined inbox view yet? One of my biggest gripes with the Gmail app, unless it's there and I'm just too dumb to figure it out.

My wife is a civil, so I only know what she's told me, but she said basically what you thought. Civils are really the only type of engineer that needs it, mainly because their projects are usually public and they do design work that affects more than just individual firms. She said that at her school, all engineers…

I think you wrote this article just so you could say, "I'm a PMP." Well played, Alan, well played.

It looks like it might be a geography thing. I tried a different zip code and it shows up at the prices you see.

Weird, it shows 1@$10.97 and 2@$17.97 for me.

There was a recall on the Nest Protect, which is the smoke/carbon monoxide detector. A software bug meant it could be inadvertently switched off and wouldn't alert the user in the event of an emergency. To my knowledge, there's no recall on the Nest thermostats, but I have seen reviews from people with wiring issues…