Three Steps You Can Take To Turn Your Financial Life Around

July 29, 2010
Tips For A Financial Turnaround

After we got married just over 8 years ago, my wife and I entered the marriage with more debt than we would have liked.  My wife had zero debt, and I came in with student loans, credit card debt (for our honeymoon) and a loan for my car.   We weren’t happy with having so much [...]

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How To Sell Your House Fast In A Tough Real Estate Market

July 28, 2010
Sell Your House Fast

A few years back my wife and I were selling our townhouse, and the market was at it’s height. Sellers were easily getting the asking price for their homes, and some were even getting more than one offer – sometimes above the asking price. Times were good if you were a seller, however, the problem [...]

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Do I Qualify For The Making Home Affordable Home Refinance And Modification Program?

July 27, 2010
Making Home Affordable Modification

Over the past year and a half millions of people have attempted to refinance or modify their home mortgages in order to help them stay in their home.  Others have just taken advantage of the program in order to be able to refinance their home under better terms than might otherwise have been available. Our [...]

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Personal Finance Basics: Live Below Your Means

July 26, 2010
Living Below Your Means

Last week I started a series called “Personal Finance Basics“.  In the series I plan on talking about basic concepts of personal finance, going back to the simple concepts that we sometimes forget or ignore.  Last time I talked about the idea of paying yourself first in order to ensure that your savings grow – [...]

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Unemployment Benefits Extended And Are Available Again For Up To 99 Weeks

July 23, 2010
Unemployment Benefits Extended

In early June millions of people who were without a job ran out of jobless benefits as congress failed to push back the deadline for people to apply for unemployment.  It is estimated that over 2 million people have had their benefits lapse. Unemployment Benefits Law Passed Today President Obama signed an extension of the [...]

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Personal Finance Basics: Pay Yourself First

July 22, 2010
Pay Yourself First

Personal finance can seem like such an amazingly complex topic at times.  There are so many things to think about with financial management including budgeting, saving, investing, credit, debt, mortgages and so much more.  Each topic has sub-topics – and it feels like it could take a lifetime to figure it all out.  It can [...]

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Roth IRA Withdrawal Rules

July 20, 2010
Roth IRA Withdrawal Rules

The Roth IRA is an investment option that I love because of it allows your money to enjoy tax free growth and for the diversification it can bring to your tax situation at retirement.  It can be great to have some tax free investments like the Roth in addition to pre-tax investment types like a [...]

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Keep It Simple Stupid: Sometimes We Make Things Too Complex

July 15, 2010
Keeping Things Simple

One thing I’ve realized over the past few weeks is just how complex we as human beings like to make things, even when they could be so simple. We love to take things that really are pretty basic and easy to understand, dissect them and turn them into something more complex, and harder to understand. [...]

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Deadline To Close On Your Home And Receive Your Homebuyer Tax Credit Extended To September 30th

July 14, 2010
Homebuyer Tax Credit Extended

Last month I wrote about how congress and the White House were considering extending the $8,000 and $6,500 homebuyer tax credits.  At the time it wasn’t a done deal that an extension would be granted because the provision was being included as a rider on a controversial jobs bill that wasn’t sure to pass both [...]

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Dave Ramsey’s 7 Baby Steps: Step 7 – Build Wealth And Give!

July 13, 2010
Baby Step 7 Build Wealth And Give

In the last post we talked about Baby Step 6, where Dave Ramsey suggests that you pay off your home early. We looked about both sides of the argument, talking about how a paid off house can give you freedom, and allow you to save, invest and give more. We also talked about how some [...]

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Save Money On Hefty Hospital Bills Simply By Requesting A Discount

July 9, 2010
Ask For A Discount On Health Care

The past couple of years have been tough ones at our house, and we’ve ended up spending weeks in the hospital for a variety of surgeries, births and other medical issues. We’ve been spending a lot of money on our family’s health care costs. In fact, if we hadn’t had health insurance we probably would [...]

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