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Buying your own home is an exciting experience. Maybe you’re setting off on your own for the first time or maybe you’ve decided to take the plunge of owning your own home because of the current low historic interest rates. Either way, it can be a bit scary to navigate the process for the first time (and quite honestly the second and third time too!). There are so many things you need to consider when purchasing a home and being a homeowner brings expenses that you didn’t have when you were renting. Here are some things for you to think about as you work through the home buying process:

Closing Costs
When you purchase a home, you will be paying closing costs. These costs can be quite substantial and may come as a surprise! They range from title fees, to application fees, to filing fees and a host of other fees. Sometimes you can negotiate that the seller pays these fees, or at least a portion of them. The title company should provide you with a list of fees before the closing so you can review them all. Make sure you find out what all the fees are (and that you understand what they are) before your closing to avoid last minute surprises.

Initial Move In Expenses
You may need to purchase appliances like a washer/dryer, refrigerator or an oven depending on what’s in your purchase contract. In addition you may need to buy window coverings or window blinds which can be a considerable expense depending on how many and what type you’ll need to purchase. Also you need to take into account your moving expenses. Unless you have a large truck or van big enough to move all your possessions, you may need to rent a truck or hire a moving company.

Home Maintenance
With home ownership comes homes maintenance. Being a home owner means you need to make repairs to your property when they are needed. Appliances will need to be repaired and plumbing leaks happen.

Roofs usually need to be replaced every 15 to 20 years by professionals like Quality Exterior Services LLC. Lawns need to be mowed and landscaped. You can hire someone to do this maintenance for you but that will cost you more. If you plan on handling the yard work yourself, you’ll need to invest in a mower and other lawn maintenance tools.

Don’t underestimate your desire to upgrade stuff in your home too; Plan to spend a lot of time in your local home improvement store. Even DIY type projects can wind up costing you a lot of money.

Property Taxes
Be careful when you are using the mortgage calculators to figure out your monthly payment. Most calculators are only set up to show you the principal and interest amount but not the additional expenses of property taxes and insurance. Once you are a homeowner, you will need to pay property taxes. You can usually find the most recent taxes from the MLS listing and be forewarned that they can go up each year. Most likely, your lender will set up an escrow account and will collect 1/12 of the total amount due each month when you make your mortgage payment. Then, the lender will pay the property taxes out of the escrow account when they are due. It’s good for you to keep up with what your property tax bill is and to verify that it gets paid on time.

Homeowner’s Insurance
Your lender will require that you have insurance on your home. Usually the first year’s fee is collected at the closing and then a monthly amount is collected and held in escrow for the following year’s payment. Just like the property taxes, make sure you keep track of the insurance – how much you are currently paying for it and verify that it gets paid on time. Homeowner’s insurance tends to increase every year too. You may need to purchase hazard insurance if you are in a flood or earthquake zone and those are going to cost you extra.

Homeowner’s Association Dues
These dues are usually paid once per year, if you are in an area that has a homeowner’s association. Be sure you read all the fine print in your purchase contract so you know your financial obligation for these dues.

Last week we took a look at a few of the more common hidden budget busters. What we discovered is that seemingly small purchases can have a large affect on our finances! It’s a very good thing for you to evaluate your spending to see what your budget busters are, and to try and get a hold of them. In fact, we saw how a modest eating out habit can run you almost $150,000 in 20 years!

Even smaller things such as paying for unnecessary channels with your cable TV package, buying coffee instead of brewing it at home, and even buying new books and DVDs instead of used, can have a large enough impact on your finances, that it pays to look at them!

However, we ultimately will reach a point where the savings from evaluating certain expenses are so small, that is becomes counterproductive to do so. Imagine if someone desires to get into shape and they spend an hour each day working the muscles in their fingers! Now, if they are a champion thumb wrestler or a classical guitarist, this type of detailed workout may prove to be quite useful; however, for the rest of us, it would pretty much be a waste of time.

The same holds true in personal finance. It can be very overwhelming to concentrate on every minute area of spending. If you are at the beginning stages of your financial journey, then you need to focus on reducing large expenses first. Then after you have taken care of those, focus on the budget busters that we talked about in the previous article.

Hopefully, you will come to a point where all of the major, moderate, and small budget items have already been address and set in order. Then at that point, you must make a decision about the finer points of your finances.

Before you begin to add water to your near-empty bottles of condiments, consider if that practice is worth the time, effort, and weakened taste. The same holds true for watering down your liquid soap (or dish detergent), and counting how many squares of toilet tissue you use per trip to the bathroom!

So, how do we know if we are going too far?

One strategy is to assign yourself an hourly rate – if you are employed, you can use that as a good starting point – this is in essence, how valuable you consider your time to be. Then if the money you save from whatever activity you are trying to evaluate is greater than what it would have cost you to hire yourself, then it’s ok to do.

For example, if you are someone who likes to add water to your ketchup bottle when it’s almost empty – in order to get every last drop – first consider how long it takes you to do this. Let’s assume it takes 30 seconds each time you do this, and you will do it once per month. If you set your hourly rate at $50 (I really value my leisure time), then it will cost $5 of your time to add water to your ketchup bottles for an entire year. Doesn’t sound like much, right? However, do you really think you’re saving $5 worth of ketchup by add water to the near-empty bottles? Of course not!

The better thing to do in this case – since you can actually buy a few bottles of ketchup with that $5 –  is to buy an extra bottle and stop wasting your time! I’ll leave you to perform this analysis on your squares of toilet tissue!

You also have to consider any negative effect from these actions. One of my pet peeves is for someone to completely water down their hand soap, in an attempt to save $0.50! You have to use twice as much soap as before, and it is so watery that it just runs off of your hands! Now, I’m sure that you can find a balance, but unfortunately, my friends have not!

I’m going to really need your help on these questions in the comments…

Reader Questions:

1. What tiny things do you attack in your budget?
2. What things do you think are too inconsequential to pay attention to?
3. How do you differentiate between the two?
   
4. How many times will you perform one of these tasks, not in an effort to save money, but because you feel guilty about wasting even a drop?

We enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner yesterday and I’ve been busy today being creative with using up the leftovers. Since we have quite a bit of mashed potatoes left over, I’ve been researching some delicious ways to use them up and thought I would share a few of my finds:



1. Tonight for dinner I will be making Shepherd’s Pie. I am going to be using ground turkey for the meat portion but really any meat combo will do. Rachael Ray has a fairly easy and quick Shepherd’s Pie Recipe you may want to try out. Bottom line – make some type of meat and vegetable combo, and top it with mashed potatoes and cheese. Yum!

2. Leftover Thanksgiving Casserole is another way to use up those mashed potatoes and any other Thanksgiving related items. I like the fact that this recipe also uses up the green bean casserole dish that so many like to enjoy on Thanksgiving Day.



3. If you are looking for a lighter dish then mashed potato soup might be a nice recipe to try. This is a quick recipe too, taking about 25 minutes from start to finish.

4. Mashed Potato Dumplings would be a nice treat too, especially if you have leftover gravy you can use as a dipping sauce.



5. Leftover mashed potatoes can be used in several breakfast dishes as well. Here is a nifty little recipe for a mashed potato omelet.

6. Mashed Potato Patties would be great for dinner or breakfast. I watched Michael Chiarello make these today on the Food Network Channel. They didn’t look too difficult to make and looked delicious. He served them along side some turkey/cranberry/stuffing panini sandwiches which looked so good I wished I had enough leftovers to make them!

7. If you’re tired of anything turkey related, then maybe Beef Rolls Italiano might sound appealing.

8. Here is another creative mashed potato recipe using eggs. This one looks good enough for breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

9. If you are in the mood for fish, then perhaps salmon croquettes might be a good way to use up those leftover mashed potatoes. This recipe looks easy and quick.

10. Finally, mashed potato rolls can be made and they only require 1 cup of leftover mashed potatoes.

The following article is a guest post.

Over the past decade, a growing number of people have turned to investing as a means of supplementing their incomes. Once seen as the reserve of those rich enough to hire professionals who could trade on their behalf, this changed with the ever increasing prevalence of the internet. Acting as the great leveller, it offered ordinary people access to the markets in an entirely new way.

This has not come without its complications. Investing is a blanket term; one that covers a wide range of investment instruments. Spread out like an exotic banquet before you, it can be hard to ascertain which dish you’ll most like the taste of, and that’s why we’ve created this handy guide to help.

Simply read on to learn all about the options that are available to you…

#1: Bonds

We’ll begin with something simple: bonds. Bonds are usually a good investment choice for those with a conservative approach to risk, as they tend to be relatively predictable. Essentially, a bond is a loan that you are giving to a government or institution, in exchange for a pre-agreed interest rate that they will pay you over a specified period of time. When the term of the bond agreement ends, the total face value of it is repaid to the investor, so that you end up fully compensated with a little extra on top. This makes bonds an ideal early investment, and a wonderful tool for providing a stabilising influence to your portfolio.

#2: Stocks

Perhaps the most well-known investment instrument is stocks, which work by providing investors with partial ownership of a publicly traded company. These represent a claim on a proportion of the corporation’s assets and earnings, which is directly tied to how traders turn a profit. If you’re thinking of investing in stocks, then there are two main types that you need to be aware of: common and preferred. The former will entitle the holder to have their say at shareholder meetings, as well as putting them in receipt of dividends. The latter, on the other hand, does not bestow any voting rights, but does give the owner an increased claim over assets and earnings, and priority in the event of a business’ bankruptcy or liquidation.

#3: Mutual Funds

Next up, mutual funds. Mutual funds are sometimes believed to be a reasonably complex investment vehicle, but they’re quite simple in reality. They allow you to invest your capital in a professionally-managed portfolio of assets, leaving most of the everyday control and decision-making down to others, which means that they’re best for those who don’t wish to be too hands-on with their investments. They may contain a wide variety of assets, covering multiple classes of investment instrument, all carefully selected to achieve an overall financial goal.

#4: Exchange-Traded Funds (ETF)

A second type of fund that you might consider investing in is an ETF. Commonly known as a portfolio of securities, these work much like a mutual fund, tracking an index, a commodity, bonds, or a ‘basket’ of assets. The main difference between the two is that ETFs are traded in much the same way as common stocks on a stock exchange, experiencing multiple price fluctuations over the course of a day as they’re repeatedly bought and sold. This gives them a higher overall liquidity than their mutual fund counterparts, and this, combined with their more conservative fees, makes them an attractive proposition to many investors.

#5: Currencies

For those who are not deterred by risk, currency trading is a useful option to consider. The forex market is renowned for being the largest and most liquid in the world, and great sums of money move within it. With an average traded value exceeding $5 trillion a day, it is a place where fortunes are made and lost, and thus perfect for those with talent and tenacity. With its central marketplace trading 24 hours a day, five days a week, it can be a wonderful choice for those working around already restrictive commitments, and this is a major part of its appeal. If you’re looking for both opportunity and accessibility, it is definitely an option to bear in mind, and brokers like ETX Capital are usually all too happy to answer any further questions that you might have.

#6: Commodities

A commodity is a raw or primary product, and these are traded via physical and virtual marketplaces all around the world. At the current time, there are around 50 major markets globally, facilitating investment trade in around 100 primary commodities. As a rule, the markets split these assets into two generic types: hard and soft. The former are natural resources, ones which must be mined or extracted, whilst the latter term covers agricultural products and livestock. There are numerous ways to invest in these products, from purchasing stock in the businesses that rely on commodity prices to sinking your capital into funds with a focus on commodity-centred companies. Most directly, you can purchase a futures contract, which we’re going to discuss below.

#7: Futures

There are many more investment instruments for those willing to spend the time researching them, but the last one that we’re going to discuss here is futures. Futures can sound rather confusing when described on paper, but they’re really not that complex once you manage to wrap your head around them. Essentially, futures are financial contracts which obligate the buyer to either purchase or sell an asset at a predetermined future date and price. These contracts are often detailed, and will contain information pertaining to factors like the quality and quantity of the purchased asset. Commonly used as a tool for hedging, they allow investors, who will often double as producers or other parties with a vested interest, to lock in a particular price and thus reduce the risk of their venture.

If you’re considering investing, you’ll soon discover that there are a wide array of opportunities available for you to choose from, each of them suiting different traders and financial goals to varying degrees. The trick is to do your research, carefully consider your decisions, and wait to make your move until you find the ideal investment instruments for you.

The following article is a guest post.
The Brexit has had a huge impact on many different industries and the full reverberations of Britain’s decision to leave the EU are still yet to be felt. The forex industry is one which is particularly important to the Brexit, with the value of currency being intrinsic to its trading success. The full impact of the Brexit on the forex industry will come to light over the coming years, but here is what we know about its immediate effects so far:

The Value of the Pound
The value of the pound plummeted to its lowest value since 1985 on the 24th June, the day after the EU referendum, causing a market meltdown. The FTSE index 100 fell by 8% causing panic and gradually since the market has begun to increase with the value of the pound creeping back up slowly back to what it was earlier this year. It’s hard to say what is going to happen next, as no one can predict what changes are going to happen in the market but by keeping on top of economic events across the globe with an economic calendar, this should give some warning of events which could cause things to change.

Gold and Precious Metals
The value of sterling falling means that investors with stocks and shares can start to panic about their investments. One of the positives of this for the forex industry is that gold and precious metals tend to hold their value better in times of uncertainty, making them a much safer and more attractive investment for the future. Investors are looking to spread their investments to guarantee more financial security by investing in a combination of different assets.

The Future
Uncertainty means that Brexit-related developments could still impact on forex, especially companies based in the UK or the EU. With a lot of the legislation that dictates rules and regulations for the forex market being derived from the EU, its likely there is soon to be some changes made by government officials in the UK but so far nothing has been confirmed.

It’s unclear to what extent exactly the Brexit is going to have on the forex market but it looks set to be shaken up. With British politics fairly unstable at the moment and a period of change set to come, there’s no way to predict what the full impact of the Brexit will be just yet.

The following article is a guest post.

Once you’ve moved into your dream home and the initial excitement has worn off, the time has come to consider your monthly mortgage. One way to cope with the problem is saving money on everyday expenses by using Discountrue coupons for Kohl’s or other popular stores. However, it’s not the only thing you need to know, so if you want to get done with it as soon as possible, you’ll need to learn more about other methods of doing so and combine the efforts.

Fortunately, there are numerous ways to pay your mortgage off faster, so be sure to read on and learn more about how to eliminate this expense from your monthly responsibilities as quickly as you can!

1. Pay 1/12th Extra Each Month

This is one of the simplest methods for paying off a mortgage more quickly. All you need to do is take your principal and interest from each month, divide that number by 12 and add it to your monthly payment. As a result, you will be making 13 payments each year, instead of 12, and the financial sacrifice is minimal.

Before applying this method, contact the company that is servicing your mortgage and make sure that these payments are being applied to the loan balance in the proper manner.

2. Refinancing

If you’d like to switch to a mortgage with a shorter term, refinancing is a viable option. For many homeowners, the prospect of spending 30 years paying off a mortgage is too much to bear and switching to a 15 year mortgage term is far more palatable over the long haul.

A 15 year mortgage typically comes with a much lower interest rate than a 30 year term, but be forewarned – you will need to qualify first. A credit check and a home appraisal are necessary aspects of the process.

3. Make One Extra Payment Each Year

There are two different ways to go about this task. Homeowners can either save their money throughout the year and make two payments instead of one at the end. On the other hand, those who are paid on a biweekly basis have the ability to set aside a piece of those “extra” checks that arrive during certain months. Making 13 payments every year will slice a significant amount of time off your schedule, allowing you to own your home outright much sooner.

4. Put “Found Money” Towards Your Mortgage

We have an alarming tendency to take found money and blow it on items that do not enrich our lives in any meaningful way. But when you get a bonus at your job, a hefty tax return or any other unexpected windfall, your best bet is to put it towards your mortgage.

This method gives you the chance to pay extra only when you’re flush with additional funds and cut down on your interest by lowering the principal. However, it is important to make sure that you are not neglecting any other pertinent needs before embracing this strategy.