by Scott on February 17, 2009
Just a quick note with some good news for financially strapped homeowners, for a change–
In the recent past, your lender wouldn’t talk to you about modifying the terms of your mortgage if you lost your job, or otherwise got to a place where making your mortgage payments was impossible, until you had already missed at least two, and usually three, payments.
By that time your credit was already shot, you had racked up heavy late fees and penalties, and you were probably in a hole too deep to get out of. [click to continue…]
by Scott on February 14, 2009
So as I mentioned in my loooonnnnggg “What To Worry About Now” series, we had lots of people in a panic about many different things. That’s why I wrote those, and a few people really liked them and took some of the specific actions I suggested.
But a bunch of the people I see offline told me that I went off on too many tangents, and I generally just went off too much… We’ve been told that we are at our best when talking about how to get out of debt faster and related subjects, so I’ll stick closer to those. Sorry!
So let’s get right back into it. [click to continue…]
by Scott on February 10, 2009
Let’s face it. A bunch of us are just trying to keep our heads above water in this economy. Savings and retirement planning aren’t exactly the top news stories right now.
So where does that leave you when your bank fails or your safe money market fund “breaks the buck”?
Scared. Very, very scared.
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by Scott on February 6, 2009
Geez, it is depressing out there right now. It seems like just about everybody we talk to is really worried about losing their job. And…I’d say that almost half of the business owners are wondering if they’ll be able to make it until the economy turns around.
Scary for sure.
Remember at the beginning of this series of articles that I said that certain things you should worry about, and certain things you shouldn’t? [click to continue…]
by Scott on February 4, 2009
Quick but important one today…
We’ll get the random question about insurance here and there, but for the most part nobody thinks about it very much.
I’ve got to admit, other than briefly checking my coverage amounts on my home each year during renewal time, I don’t think much about it either. (Side note – if you haven’t ever thought about it, ask your insurance agent. He or she will be able to make sure you are okay, discuss “extended or guaranteed replacement cost”, and other important options with you). But I digress.
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by Scott on February 1, 2009
My HELOC is Freezing…
I really didn’t want to go back to discussing homes and mortgages and the housing market - how depressing. But, this has come up over and over, so I wanted to address it.
We started to hear from stressed-out people in our circles over a year ago that their HELOCs were being frozen (yes, in almost all instances the lender is allowed to do that). Even before things really got crummy, lenders were worried about their exposure due to plummeting home values. [click to continue…]
by Scott on January 28, 2009
The first two posts in this series were about home and mortgage problems. I think you’d agree that the problems there are the biggest nightmare right now. Even if none of those problems impacted you, I bet you know somebody that has been hit hard – I know quite a few personally.
But, I’d also wager that you know even more people that have been bitten by the credit card companies lately. You could spend days listening to people rant on this, and there are too many different topics to count.
But, this seems to be the toughest issue for people to find information about, so I’ll take a stab at it… [click to continue…]
by Scott on January 25, 2009
If you are in the process of selling your home because you can’t make your mortgage payments anymore, see the initial post in this series for more info.
We all know that this is a huge hot button in our country right now. Things are changing daily, and there is a bunch of solid, reputable information out on the Internet that can help – I won’t waste your time restating that. I’m just going to quickly bring up a couple things that most people we’ve talked to haven’t been aware of.
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by Scott on January 22, 2009
We’ve been receiving lots of calls and emails from people in a panic about their finances.
“How do I manage my huge credit card debt?”
“The house next door sold for $200K less than I paid for mine!”
“Should I even bother saving? My bank will probably go under anyway!”
“What about my pension/Social Security?”
Sure, you’d have to be living under a rock not to be at least a little scared about our world right now. But as usual in life, there are things you should worry about (those you can do something about), and things you should ignore – why bother if you can’t change them?
So let’s cut through all the noise and doom-and-gloom to talk about what you should be worried about – or not - TODAY. [click to continue…]
by Scott on January 1, 2009
Within the Melt Debt snowball demonstration engine, there is an option to allocate a percentage of your rollover/snowball funds (the extra money that is freed up when you pay off a debt) to your investment or retirement account(s).
Diverting a small portion of the rollover rather than applying every last penny to the next debt in line to be paid off does not delay your final debt-free date nearly as much as most people think.
Experiment with different amounts to see what kind of impact it has on your specific plan, and implement whatever fits in with your goals.
P.S. See the related topics of Rollover allocation to Charitable Causes and Cash Reserve/Rainy-Day savings accounts.
