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Posted
Jun 16 2008, 06:10 AM
by
Karen Datko
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This post comes from J.D. Roth at partner blog Get Rich Slowly. My wife has always maintained a sizable savings account, but having extra cash is new to me. Until recently, I had always lived paycheck to paycheck, often treading close to a zero dollar balance in my checkbook for months at a time. Now, though, I've not only established an emergency fund, but set up a couple of targeted accounts as well. (One is for vacations, and the other is for a new car.) My method works for me, but others have different approaches. In her book "Debt-Proof Living," author Mary Hunt suggests a sort of emergency fund plus. Often, when people struggle with money, she says, the predictable monthly bills aren't the problem. People cannot cope with the unexpected things -- not just emergencies (like a severe illness), but irregular expenses like auto maintenance, wedding and birthday gifts, or a new pair of shoes.
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Posted
May 06 2008, 03:29 PM
by
Karen Datko
If you don't want your house to sell, make sure it looks like some of the houses featured at snarky I Can't Sell My House, a blog that's essentially a pictorial history of our current housing woes. You know that look -- a Christmas tree still on the curb four months after the holiday season, an overgrown lawn, or a few grocery carts parked near the driveway. Inside, make sure buyers can immediately identify what kind of pet you have -- just by gently inhaling. If you really want to sell your house in this tough market, read The Wisdom Journal's "52 tips to make your home irresistible to buyers." Ron shares more than the obvious in this post.
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Posted
May 01 2008, 12:49 PM
by
Karen Datko
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It used to be that if you wanted to buy a house, you simply talked to a lender. "This is nice, if you have an honest, unbiased broker," writes Jonathan at My Money Blog. "This is also how people got talked into 0% down, subprime adjustable-rate mortgages." If you are thinking about, saving for or on the verge of buying a house, we strongly recommend that you read Jonathan's two-part series on shopping for a mortgage. We've been through the house-buying process three times and wish we could have read these posts before we did.
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Posted
Apr 29 2008, 05:33 AM
by
Karen Datko
This post comes from partner blog Blueprint for Financial Prosperity. Back in the days of personal checks and monthly bills, "doing the bills" was an arduous task that took hours and hours. Back in the days of check registers and balancing a checkbook, doing the bills was like accounting lite. With the advent of online checking and electronic bill-payment systems, there isn't any logical reason why you should be spending an hour or two each month dealing with bills. By setting up your bill-payment details and conducting your transactions entirely online, you can add months to your life.
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Posted
Apr 23 2008, 03:31 PM
by
Karen Datko
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Credit cards are about to get smarter. A story in BusinessWeek reports that MasterCard is about to introduce the inControl card for corporate clients, which will allow the boss to limit how, where and when employees use a company card on business trips. This has prompted one credit card expert to ask why the technology isn't being offered to regular consumers who have trouble controlling their credit card use but aren't willing to cut them into tiny pieces.
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Posted
Apr 16 2008, 06:43 AM
by
Karen Datko
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This post comes from partner blog The Dough Roller. As much good as he does, Dave Ramsey drives me nuts with his extreme views on debt. Ramsey, as he readily admits, did some really stupid things with debt. Leveraged to the hilt on bad real estate deals, he went bust in a way most of us could never imagine. As a real estate investor, my leverage and borrowing comes nowhere near the toxic level Ramsey went to. Why? Because Ramsey's personality is one of extremes. Much like an alcoholic, he could not control his use of debt. He got one taste of that leverage, and he was borrowing before noon ever day. Dave Ramsey is a recovering debtaholic Now he is a recovering debtaholic. Like a recovering alcoholic, he should never borrow again. Why? He just can't handle it. Put Ramsey and debt together, and something really ugly develops. OK, fine. But why should that apply to all of us? It's as if a recovering alcoholic were telling the rest of the world never to have a glass of wine. In other words, what works and doesn't work for Ramsey may not apply to everybody else. Of course, there are those who, like Dave, can't control debt and should avoid it just like he does. But debt, if used wisely, can greatly improve your finances, can increase your financial freedom in the long run, and can greatly improve your balance sheet.
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Posted
Apr 02 2008, 12:11 PM
by
Karen Datko
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Mike at Clever Dude makes an amazing confession for a personal-finance blogger. He and his wife bought a house with an interest-only mortgage and no money down "because we wanted more than we could afford," he admits. Not only that, but "I can directly blame ourselves for not understanding the terms of our loans," he says. He depended on the mortgage broker to do the math, rather than educate himself about what he was getting into. "So I accept full blame for my shortsightedness, laziness and ignorance," he writes. (Luckily for them, they've still built up some equity.) Thus begins his examination of why he made uninformed decisions.
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Posted
Mar 31 2008, 05:54 PM
by
Karen Datko
Your credit card company isn't giving you airline miles, points or cash back because it loves you. No, sirree. "New rewards, incentives, tricks, deals, dog-and-pony shows, and other marketing gimmicks are continually coming out with the aim to extract you from your money in the fastest, most pain-free way possible," writes Randall at Credit Withdrawal. "Reminds me a little of Las Vegas," he adds.
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Posted
Mar 10 2008, 12:48 PM
by
Karen Datko
Lots has been written about whether this is the right time to buy a house, but regardless of your decision, you should know this: The past has became the present, and the pre-housing boom guidelines for how much house you can afford are now back in play. So says Michael B. Rubin of Beyond Paycheck to Paycheck. In case you've forgotten the guidelines, we'll give you a little refresher. What should your down payment be? The boom answer was: "Those loose coins in your car and in your couch? That's plenty!" Michael writes. The "way it is and ought to be: You should be able to put at least 20% down."
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Posted
Feb 28 2008, 11:22 AM
by
Karen Datko
This post comes from Truman Lewis at partner blog ConsumerAffairs.com. Here's a scam that's guaranteed to get your attention: an e-mail from a hit man who says he's been hired to kill you. Police in the Washington, D.C., suburb of Fairfax County, Va., say the scammer is primarily interested in getting bank account numbers. So far, no one has been shot for refusing to comply, at least as far as we know.
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