Rich Dad Poor Dad – Robert Kiyosaki

Posts Tagged ‘delicious’

I find that, whenever I get busy with things in my life, the first thing I cut out is the hour or two a day I spend reading. If I do that for a few days, I begin to intensely miss it.

Just yesterday, I was talking to a friend of mine who’s a stellar athlete. He expressed to me the exact same thing about training – if he skips a couple of days due to personal issues, he REALLY misses his daily hours in the gym.

Exercise your body, exercise your mind, I guess.

I’ve always been very financially responsible and rather frugal. I might occasionally allow myself to purchase a bottle of wine at the end of a week or a new book once a month or so, but I’ve never been a spender. I very much believe that I’d rather struggle (not that my husband and I really struggle) now and relax when I’m older.

I had such a tight string on my wallet for long it felt good to just buy stuff for the first couple of months. But now I’m afraid I’m going to fall into some kind of spending spiral. I would like to find a balance between incredibly frugal and lightening up a little bit. I don’t know what tomorrow is going to bring I don’t want to live entirely in the future any more. I need to enjoy the life I’m living now too. Do you have any advice?
- Dana

I edited Dana’s question a bit to eliminate some of the more personal elements, which weren’t really relevant to the issue at hand but might be embarrassing if someone she knew were to read the question.

I don’t see anything to be concerned about in your email, Dana. As long as the things you’re spending your money on in the now are things that are genuinely important to you, there’s no problem with spending money today.

Of course, you should always keep a few basic principles in mind. Even if you’re spending more than before, you should still strive to spend less than you earn – keep that as a firm cap. You should also reflect on the things you’ve spent money on to make sure that they’re bringing you genuine happiness.

From your email, you’re clearly already doing the reflecting, and it seems as though you’re spending less than you earn. All that’s happening is that your values are shifting a bit due to changes in your life – and that’s completely normal, even healthy.

We have $5800 in a money market account for savings. After a recent look at that account, I noticed that it’s returning 0.5%. Obviously, I want to improve that rate of return. I’ve contemplated a CD ladder, but CD rates at my credit union are well below the return I get on my checking account (with very simple stipulations to meet) that gets me 3%. Is there any reason to not move this money into my checking account? We have another $4000 in savings in the checking account currently and don’t have a problem with keeping the mental separation of savings vs. spending money being in the same account.
- Joseph

The entire purpose of a CD – and thus a CD ladder – is to earn rates that exceed what you can get in your checking or savings account in exchange for losing some liquidity (i.e., you can’t just remove money from a CD at will without paying a penalty).

If you’re earning more in your checking account or savings account than you can earn with a CD, then you shouldn’t have that money in a CD. It’s earning less (a negative) and you have less access to it (a negative), with no corresponding positives.

You’re doing things right.

I have been reading a while and looked around a lot on the “should I cash out my 401k to pay off debt?” question. I’m still stuck as to whether I should or should not. I have reduced my expenses, stopped using cards, have a $1,000 safety fund/savings, but still have $18,851 in credit card debt. I am not depositing in to my 403b now so i can use that to pay down debt, but at this rate, it looks like 5 years for all of it. I have a 401K from an old job valued at about $11,380 right now. I was thinking about waiting till it’s at about $12k, that way, after tax and penalty, I would have enough to pay off one card, $7791 at 19.99% ! and then snowball the other card payments from highest interest down and that would take overall two years (or less depending on refunds etc that could be applied). I’m in a better paying job now and employer is putting a tiny amount in to 403b even though i am not contributing right now. I am 32 yo, have a condo and car payment, and once credit card debt is paid off (about 500 a month), i could put a lot into savings, start an IRA, and resume 403b contributions. I guess I just want to see some more rapid progress on paying off this debt, but am I betting my future by cashing out the 401k?
- Christopher

If I were you, I would not touch the 401(k) and I would also start contributing more to the 403(b), even if it adds some time to the debt payoff.

Why? You can never get those contributions back into your retirement plan. If you take that money out of your 401(k), you have permanently hindered your retirement. The only way to approximate it is to contribute quite a lot extra to your 403(b), but that would be even later, after your debts are gone, so it would require a lot of contributions.

In fact, I would contribute to my 403(b) up to the top of the employer’s match, starting right now. Again, you can’t ever get this contribution opportunity back – it’s free money that your employer is handing you that you’re turning down right now.

Yes, your credit card debt might take a little longer, but a 20% loss on your credit card interest rate is well worth a 100% gain on your 403(b) contributions from the match.

My husband and I are trying to decide when we should start a family, he is 28 and I am 27. One of us plans to stay home with the baby so we need to be able to live off of one income. I am a registered nurse and he is a Commercial Truck driver with a class A. The issue is we have debt and need to fix our house up, our current plan we would have this done in 2 1/2 years, 3 1/2 and we could have no mortgage. We are starting to feel this is too long to wait to try to start a family. Total income 2009 $90,000, debt: CC $4500 9.8%, car $14,000 7.8%, student loan $24,000 5.5%, Mort. $42,000 6%, about $15,000 needed in home repairs. In 2009 we paid off $12,000 in CC debt and put $5,000 into our home. We both do 6% of our income to 401K, emergency savings is $2000, and I am furthering my education and we are paying cash for it. I am starting to feel that we are overly preparing to have a family. Any thoughts?
- Lindsay

I think you should move forward with your family plans when you’re sure you can make it financially after having the child. For you, this means not only adding the child costs to the equation, but it also means one of you staying home with the child.

You should spend some time planning out exactly what will happen in that case. You mention that you’re getting further education (to be a nurse practitioner, I’m guessing?) – if you’re going to be the one that stays home with the child, cut that expense right now.

It’s also worth noting that even when you decide to go forward with trying to have a child, that child won’t arrive in a stork tomorrow. Even if you conceive almost immediately, you still will have most of a year before you lose one or the other of your incomes.

My suggestion? Right now, make up a very detailed plan for how you will do things after the child is born. How much income will you have? Will you be able to cover the bills? Who will stay at home with the child? How many years will that person stay at home? Some of these questions may alter what you’re doing with your money and time right now – if you’re staying at home, for example, you may not want to invest a lot of money into furthering your education at the moment.

If it looks like you could make it with the way things are right now, then I’d start trying to conceive. If it doesn’t look possible, I’d wait a bit longer, then re-evaluate.

There’s a lot of conflicting information out there and I’m curious what you would do. When I go on vacation I often rent a car and never know what to do about insurance. I don’t own a car at home and therefore don’t have any auto insurance policy for myself. I have the option of getting non-owners auto insurance from my insurance provider for $20/month but, based on the explanation of the coverage, my understanding is that all that covers is medical and damage liability if I hit someone else. I do have a visa that could presumably provide collision and damage insurance beforehand but doesn’t cover liability for another person if I collide with them. However, I’m not ready to pay $240/year so that I have that coverage for the 2x a year I drive a car. What do you suggest I do when I rent a car? Just use my credit card coverage? Get one month of liability coverage (if that’s even an option)? I paid an arm and a leg last time I rented because my parents and boyfriend freaked me out and demanded I get it but from my research they don’t understand what sort of coverage I need either. What would you do in my situation?
- Arlene

Most likely, you won’t be able to buy that policy on a month-by-month basis. Most policies are drawn up to cover six months or a year and your monthly payments are fractions of what you owe for that policy.

My first suggestion would be to look at the insurance offered by the rental companies. Typically, such policies are redundant for people who have auto insurance themselves, but they may not be redundant for you.

I would also take a look at what exactly your credit card offers in terms of coverage. It seems that your card just offers liability coverage, so I would look at the company you typically rent from and get quotes on insurance for the passenger and rental car. This will probably be in the ballpark of $10-15 a day, so this will save you money if you rent only for short periods, but if you rent for two weeks a year, it won’t be much of a savings.

If you have a well-stocked emergency fund, you may want to consider just having liability coverage (as provided by your card) and calling it good enough. After all, if you’re not driving the rental too much, your risk of a major accident is relatively low – and that’s what we’re talking about here, risk.

I have been working as a software developer for around two years. It’s a steady job and pays fairly well and I do enjoy it at times. I find though my concentration span really holds me back from enjoying this more and from progressing in my programming ability. Sometimes I can almost do a full day doing no work. I just can’t keep focus long enough.

I have recently pondered the idea of hypnotherapy but to be honest I’m a little scared of this. Do you have any suggestions to improve my concentration span?
- Ben

I’ve thankfully never really had this problem. In fact, I tend to have the opposite – when I bear down on a task, I can lose all track of time and even reach the point where I literally don’t hear people around me.

Anyway, one of my mentors once suggested a five-prong plan for maintaining concentration. He used the word FOCUS as an acronym for it. I’ve seen variations of it floating around online, but here’s how my mentor defined it.

Five more means that if you’re doing something and feel your focus wandering, always challenge yourself to do five more. Five more pages. Five more minutes of coding. Five more emails. It’s like endurance training for your mind.

Only the thing you’re working on means that you should try to look at the task you’re doing with fresh eyes if you find your mind wandering. Look at what you’re doing and ask yourself if you’re doing it well or why you’re doing it. It often refreshes the task.

Complete the little things now means that if you have a task you’re putting off, start working on it immediately. This helps with concentration because a task that’s been put off is a task that’s weighing on your mind.

Understand the details means that, instead of thinking about the big picture of the project you’re working on, you should try to break it down into the smallest detail you can, then just focus on that detail. It makes the task seem much shorter and manageable, which again helps with concentration.

Silence means that you should cut off interruptions. Unplug your phone. Close your web browser. You can even go so far as to rest your face on your hands and cup your hands around your eyes so that they function as peripheral blinders.

Good luck!

I’ve been reading The Simple Dollar for about a year now and really enjoyed the series you did a while ago on cooking. Quick question, I’ve tried Eggplant several times (never as Eggplant Parmesan) and not had much luck, however I found a recipe for Eggplant Parmesan and wondered if you’ve ever attempted to cook it at home. The particular one I found says to peel the eggplant and I’m wondering if that’s the reason all my other eggplant attempts have failed. Any thoughts?
- Shawna

You didn’t really specify what the problem was with the eggplant. For the most part, the peel makes little difference – it’s mostly a matter of personal preference, like a potato peel (I prefer them, myself). My guess is that the problem is not with the peel, but with the sweating.

Sweating? Try salting the outside of your eggplant about a half an hour before you tend to use it. Just take some table salt and rub it on the outside. When you’re ready to use it, you’ll find that the outside of the plant is now moist with some very salty and bitter water. Rub the water off and slice it.

I don’t know if that’s the solution for your problem, because I’m not entirely clear on what’s wrong with the eggplant when you cook it. I’m just assuming that the problem is bitterness.

It may also be that you simply don’t like eggplant, for which there is no real cure other than just trying it in different ways on an irregular basis.

My husband and I are in our late 20s and don’t yet have any kids but are thinking about it – we’d like to have a baby in the next year, but obviously there are no guarantees on timing. I’m currently making about $45k and my husband $75k; when we have a baby we plan on me staying home, so we’ll be losing that income.

That’s the scoop – thoughts?? Also, input on whether to do traditional IRA vs Roth IRA would be helpful, I think. We’re in a very blessed and pretty fantastic stage of life right now, and really want to take every advantage that we can while we can.
- Marisa

As I mentioned above, the first thing you need to do before considering going ahead with a child is to make a post-baby budget. Spend some time really contemplating how your life will look at that point. Is one of you going to stay home with the child? What will child care costs be like? Do some research and find some real answers here, then figure out what things will look like financially for you. I encourage you to estimate high, because it’s going to cause a lot less problems than estimating low will.

If you make that budget and decide that things look doable but close post-baby, put that $10k into savings for now. It may wind up being a “baby emergency fund” as you find that there are lots and lots of baby expenses you didn’t consider. If you get through 2011 without a child, then contribute to the IRA.

If you make that budget and decide you’re good to go with a fair amount of room to breathe, I’d sink it into the mortgage, mostly to get you below the PMI mark, which will make breathing even easier for you.

In the two years after graduating college, I learned a fantastic lesson about living on credit cards (badidea!) and living without health insurance, and had to go through CCCS to pay off the impressive debt that I accrued– About $20k in credit cards and $10k in medical bills. During this time, I had to sign a agreement with CCCS that I would not use any credit card until my debt was paid off.

Would you recommend that I open a new credit card and pay it off each month? And if so, what advice can you give me about going back into the world of credit?
- Jamie

If you’re truly living paycheck to paycheck, the first thing you need to do is either increase income or cut spending (or, ideally, both). Perhaps you need to change your living situation or your energy consumption or your food consumption (do you constantly eat out?). Maybe you can get a second job. Whatever it is, you need to be spending a bit less than you earn or you’re always in danger of getting into financial trouble when something unexpected happens – and it will happen.

If I were you in this situation, I would get an extremely focused credit card that you use for just one specific purpose so that you’re not tempted to use it outside of that context.

The idea that comes to mind for me is a credit card (Visa or Mastercard) offered through a gas station chain that you frequently use. Sign up for one of those cards, but use it ONLY for gas. The giant gas chain logo on the card should be a strong reminder of that. Then, at the end of the month, pay off the bill in full.

This simple step will allow you to re-establish your credit without opening the floodgates. Just keep that card for one purpose and one purpose alone.

I would not use it for any other purpose – don’t “pay up front for trips” with it or anything like that. Use it simply as a means of improving your credit and maybe reducing your gas costs a bit.

My husband and I own a reasonable home in Pennsylvania, and are hoping to move to Maryland to be closer to my family in the next couple of years. We also just welcomed our first child about 7 months ago. I am a full-time working mom and am growing weary of being away from my home and family 10 hours a day, but my family relies on my income (which is significantly higher than my husband’s: $56k to $38k) and my health insurance.

And (2), would it be a bad idea to rent for a while once we move to Maryland in order to save money? Housing is substantially pricier there, so we were planning to build on family land, but that could take a while since my husband would do much of the building himself, while also working a full-time job.
- Jen

(1) It is not selfish of you to want to stay at home with your child. Having a child is an intensely personal and emotional thing and, for many people, staying at home is something they strongly desire simply because of the emotional attachment and quality of care that they would provide to the child. It’s your child. You love that child. Wanting to care for that child and protect it is completely normal.

(2) It is never a bad idea to rent housing, particularly if you don’t plan to live in the house for seven years or more. It’s the first years of the mortgage that are the most painful ones – most of your mortgage payment goes towards interest and the power of compound growth on your home’s value really hasn’t had time to work yet. If you can find a good deal renting, renting absolutely should be on the table.

As for the building, a close friend of mine did that (and I’ve asked him for a guest post to discuss it). It can work and it can save a lot of money, but you really need some serious passion about carpentry and plumbing and electrical work to make it happen.

Good luck.

Got any questions? Email me or leave a comment and I’ll try to answer it in a future mailbag. Please note, however, that I get many more questions than I can answer in any sort of reasonable mailbag length.

Originally posted here:
Reader Mailbag: More Time for Reading

Every Sunday, The Simple Dollar reviews a personal finance book or other book of interest. You can check out my reviews of hundreds of personal finance books (and other related books of interest) all on one page.

Bargain Junkie is an unabashed frugality book, focusing mostly on maximizing your “bang for the buck” when spending money.

The book itself is broken down into a large number of very short sections covering specific frugality issues, often written in a humorous and often self-deprecating tone that’s pretty appealing.

Obviously, when you read a lot of frugality books, you begin to recognize that some of the central points in each book appear in all the books – which is fine, since there’s a very good chance that this is the first book on frugality that the person has picked up and many of the repeated ideas are the very good ideas that a person should use. Bargain Junkie follows this pattern and spends a significant number of its pages on what I would call Frugality 101, which makes it an equally good “starter” book as many other frugality titles out there.

What sets it apart, though? Instead of doing a section-by-section review of the multitude of short pieces in the book, I picked out ten short sections that really stood out to me.

Television Is A Model For How Not To Live
Instead of looking at how people live on television as something to strive for, use it as a guide for something to avoid. After all, do you want a unique and wonderful life or do you want to just be a pale imitation of that guy in the television commercial? Do you want to live by your own rules, or merely imitate the crass consumerism of The Real Housewives of East Overshoe?

Extended Households
Living quarters are one of the biggest expenses in our lives. Yet, quite often, large portions of our living quarters go completely unused as we often get into the routine of using just a room or two in our home for most of our activities. So why not share that extra space? Consider a more communal living arrangement, where you actually live with friends and family and split the housing cost appropriately. It works surprisingly well and it can save a truckload of money.

Collecting
Collecting can be a worthwhile venture for frugal people provided two things are true. First, you’re quite willing to sell off what you’ve collected. Second, you’re willing to keep up with the hobby and stay abreast of prices and information about it. If you do both of these, you can often find a very lucrative hobby from hitting thrift stores and the like. I actually have a friend who buys and sells vintage video games who claims to have bought games at many thrift stores for fifty cents and resold them for hundreds (think Chase the Chuck Wagon). I’ve even done it myself with trading cards of various types.

Try It Yourself Before Paying an Expert
Home repairs? Try it yourself by reading documentation online and giving it a shot. Exercise? Try home exercise before buying a gym membership and paying a trainer. Virtually everything you do that you hire someone else for can be done yourself. So why not try it and make sure you actually need to shell out the money for someone else to do it? Exercise at home first and make sure you’re willing to keep up some routine before hiring a trainer, for example, and you might find you don’t even need one.

Go Monastic
Why do you have to live the same life everyone else does? If you live cheap and build up a bankroll, there’s no reason you can’t sell everything and live out of your kayak for a couple of years. The only thing keeping you from doing something completely different in your life is your own fears. Most of the big dreams people have are usually really cheap when you get right down to it, so it’s rarely the cost that keeps us from doing something like driving around the country in a solar car talking at public libraries.

Buy Your Own Presents
Quite often, gift-giving occasions come down to giving other people stuff they don’t want and you receiving stuff you don’t want. Why? Sit down and have a heart-to-heart with the person and, instead of just exchanging gifts, pledge to do something fun and unique together that you both want to do. You’ll probably save money and almost always wind up doing something much more memorable, enjoyable, and long lasting.

Craigslist/Freecycle First
Whenever you need anything, it’s usually worth your time to check the local Craigslist or Freecycle before going out and buying it. You can often find great stuff for pennies or for free. Heck, I’m learning how to play the keyboard on a free Craigslist item. Similarly, if you have something you’re getting rid of, put it up on that list with a low price tag. Quite often, it’ll be off your hands without breaking a sweat.

Large City Travel
If you’re traveling to a large city, study the public transportation information for that city online before you go. In many large cities, you can have a wonderful trip there without renting a car or paying for a taxi by simply knowing and using their public transportation system. My wife and I spent a week in London several years ago without renting a car or taking a taxi, even from the airport.

The Biggest Element of Dressing Well
The biggest element in dressing well isn’t buying clothes from the expensive stores. It’s self-confidence. You have to be proud of yourself no matter what you’re wearing. If your confidence is the same no matter what you’re wearing, then it really doesn’t matter much at all what you’re wearing. A person’s confidence and personality always comes through.

I used to be fairly nervous wearing things bought at thrift stores. “Won’t people look down at these secondhand clothes?” I would think. I’d be more self-conscious and then I’d find that people did think less of me than I would have liked. But it wasn’t because of the clothes – it was because I was so self-conscious, nervous, and shy. The clothes don’t make the person.

Hit Ethnic Restaurants – Hard
This is something I did myself in college and still do on occasion. In terms of the quantity and quality of food you get for the dollar, few places beat ethnic restaurants. Go there, order something intriguing, and you’ll find yourself leaving with a doggy bag containing enough food for two more meals or so. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve eaten leftover sauteed vegetables over rice where the price of each meal I actually got from the restaurant dish was cut down to the $2 level. I know some professors at my old college who almost exclusively eat (even to the exclusion of home food prep) at local ethnic restaurants.

Is Bargain Junkie Worth Reading?
Bargain Junkie feels very much to me like a collection of posts from a frugality blog with a very good writer and entertaining voice. The sections in the book are quick reads that usually each convey a central point or two or provide a checklist of highly specific tips and are packed with anecdotes that either make you laugh or breed familiarity with the reader.

Annie should start a blog, period. I would happily link to some of those entries and she’d probably end up earning more revenue from it than she would from this book over the long run. If you enjoy reading well-written, occasionally humorous blog post length articles about frugality and maximizing your buying dollar, you will enjoy this book.

My biggest problem with the book, actually, is in the design. To me, the design of the cover is poor to the point that I would have not picked up this book had I not had a vested interest in reviewing it. There are thousands of great books out there to read – I would probably walk on by this book on a bookshelf simply because there are so many other great books that I could be reading that didn’t give me a “go away, this book isn’t for you” vibe right from the cover. Yes, I know the cover was shooting for a certain demographic, but you can reach those people without giving a “go away” vibe to others outside that demographic.

Still, once I got past the cover, the book inside was quite worthwhile – an entertaining survey of frugal ideas.

See the rest here:
Review: Bargain Junkie

If you think education is expensive? Try ignorance. If you seem to find it difficult to be able to refinance your present mortgage or seem to be experiencing difficulties carrying out your obligations upon your existing home loans? If your answer is YES, play the HARP and don’t play on your money.

More here:
Refinancing? Or Playing the H-A-R-P

Debt and loans can turn into a vicious cycle and without realizing it you can get pulled into the cycle of debt that seems to be never ending and accumulating by the day. If you find yourself in this kind of a predicament then what you can do is to consolidate all your loans and credit and put it into one debt instrument.

Here is the original:
Best Homeowner Loans Against Mortgage

Have you been thinking about applying for a home loan modification but are unsure if you are eligible? Not every homeowner who applies will meet the criteria for loan modification, which can substantially reduce a monthly mortgage payment. There are four prerequisites you will need in order to meet the criteria for loan modification help.

Read more from the original source:
How to Obtain Loan Modification For Your Home Mortgage

A mortgage is one of the most expensive financial services that an individual will take advantage of in their lifetime and therefore it is important to ensure that you compare the rates and terms which are available from several mortgage brokers and financial companies to ensure that you are getting the best rate when it comes to your mortgage. How should you begin to compare the rates that are available for the mortgage?

Original post:
Comparing Mortgages and Interest Rates

If you’re considering an Equity Release Mortgage you will no doubt have plenty of questions you need answering before deciding whether it’s for you. Whilst there is no substitution for talking to an experienced whole of market advisor about your circumstances and any concerns you have to decide whether equity release is for you, we have drafted out a few points to get you started.

Equity Release – Is it For Me?

There are many Americans struggling to make their mortgage payments every month. Many people fall behind on their first mortgage but keep their second mortgage current.

Read the original:
The Dirty Little Secret About 2nd Mortgages

Simply because you have bad credit doesn’t mean that the dream of home ownership is out of your reach. While credit scores and credit history do play a role in mortgage financing approval, it’s not the end all and be all of the approval process.

Continued here:
Buying a Home With Bad Credit

When a senior thinks, how reverse mortgages work, a simple answer is, that it works in an opposite way, than the usual mortgage. The target of the senior loan is to offer a senior a chance to get extra disposable money by using a part of his home equity, which he has saved during many years.

Source:
How Reverse Mortgages Work by Using Home Equity

When the U.S. Government decided to accept the senior reverse mortgage loans, many senior Americans started to think, what are the reverse mortgages pros and cons. This article gives you the main points, but only a federal counselor can guide you concerning all details.

Originally posted here:
Get Reverse Mortgages Pros and Cons – A Counselor Can Guide You

The title actually tells, what is the main benefit of the senior reverse mortgage. When the U.S.Government planned this product, maybe one of the ideas was to create a substitute to the social security by allowing seniors to use the equities of their homes to get more disposable money.

Go here to read the rest:
Senior Reverse Mortgage – A Way to Use Your Home Equity

Yesterday, while in the middle of a conference call, our home telephone dropped dead.

The phone’s small screen went black, came back on, and then refused to connect to the base. I switched to another phone – and the same problem occurred. I called back into the conference call using Skype, but afterwards, I continued to investigate. I ran through every diagnostic in the manual and a few more I found online to no avail.

Something was simply broken with the phone.

I needed a functional replacement quickly. The very next day (yes, that means today), I was scheduled for two additional phone calls that I needed to be on, plus we were receiving regular updates about an ailing relative.

This would have been a perfect excuse to just run to the store, pick up an imperfect quick replacement, and muddle through using it.

Instead, it was an opportunity to figure out what the best method is when you need to buy an immediate replacement for an item.

First, I researched the item thoroughly online. What phones were out there that had the options I needed? I hit Amazon. I hit a few other sites that offered many reviews of cordless phones.

After some deliberation, I found myself with a list of models that I would consider buying. This took about half an hour.

I then hit the websites of various retailers in my area. I searched to find out if they had any of the models in stock in the stores near me. I actually found several different options when doing it, as certain phones were carried by certain chains and a few were carried by multiple chains.

This gave me a list of phone models, prices, and locations in my area from which to make a decision. This list, made in a spreasheet, took about fifteen minutes.

Once I had that list, I read through a few reviews again to help me make my final decision and then moved forward with the purchase by selecting a store and a model to buy. I verified it was in stock before I went to purchase it.

One other big step: I made this trip into a multi-errand stop. I also needed to pick up a few groceries and stop by the post office, so I got those things in order as well. I finished up my shopping list before I left and collected together all of my mail, too.

The end result? I wound up with a pretty good phone at the best price I could find. In other words, for about fifty minutes’ worth of work, I maximized the bang for the buck from my phone purchase (with the caveat, of course, that I needed to pick it up quickly). I also focused on maximizing the value of my trip by compounding it with other stops.

Sometimes, life hands you unexpected expenses. That doesn’t mean you have to stop, throw your hands up in the air, and just pay out the nose for an inferior product. Even if you need to have something quickly, you can still take the time to improve the bang for the buck you’ll get with your purchase.

Good luck!

Read the original post:
Shopping When You Need an Immediate Replacement

Having bad credit shouldn’t disqualify you from a home loan. Here are a few tips that will help you get the loan that you want regardless of your credit score.

Source:
Home Loans For People With Bad Credit – 3 Cunning Tips to Get the Home You Want Today

Thinking of using the equity in your home to pay down some debt? There are several things you need to think about before doing this, and the most important question to ask yourself is: Are you disciplined enough to manage your debt this way?

Read the original here:
Home Equity Loans – Smart For Debt Management?