I've been employed by this company for two years and was always insured through Cigna. They just anounced that they will switch to BlueCross BlueShield. How good or bad is BCBS compared to Cigna? Is it going to be more expensive for me? Am I going to have better coverage if I need to go to the doctor? I live in North Carolina.
In general, neither one is any better than the other. Which one you like and the cost would depend upon what is covered under each policy, how they cover what is most important to you, if your current doctor accepts the new plan, and many more factors. Premiums usually go up each year, and when a business changes companies it is normally because the new plan will be cheaper than the old plan will be (not that the new plan will be cheaper than the old plan was).
price wise, that is up to your employer and the contract they signed. no one here can tell you that. coverage wise, again it all depends on the contract signed by your employer. no one here can tell you.

claims processing wise, bcbs is better than cigna. i have been in insurance over 25 years and cigna is one of the worst at claims processing.
Better how? And, keep in mind that everyone who answers outside of North Carolina won't know how BlueCross BlueShield is there because your BCBS is different than the one in Virginia, Maryland, Florida, Georgia, etc… As far as the cost and what the plan covers you'd ask at work.

I NEED a part-time job, I was wondering if any place, like Walgreens, P C etc was hiring now specifically in Bville, NY. Thanks!!
Hey, the other answer is pretty much right. Nobody is really hirring right now. It sucks I know. I work online, which was really my last resort because I know there are so many scams out there. I got lucky though and now I work full time online (when I'm not in class anyway). I make plenty and I don't have to wear a stupid uniform, or answer stupid questions. Try it, it might be just what you were looking for. www.SecureEasyMoney.com. It works really well.
no one in the country is"desperately hiring" there are 100 applicants for every job

This is for a story. I'd like the character to be able to use his credit card to charge something, but not be able to use it for a cash advance. Is that situation possible?
Yes, that is up to the credit card issuer. Some people may not qualify for cash advance on the cards.
Yes, that's up to the card issuer.

i know that buying direct can save u money. so what about selling direct then?
If you are talking about end user markets… yes.

You pick up at least a portion of the "mark-up" a middle-man would have charged to distribute your product…

i know that buying direct can save u money. so what about selling direct then?
If you are talking about end user markets… yes.

You pick up at least a portion of the "mark-up" a middle-man would have charged to distribute your product…

Anyone heard of this before? Someone told me that if I pay more than the minimum payment 3-4 times a month rather than an equal amount once a month it is better for my credit score. I have a $400 balance on a credit card with a $10 minimum payment that I am working on paying off.

I am paying around $100 a month on the balance and was told that paying $25 a week would be better for me. Is that true?
Very small difference, if any at all.

If you pay $25 a week, you'll have sent in 52 payments, totaling $1,300 a year.
If you pay $100 a month, you'll have sent in 12 payments, totalling $1,200 a year.

That strategy does create some benefits when you're dealing with a 15 year mortgage, but in your case, you'll have paid off the whole thing before the extra payments make a difference.
Don't listen to the guy or girl that says pay it all off each month. Credit card scores are based on using credit properly not on having no debt to manage properly. You can't manage debt properly if there is a zero balance. It is true that all of your cards should be utilized minimally so your debt on each card is no more than about 10-13 percent of the total credit limit. You should be able to manage that and that makes your score go up. To get you score up faster pay one payment a month and add to the minimum payment which will go directly to the principal and will show good debt management. In other words pay more than the minimum with one payment a month prior to the due date.
Yes. You will save on interest since interest amount is calculated based on average daily balance. The sooner a payment hits, the lower your average daily balance is over the billing cycle. Also $25 per week is $1,300 per year and $100 per month is only $1,200 per year. It won't take you nearly that long with only a $400 balance. This strategy will get you out of debt faster and save interest, however it won't make an appreciable difference in your credit score.
The one thing I am seeing is that you are paying your bill and asking the right questions for credit. My thoughts; I would continue to pay monthly, as you are doing, more than the minimum. Continue until the balance is paid off.
As far paying “four to five” times a month, for the same bill, I feel it is not necessary to be putting yourself through this type of payment plan. If it is your choice, to lower the interest you are paying, it is confusing. The APR rates change frequently as well as credit card company disclosure rates. You will save on the rate, not by much, but is it worth the aggravation of paying the same bill 4-5 times a month?

I feel, paying the bill as you have asked, to save a couple of dollars, when you are able to pay more than the minimum, is not requried. I would continue to pay more then the minimum per month.
Just pay it once a month until paid off. You are already in the right frame of mind with credit cards.

Keep up the good payment process.
The trick to 800 scores.
Use your card and pay in full each month.
You also never pay interest this way.

What you might be hearing is another trick.
You can never let your balance go over 25% of your available credit limit.
So by paying weekly, you can keep it below that 25% usage.

This is what is reported on your credit report.
The amount (balance) you have on your closing date.
Keeping that under 25% is a must.
So paying a bit each week if you tend to spend that much will help.
Remember: Best way is to pay in full each month.
If you need a higher credit limit after paying in full each month, just ask them. Since by doing this you'll have top scores, you won't have any problems getting the higher limit.
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Making multiple payments instead of one does absolutely nothing to improve your credit or your score. In fact, some credit card companies might object to those mulitple payments — more administrative processing with the extra payments.

Just pay as much as you can by the due date and pay off that credit card balance as quickly as you can. Then only charge what you can afford to pay in full each month. Save the interest and stay out of debt.
The longer you have your CC and paying without being delinquent, and no late fees, THE BETTER for you.

The best way is to pay it all at once EACH MONTH.

I don't know where you get that, paying it in installment will give you a high score, you're just throwing your money away to get high score? IT JUST DOESN'T make sense!
Someone is full of it. Look at your credit report. There is nothing on it telling how much you paid or how often you paid. When your account cycles and they send you a bill, they send a report to the credit bureaus that contains your limit, your balance, and the status (current, 30-days past-due, etc.)
no, it makes no difference. the only thing that shows up on your report is if you paid on time or not, and how much credit you have available on that card
Not true. Your payments are only reported every 30 days, so making 1 payment in that time or 4, makes ZERO difference.
"Someone" is wrong.

Is there a way I can set up the screener to search stocks that have begun to creep up after bottoming out? For instance: how about finding a stock thats currently up about 3%today after trending down maybe 10% in the past 3-4 days.. something like that. I usually look at charts one by one but that takes a long time.

I'm a self taught swing trader who doesn't know "investing 101" terms or lingo, but I've become very good at reading charts and news and picking winners. I just want to learn more. Thanks.
Im not familiar with Google's finance section, I use Yahoo and Scottrade. But I doubt they have anything like that because Yahoo and Scottrade don't. The closest thing that Yahoo has for that is "most actives" and "unusual volume" under Market Statistics
http://finance.yahoo.com/marketupdate?u

Also, if you just started trading stocks this year, a warning message: I started trading in 2005. In 2006 I was up $20,000 from daytrading (most of which were swing trades). In 2007 I was up $17,000. In 2008 I was down $12,000. It's easy to pick winners right now because the entire market has been doing good for most of this year, but its much harder to pick winners in a downtrend. I thought I was so smart and good at daytrading, until the downtrend arrived. I learned that the hard way. I think there will be another big one within the next 6 years.
No, there no such system to find uptrends by using yahoo screener.

So for now, its the old way, watch the charts and make your decision or pay for service where top grade analysts can pick stocks that are going to shoot up.like I do. Plus get great investment tips you cannot find on your own. Thousands are profiting from being in the inner circle. It takes the hard work out.
Back in the 1990's there were years where people made good money in the market that considered themselves "self taught". If that means no clue what terms means & reading no books and articles…. you're in for a rude awakening. This market… since March.. has been fairly easy.

There are several good screeners out there. I use "HotScans" from MarketGuage (http://www.marketgauge.com). It costs about $75 a month. It works great and you can tailor it to your specific needs. It's mostly used for intra day trading. It's great for finding retracements as well as stocks moving quiclky. It won't do you much good if you truly don't understand technical analysis.

Something that will work for you may be VectorVest (http://www.vectorvest.com/).

Both programs have free or low cost trials.

If you don't have a grip on money management……. the market will eventually kill you…. no matter how good you think you are.

Ok, so I used to own 2m shares of RMD Entertainment (RMDM). I bought it last year in november. After around december, the stock went dry, and for the past year has averaged around 0-10 trades per MONTH. After awhile, I wanted to pull my money out, since RMDM was doing nothing at all, so I set a sell order in at 0.0001 per share (the price at which I bought it).

The order remained open for months, until about three weeks ago, when it executed. However, the volume was suspiciously high (around 100m shares per DAY). Then, less then a week after this jump in volume, a slew of press releases come out and the stock triples.

So, I find it hard to believe that this company which had average volume of 0-3m per week suddenly gets volume of 100m per day just a few days before press releases are issued and share reduction plans are put into motion to cut the outstanding shares from 9.8b to1-2b.

Is it just me or does this sound like insider trading to anyone else??

If i reported it would anything happen??
The press releases may be fake. The way pump-and-dump schemes work is that the scammers see a lot of a stock out there, because they can see your open sell order along with others. They prepare an ad campaign. Then, they put in orders to buy up all the really cheap stock and then put out sell limit orders for the same stock at a higher price and release the ads.

Of course, if the news is real, then it's insider trading. There is nothing you can do about it. The company is already out of compliance with SEC regs otherwise it would be listed. When there is a big surprise announcement in a stock, I can frequently go to the 5-minute chart and see a move in the last hour of trading the previous day. The problem is that this is almost impossible to prove.

This is true of everything, but worse with penny stocks.
Its no surprise. This is a penny stock trading in the pinksheets. There is little if any regulation in the pinksheets. Somebody was probably pumping it. Many of these pinksheet stocks are a ripoff.

I am planning to invest in stocks. I was wondering if it is the right time to invest in banks since after the financial meltdown everything looks okay. Could you suggest which stocks are a good buy?
ABSOLUTELY NOT! It's still a recession. Any economic news they hear, the bank stocks will go up and down so fast.

The stocks you want to focus on is consumer staples, consumer discretionary, and healthcare. These are DEFENSIVE stocks that will survive through good and bad times. Most of my positions are in these stocks. Some names include 3M, Procter & Gamble, Kimberly Clark, Exxon Mobil, Walmart, Costco. Everybody's got to eat and wipe their butts regardless of the state of economy. Many of these companies survived through the Great Depression.

That's the benefits. You can sleep at night knowing your money is doing well. There are NO guarantees that you won't lose money. It's just that these stocks are the best. They pay good dividends too.
yes banks are very unstable, but have potential for big gains, and loss as in all stock, i play C for dips i dont see it as gambling but as historical trends that make me money, its a fast trade mostly within the samw week mabye 2 weeks top look at the trends buy in low, wait for news and volume to watch it go up
In my opinion, there still is a lot of uncertainty with US banks, especially Citigroup. Having said that, the Bank of America (BAC) might be worth considering for a longer term hold, but C is only worth gambling (not investing).
A financial services and banking mutual fund is a smart place to put some money right now, they are all a little beaten up so they are (generally) cheap, and unless you believe we won't be using money two or three decades from now they HAVE to recover at some point!

right now I have a checkings, savings, and credit card with CITIbank. I also have a discover card should I consolidate my discover onto my CITIbank credit card?. My student loans are also with CITIbank also.

I'm just scared, they already own me, so what's the problem, right?
That is not a good idea.
If you get behind on one thing they can count that everything is past due. It is called a "dragnet" clause. If you get behind on your student loan then they can just take the money out of your checking account. If you wrote a check for the discover card and they take money out of your checking account then the check can bounce and then you would also be considered late with discover. Can you say fee's.
If you can move your checking and savings out of Citi it will make is much more secure for you.
I think consolidating your bills into one will not hurt you specially if you are already behind on payments and over the limit. If you consolidate your bills into one payment that is sent by an agency they send the payment monthly on time and that helps your credit. Of course you can't get more credit cards while on this program. If you go to a bank and obtain a loan to consolidate your bills, this is good also because you can ask them to help you send the payment to your creditors to pay off your accounts with them and then you just pay one payment to the bank. Talk to your bank. But consolidating your bills I think would be a good idea.