Everyday Randomness

Taking The “Dream Home” Leap

I’ve spent a lot of time talking with my sister in law lately about buying a home. She and her boyfriend have been saving for awhile now, and they’re trying to purchase their own home. She’s kind of freaked out with the housing market right now because this is their first home purchase and the market has been pretty unstable lately.

She passed on an extra copy of Glamour she received this month, and I just happened to spot an article in it called “Welcome To My Mortgage Hell“. Basically the article is about a bunch of women who all took out home loans to finally buy the home of their dreams, but they ended up going under.

Some of them got stuck in a situation where they financed a house they couldn’t financially afford in the first place, but the bank still gave them the loan. Others took out loans with adjustable rates, so when the rates increased the house payments became outrageous. Each one of them finally let their homes go into foreclosure, and now they all feel better doing so.

The article basically talks about how buying a home might be the “American Dream”, but a lot of people these days are choosing to stick with renting.  Most of the women in that article are now renting homes that are nicer and larger than the ones they tried to purchase.

I told my sis in law about the article tonight, and she admitted she hadn’t even picked up the mag yet.  Now she’s curious because she wants to make sure she doesn’t make the same mistakes.  There’s definitely a lot to learn when purchasing a home.  We could have purchased one years ago, but we chose to rent at the time because the thought of taking out a loan that large is scary.  I’m kind of glad we chose not to.  I have a feeling if we’d chosen to purchase a home when we got married we would already be in over our heads.  At least renting means paying what you can afford.  If you can’t afford it, find something you can.

The Facts About Credit Cards

Now that I’m finally in a position where I’m paying off the large amount of credit card debt we accumulated, it makes me appreciate all the information out there on the net today that could have kept us from falling so far into debt in the first place. Of course, being teenagers in love who vowed to pay for their own wedding didn’t help, but we still could have taken precautions that we didn’t.

A lot of people don’t know where to look for information on various credit cards. Some people are too willing to fill out any and all credit card offers they receive through the mail without reading the fine print first. That’s how Hubby messed up with his first card. He signed up for a credit card with a rather large annual fee before knowing the facts. Canceling that card did nothing but lower his credit again since that’s how the system works.

If you’re contemplating getting a new credit card, find out the facts first. Using a site like CreditCardClub.com can help you because you’re given options of what card type you need, if you’re looking something with or without an annual fee, etc. You have options like credit cards that reward you with airline miles, gas rewards or even cash back. If you’re looking to build up your bad credit, there’s a whole section on cards specifically for people with bad credit. Which cards will allow balance transfers? Know your facts before submitting that next credit card application!

Human Error Does Still Happen

My sister in law wrote a blog post today that reminded me exactly why it’s so important to keep an eye on our bank accounts.

My mother in law found out her account was $300 overdrawn, and it wasn’t because she spent more than she had or because her identity was stolen.  It was a simple human error when a cashier typed in the atm card number wrong.  If she hadn’t checked her account, the bank would probably have never seen the error.
I have two bank accounts, a savings account and a checking account, and I keep a very watchful eye over them.

I login to my savings account at least once every couple days even if I haven’t made any transactions, and even though I mainly only deposit larger amounts of cash when I’m paying bills, I login to my checking account daily.

This just goes to show just because we use computers for almost everything these days, human error can still screw you up!

Dealing With Identity Theft

It’s been a few months since I had a potential identity theft crisis on my hands, but I have to admit once it was over I really did stop thinking about it. The thought crept back up in my mind the other day when I requested my credit score. I kept thinking what if something pops up on here that shouldn’t be there. What if that woman really did get information that could hurt me.

Thankfully my credit report came back looking even better than I expected, and I didn’t have anything suspicious on it, but it would have happened. It really does make me wonder if I should start using a service like lifelock.

One scare certainly is enough, but I dealt with two scares in such a short time. I can’t believe I’ve let myself slack off as much as I have. At least I know if we were using lifelock I could be certain that my identity is perfectly safe, and I could slack off without having to kick myself for not paying attention. I might just have to have a talk with Hubby to see what he thinks about signing up for the service.