Daily News - Harry GrossRSS Feed for Harry GrossHarry Gross: City employee notices extra charge in union dues- (Found September 17, 2008 ) Dear Harry: I know you keep your letters anonymous, but I feel safer by not revealing my name even to you. I work for a law-enforcement arm of the city. We have a union. Union dues are deducted from our pay on a regular basis. Recently, in every other payhttp://www.philly.com/dailynews/columnists/harry_gross/20080917_Harry_Gross__City_employee... Harry Gross: Used Ford turns out to be a lemon- (Found September 17, 2008 ) Dear Harry: In July, I bought a used Ford from a Ford dealer. The car looked and ran great. Less than four weeks later, I took it back for a minor problem and discovered that it needed a new transmission. After a lot of talk to underlings and the servicehttp://www.philly.com/dailynews/columnists/harry_gross/20080905_Harry_Gross__Used_Ford_tur... Harry Gross: Lease or no lease, the moneyless tenant must go- (Found September 17, 2008 ) Dear Harry: A cousin of mine rented a room from me back in 2005. He was fine with the rental payments until January. He then started to delay paying me, and finally he got three months behind. He ignores all my requests. There is no written lease, and hehttp://www.philly.com/dailynews/columnists/harry_gross/20080908_Harry_Gross__Lease_or_no_l... Harry Gross: Is there any way around high text-price policies- (Found September 17, 2008 ) Dear Harry: I'm a student at one of our local universities. I finally got up enough courage to write to you about the cost of our textbooks. I will be paying in excess of $90 for every book I need. To make matters worse, the books are all stamped on the bhttp://www.philly.com/dailynews/columnists/harry_gross/20080909_Harry_Gross__Is_there_any_... Harry Gross: An ownership dilemma- (Found September 17, 2008 ) Dear Harry: In 1993, my mother bought a home from the son of the owner who had died a few months earlier. She made regular monthly payments to him until the end of 2006. At that time, he told her that she had paid in full for the house, and no more paymenhttp://www.philly.com/dailynews/columnists/harry_gross/20080910_Harry_Gross__An_ownership_... Harry Gross: Hands off the pension- (Found September 17, 2008 ) Dear Harry: I was downsized for a month earlier in the year, and I had to let some credit card debts carry over to the next month at 19.25 percent. I need about $6,000 to get up to date. I have a home- equity line of credit (HELOC), where I can borrow athttp://www.philly.com/dailynews/columnists/harry_gross/20080911_Harry_Gross__Hands_off_the... Harry Gross: Get an interest in compounding- (Found September 17, 2008 ) Dear Harry: Now that interest rates have stabilized somewhat, and even gone up a little, I was contemplating investing in a couple of CDs. I remember that years ago you told people to look for CDs that compound daily. The best that I have seen recently is one that compounds monthly, and even there, the clerk was not 100 percent certain. Could you possibly direct me to a bank that compounds dailyhttp://www.philly.com/dailynews/columnists/harry_gross/20080912_Harry_Gross__Get_an_intere... Harry Gross: College aid hurt by stocks- (Found September 17, 2008 ) Dear Harry: When I was a young child, my dad thought it would be a good idea to put my baptism, communion and birthday money into stocks. He particularly liked Peco. His hope was that the money would grow enough to pay for my college tuition. But tuitionshttp://www.philly.com/dailynews/columnists/harry_gross/20080915_Harry_Gross__College_aid_h... Harry Gross: To get pension: Is ex alive- (Found September 17, 2008 ) Dear Harry: I am 60 years old and have been divorced for more than 25 years. I contacted Social Security to look into getting a pension at 62. They told me that I needed my husband's SS number and his date of birth. I have no clue regarding either one. Myhttp://www.philly.com/dailynews/columnists/harry_gross/20080916_Harry_Gross__To_get_pensio... Harry Gross: Extra cash complicates withdrawal from IRA- (Found September 17, 2008 ) Dear Harry: I was 70 12 in August of 2007. We had a large amount of unexpected income in '07, so I deferred taking my first IRA distribution until this year. I'm required to take this year's distribution before Dec. 31. Do I base the '08 withdrawal on the amount in the IRA on Jan. 1, 2008, or on that amount minus the 2007 withdrawal that I took in Aprilhttp://www.philly.com/dailynews/columnists/harry_gross/20080904_Harry_Gross__Extra_cash_co... |