Mark Sass and his wife Jan decided to refinance the mortgage on their Cincinnati, Ohio, home on Friday, just days before the Federal Reserve pledged to keep rates near historic lows through the first half of 2013.

“I knew the Fed statement was coming out and rates had dropped to historically low levels, and it just seemed like an opportune time. I hadn’t even thought about it until then,” says Sass, who owns his own marketing research company.

Jean Dorrell knew something was wrong when the birthday card her father usually sends two weeks ahead of schedule didn’t arrive in the mail.

“This past year he forgot my birthday and he forgot my brothers’ birthdays, so we realized he was slipping pretty fast,” says Dorrell, a certified financial planner and founder of Senior Financial Security in Summerfield, Florida.

Despite the fact that President Obama has started taking aim at tax breaks, fractional ownership is gaining steam post-financial crisis, offering affluent consumers an efficient use of their dollars and time. So if you thought owning a piece of a private jet or Italian villa was just for the Cannes crowd, think again.

Private aviation, in particular, has taken a tongue lashing as of late, thanks to Obama’s proposal to augment tax breaks for corporate jet owners in an effort to fill the country’s coffers.

By year’s end, Stephanie Bourque will owe approximately $165,000 in federal student loans. It’s an especially daunting debt load for the first-year University of Colorado pediatric resident whose annual income will likely fall between $40,000 and $50,000 during her three-year residency.

“I think it’s going to take a lot of effort and a lot of budgeting,” she says. “Even if my take-home salary increases, I still have a lot of educational debt to pay back.”

Those Golden Girls may have been on to something. Alternative living arrangements — like the group house featured in the popular 80′s sitcom — are gaining steam among retired women, affording them a higher standard of living, in-home support services and companionship while aging in place.

Want to employ that personal chef you’ve always dreamed about? What about a pool and a view of the 18th hole? With women living at least five years longer than men on average, home sharing — which is dominated by women — helps them maintain or even elevate the quality of life in retirement.

Cash is king in high-end real estate this year, serving to stabilize the market as tight credit conditions and depreciated home values continue to plague the embattled real estate sector.

At least 30 percent of all purchases were financed with cash between mid-April and mid-May, according to the May 2011 Realtors Confidence Index by the National Realtors Association, and the numbers are even more robust for the luxury property market.

Rolling around in piles of dough would undeniably make a lot of people happy, but is money the secret to true happiness?

Are happiness and life satisfaction even the same thing? Do you get happier and happier as you accumulate more money?

Do active investors know something the rest of us don’t? Despite the recent barrage of humbling economic data and a substantial stock slide, investors making three or more trades a month are bullish on the market, predicting the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index will finish above the threshold of 1,400 by the end of 2011.

Fifty-one percent of the nearly 700 retail investors surveyed believe the S&P will rise more than 100 points, according to a new survey by Fidelity Investments. More than half (51 percent) say they beat the market in the past 12 months, while another 27 percent say they matched it. The S&P 500 Index rose more than 19 percent during this time period.

With a depressed housing market, an unemployment rate hovering around nine percent and stocks struggling, you would think it difficult to convince people to give to those in need.  But a Giving USA Foundation report released today shows total charitable contributions — for individuals, corporations and foundations — rose 3.8 percent in 2010 to an estimated $291 billion.

Charitable bequests were up a whopping 18.8 percent last year, rising to $22.83 billion, while  individual giving rose 2.7 percent to $211.77 billion.

Safeguarding against the end of a marriage, before it even begins, certainly isn’t romantic. But for wealthy families or those with substantial assets, prenuptial agreements are fast becoming as standard as the purchase of a white wedding dress.

Seventy-three percent of divorce lawyers say they saw an increase in prenups over the past five years, with 52 percent citing women as the initiating party, according to a survey conducted last year by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers (AAML).