Life.Currenttoday.com - 2 Cents

First of all, the entire financial engine in the United States has pulled the wool over the eyes of the American public.

If you, a typical consumer in the United States, were asked some of the basic things you should do in your financial life, you would respond as follows:

“Invest well. Buy real estate. And, save for retirement as early as possible.”

So, if you buy a home, what should you look for in good financing?

“Oh, definitely the lowest fixed rate that can be found.”

Well, this very thing is what you have been taught. So, why shouldn’t you believe it?

Probably one of the worse, if not the worst loan you can get is the standard amortized fixed rate loan marketed by your local banker.

Did you ever stop to think why the person profiting from your loan is telling you this is the loan for you?

This and the insurance industry are likely the largest legal robberies of our modern age. And we, like sheep, head to the slaughter with smiles on our faces.

This is what you get with an amortized loan.

1) You get to pay three or four times the value of the property.
2) You don’t start paying for the property until you have paid for the loan.
3) You get to pay them for doing this to you in fees.

Let’s look at a typical home purchase of a fairly nice home around $200,000.00 dollars.

Let’s put 10% down for our example. The average first home buyer will do this or less.

Down Payment: $20,000.00
Amount Financed: $180,000.00
Monthly Payment: $1,197.54
(Principal & Interest ONLY)

Since you are putting LESS than 20% down, you will need to pay PMI (Private Mortgage Insurance), which tends to be about $55 per month for every $100,000 financed (until you have paid off 20% of your loan). This could add $99.00 to your monthly payment.
Monthly Payment: $1,296.54
(Principal & Interest, and PMI)

Residential (or Property) Taxes are a little harder to figure out… In Massachusetts, the average residential tax rate seems to be around $14 per year for every $1,000 of your property’s assessed value.

Let’s say that your property’s assessed value is 85% of what you actually paid for it - $170,000.00. This would mean that your yearly residential taxes will be around $2,380.00 This could add $198.33 to your monthly payment.
TOTAL Monthly Payment: $1,494.88
(including PMI and residential tax)

Ok, let’s multiply $1,494.88 for 360 payments across the 30 year loan.

Well, we have actually paid $538,156.80 for the loan. Let’s add the $20,000 we put down, and we have paid 558,156.80 for the property.

So, the cost of the loan was $358,156.80, and we end up paying well over two and a half times the value of the property.

If that isn’t bad enough for you, let’s get to the really silly part. The amortized loan is absolutely the dumbest loan you could ever get.

An amortized note takes the amount of the loan, figures the interest, and then slides most all the interest to the front. In other words, you won’t be paying more than 50% of your payment on the principal until well over half the loan. The banker will get around 97% of your payment amount at first and the bulk of your payment for the first 8 to 10 years. So, after 8 years, you will still owe over 80% of your homes value. But, the banker will have 80% of his money. To be honest, you have a better deal than this with a high rate credit card!!

But what about the tax incentives? Ok, here’s what that gets you. For giving away $12,000.00 dollars of your money, you get to deduct a percentage of it from your income. So, maybe, you’ll PAY $2000.00 less in taxes for the year.

So, if you think that is good, I’ll take $12,000 of your money, and give you $2000.00 back all day long!

But what about the investment? OK, here’s what that gets you. In a very good economy, a home’s value will increase, maybe, 10% in a year. To get a national average, you can figure 3% to 5%. You can get lucky with this in a hot area. Let’s just look at what is typical. So, your home is worth $170,000.00. It will increase in value around $8,500.00 per year.

Here is where everything gets really interesting. The average family in the United States moves somewhere between 3 to 7 years. If we use the upper figure, then we will gain around $60,000.00 in the value of our home. So, what does everyone say?

We say we paid $200,000.00 for our home, and sold it for $260,000.00. That was a really good investment.

We fail to account for the $84,000.00 we paid in interest across those years. This yields a net loss of $24,000.00. Minus the huge tax incentive of $14,000.00. Wow!! We only lost $10,000.00 on this house!! Now, there’s a deal! There’s the American Dream.

The fact is, if you are going to get an amortized loan and be stupid, then at least get one with an adjustable rate. What?!?

That’s right, an adjustable rate will be the lowest right now. And right now is when you are paying all the interest. Then, you want terms with a cap. Like a 5 point cap and 1 point gain max per year.

The MOST important part of any kind of loan is the terms of the loan.

You want a simple interest loan. This kind of loan in NOT amortized, so the payment and interest go down every month.

Finally, if you are smart with your money, and can invest it, the absolute best way to buy a house is a simple interest, interest ONLY loan. How is that best, seeing you never pay the principle?

Lets take our $200,000.00 dollar house. Simple interest with a term of 7 years will get us a better interest rate. We should be able to get 5% to 6%. But we can’t afford to pay it off in 7 years? Remember, we’re moving in 7 years!! We’ll never pay it off either way. If we don’t move, we’ll simply renegotiate our terms. Our interest only payment will be a little over $900 a month plus our PMI and taxes, bringing our monthly payment to around $1,164 per month. That’s a net savings of over $330.88 per month.

Now we didn’t use our $20,000 for a down payment. We invested our $20,000.00 in a cd yielding 4%. We earn roughly $5,600.00 on it in the 7 years. Next, We also claim the same tax claim. So, we keep the same $14,000.00 of our money as well. Finally, we ONLY pay interest. Remember? So we now have 330.00 per month to invest, since we aren’t paying the principle. With NO interest we would have $27793.92 at the end of 7 years just in the difference.

Now, we sell the house for the same $260,000.00. We add the $27,793.92 difference. We add the $5,600.00 from our $20,000 investment. PLUS, yes PLUS. Now we still have the $20,000.00 we started with. So, we add that to the difference! This time we sell the house, and end up with 313,393.00. WOW, now that’s a REAL difference! Now when we subtract the $84,000 in interest (actually less with these terms) we really did have an investment.

Don’t you dare get an amortized loan.

You don’t believe me?

Paste this: “interest only mortgage” in the search at the top or bottom of this page and check it out. You’ll see links and ads for $150,000.00 mortgages that cost only $612.00 per month. I even saw one claiming $381.00 per month.

Now, if you don’t use your savings well, then this won’t help you as much. It will only get you the monthly savings. But, if you save well, this lets you use the money from a house that you will never own. And guess what? You don’t ever want to own it. You want its money to work for you!

Regards.

I’m 47 years old. That’s young to some and really old to others.

I am a cut above the rest when it comes to problem solving and skills. I’m very good with my hands. I make good decisions. In short, I am an employer’s greatest hope for a productive employee that will make money for the company.

That is what I have done all my life. I have been brilliant for someone else’s pocket book.

I was once on my way to being very well off financially. I partnered with a friend to build homes in West Virginia. We were having great success. We were well on our way. That is when the coal mines in West Virginia went out on strike for an entire year in the late 1970’s. Their economy crashed and burned along with our dreams.

Now, I’m stuck in the rat race. I could have lived life. But I chose to work life.

This article is a sad extension of my mid-life crisis.

This article is also a proclamation of new direction–the acceptance of a challenge. It is also to issue a challenge to those of you in my condition and a message or warning to those of you who are younger, especially if you are just starting your adult career.

Here it is in a nutshell: Live life, don’t work life.

I have told my daughter to pursue what she loves and hope to get paid doing it.

You don’t want to pursue money, things, and power. Yes, there are benefits to these things. But the yield isn’t happiness–at least not the kind that was in the dream.

What is the condition I am in that is so terrible? Mostly that I have things that force me to make a certain amount of money to keep them. I earn this money doing things I don’t love. This makes my work a chore that is all about having things. And things don’t yield happiness. The net result is an un-fulfilling life. I’m working life. I’m not living life. Beyond that, my brilliance is making my employer the bulk of the money my effort returns.

This brings us to the second part of the challenge. Work for yourself. At least get the bulk of the return for your effort. This is your life you’re giving away.

So, this isn’t a complete list by far. But this is a challenge and a warning that will bring you a happy life.

Pursue what you love.
Hope to get paid doing what you love.
Work for yourself, or seek the highest benefit for your effort.

Cap these life pursuits off with maintaining your spiritual self, and you have the tools for a happy life.

Regards.

PS. Don’t worry if you don’t get paid well doing what you love. You’ll still be happy. Doing what you love is more important to happiness than having a bunch of stuff.

My parents never had a credit card.
I met, and married my wife in 1982. Her parents had only had a gas card.

We didn’t have much money. We were poor college students. Our gross income was less than $15,000. Life was good.

We had our daughter in the middle of my junior year. It was financially tough. And, one just has to have home movies of the kids when they’re small. Sears had this great video camera. It was a freak by today’s standards, but it was great for the early 1980’s. We charged it on the Sears Credit card. When we signed up, we got some free pans. It was a good deal. We could pay it off at our convenience.

We got a new color TV that Christmas. There was this great new technology that would really help with school. There was Commodore, Atari, and Apple to choose from too.

My wife had to have an operation. It wasn’t covered by her new insurance yet. That was expensive. We needed new tires for the car at the same time. And, Christmas came around every year. We had to cover a huge expense when we moved to another state.

We bought a house. The car broke down. Another Christmas rolled around. We paid off another credit card with a new one with lower interest.

Ok, I won’t detail every year of our last 24 married years of bliss. I think you get the picture. One thing led to another along with some bad choices. That and the need to have what we wanted as soon as we could get it finally had us paying more for credit card debt than anything else in our lives.

Let me just say we had over $90,000.00 in non-secured credit card debt. We were making good money, but living from paycheck to paycheck. Finally, one day, it all broke. By our best calculations we had 2 months before we would go under–totally under.

We sought help with debt consolidation. At the end of the day, we just couldn’t do that. They actually told us they usually dealt with people who were already behind in their payments. We needed to quit paying our credit cards until they were behind. Then, they would approach each card with a take it or leave it deal. We would only be responsible for about 15% - 20% of our original debt by the time they were done dealing with our creditors.

I won’t judge anyone who had to take that route. I’m thankful we didn’t have to do so.

What did we do? Well, our house had a lot of equity. We were able to get a first mortgage that covered a lot of the debt. A second mortgage made it where we could breathe again. Finally, we cut up every credit card we ever had.

That was just over 2 years ago.

We have paid the remaining items off, one by one.

Now, we actually have a plan to be totally debt free. We won’t owe on anything but the house in another 2 years. And, we plan to have that paid off in another 5 years after that. So, we’ll be totally debt free in 7 years. We only have a debit card. We save for anything we get.

By comparison, we live like king and queen now. I just had to pay over $1000.00 to fix one of the vehicles this last month. We didn’t touch savings. We didn’t touch a card. I paid for it out of checking–not even savings–and still had twice what I needed to pay our bills. And that’s even with doubling up on the remaining debt.

So, don’t you dare be stupid like we were.

You know when I use a card now? When I can get 0% interest for something I have to get anyway. I divide the amount into the months before it is due and set up my automatic on-line bill pay. I got tires last year that way for three vehicles.

Credit cards? Cut them up. Tear them up. Bury them. They will destroy your life.

You can truly enjoy a happy life when you live debt free. Learn to work for what you have. After you save for it and finally get it you actually enjoy it even more. It becomes fulfilling in a way you never expected.

Regards.

My daughter has always hated school with a passion. I’ve always told her it was because she hated responsibility and to get over it. But this was more than just a passing whine with her. She would actually get physically down and depressed over it when there were added pressures like a paper or big exam.

So, brilliant me, I told her one year that I really didn’t care what grades she got. As long as she did her best.

Yes, you’re right. That was fairly dumb. All her grades dropped off a bit.

However, in the scheme of things, I have to step back a step or two for questions like this.

Is it the goal or the journey?

Well, most people with a six figure income would say it’s about the goal. Most the folks without a six figure income wouldn’t say it’s about the goal or it’s about the journey. They weren’t really actually thinking about it in the first place. Thus, no six figure income.

Now, after they finally did see the guy with the six figure income driving his sweet little baby down the street, they look on with envy–trying to figure some way to get the six figure income. The scramble starts.

So, the guy who set goals and got the six figure income does what? Obviously he notices the envy. So, guess what he does? He offers the little guy instruction in how to get what he has. In fact, without any effort whatsoever, he can deliver an automated system requiring no work that will make anyone a rich man. And it’s free to join! < <<—-See. I’ve even got one!!

Does it work? Sure! But mostly for the guy with the six figure income!

What’s my point?

Well, at the end of the day, we all want to have it all. But, at the end of the same day, most of us aren’t willing to pay the price.

I make a comfortable income. I pay my bills. I pretty well live at the edge of my means with a little left to save. If I lost my job or couldn’t work, I would be devastated in just a few months. My point is, I couldn’t just drop what I’m doing to do what I liked. I have responsibilities that won’t allow me to follow any dream that might still be lingering.

So, what did I tell my daughter?

I told her to always pursue what she loved doing and to hope that the path would bring an income. I told her this would keep her happy whether she had money or not. AND, if she started life like this, and always lived within her means, she would never be trapped in a job with no way out.

Boy was that dumb. She has a group of people that pay her to do things for them and works on the side doing things with the youth at a very large church. Basically she gets paid to go to church, and paid to help her friends. Hmm, maybe not so dumb after all.

So, which is it? I think we all have a false sense that money will bring happiness. It may bring more toys, but toys just leave us wanting more.

“Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” lofty words. Hopeful words. Life and liberty are mostly givens in the USA. Happiness, which really matters at the end of the day, isn’t any more a promise in the USA than it is in any other country.

No, for that you need contentment first. So, happiness is really a result of contentment. And, you’ll find nothing and no one can give you contentment. No. You alone can do that.

I’m going to tell my daughter to practice contentment. Yes, you heard correctly. I said “practice contentment.” Contentment can’t be given and it can’t be taken. When practiced, it brings happiness. Now, that’s not so dumb.

Regards.