Less Stuff more Money

I LOVE CCs

(Tiger) — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 11:50:48 PST

Probably one of the best things I've ever done is to not get into CC debt. While a freshman in college, I regrettably signed up for some credit cards, but luckily I never used them. I was told that I needed to use them to build credit history, and maybe I should have. But I decided...

You can pinch pennies ... or ...

(Tiger) — Tue, 13 May 2008 07:01:13 PST

Drive a more fuel efficient car. And it's better for the environment too! Let me give a personal example. I went from driving a 1996 Dodge Avenger to a 2008 Toyota Yaris.

1996 Avenger: 21 mpg (rated @ 24 mpg, but it's old)
2008 Toyota Yaris: 32 mpg

With gas at $3.50/gallon and...

2 Month Went By Fast

(Tiger) — Mon, 12 May 2008 11:44:57 PST

So this is what has happened since the last entry:

1. Refinance My Mortgage from 6.75% 30yr fixed to 5.5% 15yr fixed. Cost me $700 in fees. But will save me close to $80,000 in the long run. My payment went up $150, but I can afford that.

2. Bought a new car with almost $4000...

February numbers

(Tiger) — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 06:52:54 PST

February was a weird month. Here are some unusual numbers:

Car Down Payment: -$4,700
US tax refund: $3,700
Green card renewal: -$370
Net worth*: $39,979 (+$2,961)

Most our losses came from car sales tax and immediate depreciation (almost $1600). Numbers have been updated on the left.

$15,500 Lighter

(Tiger) — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 06:57:24 PST

I got a brand new Toyota Yaris Sedan sitting in the drive way. The money scale says I'm $15,500 lighter. I put $4500 down and got an $11,000 loan for 3 years at 5.55%. I'm looking to pay it off in 12 months with payments of about $1000 a month. On top of our refinance mortgage at $1700...

What is a Toyota Yaris Sedan

(Tiger) — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 06:42:16 PST

A: The car I am going to buy.

A combination of JD-Power ratings, test drives and price have led me to decide on the Yaris Sedan. I finally decided on it because it's built here in the U.S. apparently. I have been soliciting offers from about 10 dealers in the area. We're hoping...

Recession, say what?

(Tiger) — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 07:45:57 PST

So, I have heard people say that there's already a recession. But mind you, a recession actually has a technical definition: 2 consecutive quarters with negative GDP growth. Now, I concede, macroeconomics is a fairly difficult to understand subject, and I'm no expert at it. But I do...

Proud of our plastic use this month

(Tiger) — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 11:29:52 PST

We usually rack up at least $1800 (Usually more than $2000) on our credit cards during a month. It counts for about 75% of our non-mortgage spending (i.e. groceries, gas, bills, clothing, etc.). Almost three weeks into the month we're still under $800! Hopefully we can finish the month...

I need a new car

(Tiger) — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 06:02:53 PST

This morning I couldn't get my car started. I know the problem: yesterday it was warm (well, relatively, 40F) and humid; a lot of water condensed on the parts inside the distributor; the temperature dropped to the mid twenties; the condensation on the distributor parts froze.

Anyway,...

Prosper Part II

(Tiger) — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 06:13:22 PST

So I have been doing some more research on Prosper lending. Basically Prosper is the same lending as banks do, but your return is lower than the bank's return because:

A) Prosper takes a piece of the pie
B) Interest rates are slightly lower than the bank's for several reasons (one...

Prosper

(Tiger) — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 08:36:14 PST

Has anyone used prosper to lend money and get a higher return on their money? I've decided to check it out with a small amount ($1,000) of money, if my return stays above 5%, I might invest more. They say that the average return rate is close to 10% I'm just wondering why there are...

Taxes finally done.

(Tiger) — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 06:34:22 PST

I'm still waiting whether I can actually get the lifetime education credit of $1600, however I'm expecting not. I don't even know how it works 'cause I'm just click yes/no buttons on the tax software. Regardless, if I do get it, and I'm not supposed to, I'm still thinking I'd probably...

Those Appraisers...

(Tiger) — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 10:38:31 PST

I don't know what you have to do to become a real estate appraiser, but I know you don't have to do much once you become one. I had our house appraised today, and the guy was in our house for literally 5 minutes, and outside for 2 minutes. We pay $400 for the appraisal. Now; I know...

Shoveling snow is good exercise

(Tiger) — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 06:52:48 PST

We've had about 12" of snow over the last 24 hours. We have about a 80 ft double drive way. With less snow (1"-4") it usually takes me about 15 minutes. Yesterday it took me 45 minutes, so it made for good exercise. This morning I spent another 10 minutes on it because about 1.5" fell...

786 and counting...

(Tiger) — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 07:37:15 PST

My credit score just got bumped a little to 786 (Experian Plus Score out of 830). From experience I know that the fico scores are a little higher than that, so hopefully I have crossed the 800 barrier by now. I think it pretty good considering I only have 6 years worth of credit history....

Oh, that escrow...

(Tiger) — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 06:47:45 PST

My credit union 'under-charged' me for my escrow payments. We just got a 10% increase in property taxes. We were under charged $50/month, so our payments will increase by $100/month. $50 to make up for what we owe and $50 extra for the projected increase in property tax.

By the...

Best month ever...

(Tiger) — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 08:04:46 PST

Like they like to say on wall street. We finally got our spending a little bit under control. The balance statement reads as follows:

Income: $5,934
Expenses: $3,450
Balance: + $2,483

The goal, however, is to get the non-mortgage expenses under $1800. Now it's at $2200. February...

You got hosed Tommy, you got hosed... Part II

(Tiger) — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 11:22:01 PST

Big government/small government, who cares?
This is just jargon politicians like to throw around. What we really need to do is to reduce our national debt. The national debt is not just a huge negative number. It's something that affects each tax payer every year. Whenever, around this time of the year, the white house publishes its discretionary budget there's a huge glaring piece of the pie in the expenses chart. It says *Interest on debt* and it's a greater than a Quarter Trillion dollar slice of pie. Ok, so that's a large number, but realistically, that's about $1000 per tax payer. So you'd probably think I'm p***ed that $1000 of my tax money goes into a black hole (technically not, but it might as well...). You're right, it's not something that makes me excited. However, the WORST part of it is that our national debt keeps on growing, that we do not feel the responsibility to reduce it to say... 2% of our GDP or something manageable like that. So, what would it take to reduce it to 2% of our GDP. Well, I'm no 'get out of debt' expert, but say we get a quarter trillion dollar surplus each year from now on, It would take close to 40 years to get out of debt, or maybe 35 years to make our debt more manageable. But a 250,000,000,000 surplus is a pipe dream. In reality, maybe 100 years is a more realistic goal. So in all reality, our children AND grand children WILL be paying for our irresponsible behavior. So, government, if you are listening, here are some suggestions on how to get a budget surplus:

Increase revenues, decrease spending (NO S***!)

Decrease DoD spending by 30% from $481.4B to $300B -> Save $161B!
Finish up this 'War on Terror' from $145B to $0 -> Save $145B!
Cut all other spending by 5% ->Save $100B
for a total spending cut of $406 Billion

Have Bill Gates donate 25% of his assets -> Receive $10B extra
Tax executive stock compensation at 50%
-> Receive $10B extra
Raise taxes by 1% -> Receive $12B extra
...Ok, so it seems really hard to increase income without radically increasing taxes. I'm not against increasing taxes for the super rich, for those with incomes higher than 500,000, but then again, I'm not super rich, so that's easy for me to say.

Anyway, with those suggestions, we'd have a difference of $440 billion, and it would give us a surplus of $200 billion.

Stop feeding the pigs!
So, I'd never heard of 'pork barrel spending' before. But, geez, it seems so wrong. In high school, I learned about a thing called 'federalism'. It's nice for states when it works one way (in that the federal government can't tell them what to do in certain situations) however, it does not make any sense that the federal government is paying for local projects. The only thing I can think of that the federal government should pay for are: federal lands (parks, military bases, etc.) and highway construction between states. Leave the state funding to the state governments...please...Ok, so I don't know what amount of money goes to these local spending projects, but regardless it should not be allowed.

Don't let them in, but let them stay
I'm talking about illegal immigrants. I, for one, do not feel 'threatened' by them. However, I think we should do more to stop them from coming into the US. However, for those already here, I think we should have them registered, get them working permits, HAVE THEM PAY TAXES, get them on a naturalization track of say 10 to 15 years, make them US citizens. But it's only natural to require them to learn to speak english. What language they speak at home, I don't care about, but we should not have to go out of our way to make this a bilingual society by printing everything in two languages, having customer service available in two languages, etc., etc. In the end, I believe that this policy will be good for the American economy. The more American consumers, the better!

Where is our money going?
Whether your believe the late Milton Friedman or not, it is a fact that money is flowing out of our country at the rate of about $800 Billion each year. Now, it has been argued that that money will eventually come back to us, or that the value of the money will eventually be returned. The problem, however, many argue , is that our trade deficit to other countries will be reinvested in the country of origin by those with a surplus. So in the end, who will the American government be owing money too? Probably the Chinese who have invested their surplus in American bonds. Only if we'd decide that we are unaffected by outside economies, and said we'd be trading with just a 'black hole' or something like that, it may be rightfully argued that our economy is unaffected, or even better off by the trade deficit. Because what's better than trading with a 'black hole'? You put in money, you get out goods, and the money never returns, which, locally increases the value of the currency. So you'll have more goods, and your currency is worth more. In any case, I personally believe the trade deficit might be bad for our economy. I, at least, perceive it as making it more vulnerable. The economy just gets so complicated these days!

Lock That Rate

(Tiger) — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 07:18:27 PST

Today I went to the mortgage lady, and I got my rate locked in at 5.5% for a 15 yr mortgage. As it stands I'm going from:

30yr 6.75% ---- $908/mo
to
15yr 5.50% ---- $1119/mo

Which means in 3 years I will be paying less interest than principal! I wasn't sure whether I should...

You got hosed Tommy, you got hosed...

(Tiger) — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 13:20:31 PST

Most of us have been negatively affected by the recent 'downturn' in the economy. The result so far is there is less incentive than ever to save. I must admit I'm in no dire position at the moment, nevertheless I feel the need to vent a little:

Unscrupulous lenders or greedy borrowers?
I'm...