Television today is bombarded with a variety of real estate programs. House hunting, home renovation, home flipping, these programs have stimulated the interest of many individuals to start investing in real estate for themselves.
You’ve finally decided that it’s time to buy a house. Your family looks at area listings and picks out a few homes to view. In the process, you find the house of your dreams, only to watch it slip away as another potential buyer puts a bid on it, backed by their preapproval, whereas you don’t even know what your credit score is.
If you’ve always dreamed of living abroad, now may be the best time. Today, there are around 400,000 American retirees residing outside the United States, with that number expected to grow over the next few years. Cost of living is often cited as one of the main reasons for the move.
Giving money to philanthropic causes is important to many of us. Year end giving in particular is popular with both donors and charitable organizations. The most common way to give money for most people is to simply write a check or put a donation on a credit card. The charity then typically sends us a receipt for our donation, and everyone is happy.
Not so fast.
It seems like we’ve been conditioned to shop since birth. While an occasional splurge is nothing to get worked up about, we’ve become incredibly wasteful in the process. Landfills from coast to coast are full of our discarded belongings such as furniture, equipment, appliances, and electronic items like computers and cellphones.
The average American spends more than $10,000 per person annually on healthcare expenses, including premiums, deductibles and coinsurance amounts. For a large family, that amount can quickly become unsustainable. In the past, it was common for employers to absorb the majority of these costs, leaving the employee responsible for only a small portion.
While the name may be amusing the reality of zombie debt is anything but funny. Zombie debt is old debt that has been written off years ago, only to be sold to debt collectors for pennies on the dollar. In many cases, the debt is years old, and may not even be valid.
While some of us are spenders, others savers, most of us fall somewhere in between. Can you account for where your cash goes, or do you frequently find yourself wondering exactly where your money goes each month? The good news is that there are a lot of things you can do to save money starting today.
Here are just a few of them.
At the end of the month, do you often find yourself with a lot less money than you expected? Do you have a hard time determining exactly what you spent your money on? Do you feel that you should have more to show for your hard work than you currently do? Are you and your spouse or partner always fighting about money?
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