I read an article on MSNBC.com this week about how people are not paying on their homes and voluntarily entering foreclosure so that they can save money. The gist of the piece is that these people have simply decided to stop paying on the home and use the money for doing more fun things in  Read More →

So you’ve managed to keep your house, your job, and even your credit report clean during the economic meltdown. But, the storm’s not over just yet. The second wave of foreclosures and economic instability is gearing up to wreak havoc. And what’s worse, you’ve just realized that you are in the middle. Your adjustable rate mortgage is getting ready to adjust and …  Read More →

Starting next month (May 2010) or as soon as its operationally ready, Bank of America may reduce principal balances on certain mortgages of deeply underwater loans. This move expands the scope of its National Homeownership Retention Program (NHRP), which was established to make amends for predatory lending practices by Countrywide Financial, which Bank of America acquired in 2008. The overview of the original program on Bank of America’s... 

By Xin Lu Even though the economy seems to be getting better, the number of mortgage delinquencies is still rising . Some homeowners are choosing to walk away because their debts are much higher than what their houses are worth, and many others just cannot afford their mortgages any longer. Although I am not thinking of walking away from a mortgage, I wondered how long those who stop paying their mortgages can live in their homes before the... 

A few days ago, I made my very first mortgage payment.  It felt so good, today, when I logged on to our mortgage company’s website and saw that the payment has posted.  It felt not-so-good to see just how much of our payment was applied to interest – and how little was applied to principal . …  Read More →

My wife and recently purchased our first home.  Here is my plan to pay off our 15 year mortgage in 10 years – or less! Opening Fire – We will us online bill pay to make our regular, monthly mortgage payments .  I have already scheduled for our monthly payment to be sent from our bank to our mortgage company on the 15th of each month, the day after I receive my monthly paycheck.  The mortgage…  Read More →

In a few weeks, we will make our first mortgage payment.  Our mortgage is a fixed-rate 15 year mortgage .  Obviously, I’m not a fan of debt – and I’m going to work very, very hard to pay our mortgage off early.  Using a mortgage calculator I calculated the following the scenarios for paying the mortgage off early – 15 years and zero months = mortgage payment + $0 extra per month 12 years and 3 months = mortgage payment... 

It’s been a full week and we are loving our new home .  We are still waiting for the new furniture for our living room to arrive, along with some bar stools for the kitchen, but other than those items, we are all settled.  (If you ever want to find out just how much stuff you have – move!  Whew.) Obviously, now that we have a house payment, our goals and plans for 2010 have changed.  Instead of aggressively funding my retirement... 

I cannot tell you how excited my wife and I are.  This afternoon, we are closing on the purchase of our new house ! For the past several years, we have lived in a house provided by my employer.  Recently, we decided that the time was right to buy a house of our own.  (Honestly, we have been looking for more than two years, but we really got serious about it this past fall.) Early in January, we found “the perfect house” for our... 

By Joel Ohman Getting out of credit card debt, paying off all student loans, and paying off their mortgage in full ASAP is the #1 goal of almost every personal finance blogger on the Wise Bread Top Personal Finance Blogs List , but what if they have it all wrong? OK, as the owner of Credit Card Chaser , I will be the first one to admit that going into credit card debt = bad. Why?…  Read More →

By Xin Lu This week a government committee is investigating the cause of the financial crisis by interrogating bank titans what exactly went wrong. Complicit: How Greed and Collusion Made the Credit Crisis Unstoppable by Mark Gilbert is exactly what these government officials need to read to learn what went on in the last few years to cause the debacle. Here are some of what I learned from the book. The book described the myriad of derivative... 

Many times I hear people say, “It’s great that you’re debt free, but I’ll never be able to do that. I’ll always have a some kind of debt,” and then they elaborate on why they can never be without a car payment, mortgage, credit card balance, etc. “It’s just the way things, are,” they’ll finally  Read More →

By Maggie Ellis It is widely taught in financial education that there are only two kinds of debt that can be considered “good debt”: A mortgage and student loans (as long as they aren’t beyond your ability to repay comfortably). We’re always taught that it’s okay to go into debt to buy a house or another  Read More →

The interest rates have dropped, dropped, and dropped some more. So those with an existing mortgage might benefit from refinancing. In our case we took our thirty year mortgage, refinanced, and now have a twenty year fixed at a full percentage point lower. But everything is not cut-and-dry. Refinancing can be a breeze compared to the original financing process. Depending on your housing market, many mortgage companies will do a streamlined refinancing... 

The only debt we’ve ever incurred was to buy our house. At the time we bought, we just didn’t have a spare $150K lying around so we had to get a mortgage. We knew going in that we didn’t want to be stuck with it for thirty years so we set out to buy a  Read More →