Owning Your Own Home

One of the best pieces of financial advice is to own your own home. I realize that not all people are "homeowner" people. Some people are "apartment" people. One of the reasons why owning your own home is advised is because paying a mortgage is quite different than paying rent. It has been said that when you pay your rent every month that you are essentially throwing it away. When you are paying a mortgage you get one step closer to owning your own home completely. You are building equity in your property and your home becomes more of an assest.

If you're an "apartment-type" person and you like things just the way they are then that is fine for you because that's the way that you want it to be.

If you ever thought about owning your own home, there may be many options available to you. I do know that there are some grant programs to help first time home buyers. (And I'm going to put more information about it in my Grant Basics 101 Blog that I just started. Realtors seem to be very helpful and useful to those that want to buy a home (they get a commission of course) so you may find that using a realtor to help you will be helpful. There are also things like sheriff sales and tax sales that go on and you should check to see if there are any going on in your area.

If you want to become a homeowner or are seriously considering it then you should investigate further about being able to own your own home. I do want to issue a word of warning though because many people are having problems keeping up with their mortgage payments and there is a big increase in foreclosures. A lot of people have gotten home loans, such as adjustable reate mortgages, where they can't meet the payments. The best kind of mortgage to get on one's home is a 30-year fixed mortgage.

Even if you feel that you won't be able to afford buying a house I urge you to look more into it. You may be surprised as to what options that you will have available to you!

Beware of Grant Scams!

Here is a link to a story about one of the grant scams that are going on out there in the world:

Beware!

Now there are a couple of points in the article that I don't agree with and they mainly have to do with "there are no grants for.......". As one of the people that do this kind of thing for a living I have to say that those are points of the article that I don't agree with. You would be amazed at the type of (and number of)grants that are out there! Did you know that a witch got a grant to start her own business? Do you know that there is a grant program that awards $100,000 to help people fulfill their own dreams? This money goes directly to the individual!

The parts that I DO agree with have to do with the fact that the IRS will not call you up and say that you are eligible for a grant. That is not their job. So if you get a call like that the best thing to do is to ask for more information and tell the caller that you will contact the IRS and that you would like them to leave you their name and number - that should result in a quick "hang up" from them!

For more information about Grant Programs and Grants in general be sure to visit my "Working From Home" blog.

Foreclosures - Losing Your Home

I was listening to the news and they reported that the number of foreclosed homes was expected to increase to 20%. I personally know someone that lost their home because the back taxes weren't paid. What makes it all the more worse is that the house will probably be sold for less its value and I don't even know what will happen to the equity (if the previous owners had any) that was in the house. Do the previous owners get that or do they not get anything?

I know that its the "in" thing to be investing in real estate which includes foreclosures but what about the people who are being foreclosed on? I'm sure they are not feeling like they are being part of the "in" thing. The news story goes on to say that there are some options for people who are behind in their mortgage payments. I think a lot of those options involve refinancing their mortgage. A lot of people have gotten those adjustable rate mortgages which are bad because the mortgage payments can go up. But I do understand why people get them. Besides questionable tactics by the companies that handle this, people just go through the procedure so that they can be able to buy the property. I know that this may not seem like a good excuse to some but there are just those instances where your logic takes a back seat and you can't think of anything but the matter at hand.

What's the solution? It's hard to say because everyone has their own different set of circumstances. In a nutshell, if you want to be able to keep your house but you are behind on your payments you should seek some help. If you have exhausted everything that you can do yourself then find someone to help you. First you should seek help from those that don't charge a fee (if you can help it). There should be resources in your own community that you can call and find out how you can address this issue. If the first place you call hasn't helped then call another and keep calling until you can find some help.

Now this may not be a popular subject but I am going to say it anyway and that is that you should start a budget! You can call it your "keeping your house" budget and in that budget you save! Any piece of extra money you put into that budget. You never spend it you just keep adding to it even if it is a few pennies at the start! You save enough to be able to put in a bank account and then you save enough so that you can put it in a bank account that will bring you some interest. Remember that this is your "keep your house" account and remembering that hopefully will rid you of the temptation to spend the money.

IRS goes after eBay, wants info on seller earnings

. In short, the US government wants to treat eBay as a "broker" who would then be required to file notices with the government about how much money its traders have made. The US proposal calls for this reporting to take place only when people sell more than several thousand dollars worth of merchandise in a year.



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A Science Teacher

Science Teacher From New Jersy

Here is an interesting blog from a science teacher. He's quite a fan of nature and it shows in his enthusiasm!

It's always interesting to see what others are doing all around the world.

It also shows the power of what having a blog can do. So if you ever thought about having your own blog but wanted to know how other's look you can click on the link above, read some of the entries and post a comment or two.

The reason why I included this blog is because he's a teacher and the fact that he's sharing his life is inspiring.

Congress.org

Here is a very good link that you should keep in your list of resources/references.

I know that a lot of people don't think that it would do any good to know the addresses of their Congress people but fortunately not all people feel this way. This link will take you to a page where you can find out what the addresses (including email addresses) of your Congress people are. Not only that but this site has a lot of information relating to Congress in general. You can find the Congress people for your area, get on the mailing list to see how your area politicians are voting on certain issues and a whole lot more. There are also examples of letter campaigns that have been done - and you can see examples of those.

I know that a lot of people don't think that it will do any good knowing this kind of information but I think that they are wrong. It's becoming increasingly hard enough not to be involved in politics because it affects so many areas of our lives.

I'm working on adding a direct link to this side on the side of my blog but I seem to be having trouble adding it but I will keep working on it.

Got Bad Credit? - There's A Loophole!

Debtors with poor credit scores can take advantage of a loophole to rent credit lines from people with better credit history. Because spending money in order to borrow more money is exactly what most debtors need to do

You can read more about this in more detail by clicking here

Auto Insurance - A Necessary Evil!

Of course I got another spam email and this time it was about auto insurance. Having auto insurance is a necessary evil but I don't think that I would go online to get it. I feel much comfortable being face to face with the insurance agent. I'm sure that not everybody feels this way because I'm sure that there are people who have bought their auto insurance online.

Maybe the procedure is not the same in every state but in my state you can't choose your initial auto insurance carrier. You can only choose them if you already have a policy in place.

I know its tempting to just go without having the insurance but if you get caught you will have to pay much more than the cost of insurance. I know some people get away with it but once when my auto insurance lapsed I got a notice from the DMV - how did they know? Well anyway if you get that notice from the DMV then you will be in trouble. If you have proof of current insurance coverage then it is alright and you shouldn't have to worry.

Like I said I know it can be tempting to go without it but I do know of a person who got his car towed away. He didn't have insurance, license and all that and when he went to claim the car it cost so much to get it that he ended up leaving it there.

I know its another added expense to your list of expenses but like I said it is a necessary evil so you don't want to get caught without having it.