Is Renting a Financially Viable Option?
I’m saving my pennies for a down payment on a house. Perhaps I’ll figure out where I want to purchase a house (one problem we are having with not being ready) and will have my down payment saved over the next few years as a renter. I have used a savings plan calculator to help get my act together. Someday I hope to be a home owner, yet that someday may be farther away than I had originally planned. Until then, though, is renting a financially sound option? Am I really throwing my...
Read MoreFinally Took the Plunge…
…I signed up for CreditKarma.com so I can now obsess check my score’s progress. One of the elements of my 3-step plan towards purchasing my own little house is improving my credit score so I can qualify for the best and lowest APR mortgage loan. Now that I’m privy to amortization charts, I can quickly compare a mortgage loan at 5.5% versus one at 7% and see that the amount of interest paid on the 7% loan is nearly twice the amount that someone would pay on a 5.5% APR loan....
Read MoreRent Vs. Buy; the Guilt, the Guilt…
Just the other day, Get Rich Slowly wrote a terrific post about renting versus buying property. I’ve been meaning to write my own post about this, especially since purchasing property has been on my mind now for over a year. It is also one of my goals I hope to accomplish by the end of this year or the middle of next year. However, I’m still not ready to take the plunge for a few reasons: Down payment: I don’t have the down payment saved up. I’d like to have at least...
Read MoreCool Calculators
As I keep tweaking my monthly budget, I’ve realized a few areas that need to be added, thanks to Money Funk. 1) Savings – both for my tuition and emergency fund, 2) life insurance – I originally left this out of my monthly budget, but pay for it every 3 months. It’s much easier to just budget it as a monthly payment, and 3.) bank charges. Since I have a couple of checking accounts that charge a monthly fee, I added them into my equations as well. In doing all of this...
Read MoreHow Should You Use A Home Affordability Calculator
Samantha Taylor is a contributing Financial Writer, Moderator and Community Mentor of MortgageFit. She has been an active participant in the forums wherein she offers mortgage advice and suggestions to people in loan problems. If you have a query on “how much house can I afford” related issues, you can simply discuss it with her in the Mortgage Forum. When you’re intending to purchase a new home of your choice, it is always better to work out the amount of money that you can...
Read More
Links I Love
usaa widget
- 529 College Savings Plan
Open a USAA 529 College Savings Plan and ensure your child's education has a happy ending!
- Saving for Retirement
Saving for retirement can be tough but USAA's retirement tools makes that process much easier - sign up today!
- USAA Savings Account
Take advantage of a USAA savings account where the more you save, the better your rate becomes.