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My college professor once said, “You know when you’re an adult when you have a mortgage”. His comment couldn’t be farther from the truth. However, for many people, homeownership is a significant milestone in their lives. Not knowing the right questions to ask when buying a house is financially unwise. There are many factors to consider during the home buying process. After all, buying a home most likely will be the biggest purchase ever in your life. Unfortunately, I wish I had thought of more things when I purchased my first home. After signing all the closing documents for my first home, I recall the escrow agent shaking my hand, saying, “Congratulations. You’re in debt.” We all laughed together. However, after owning six houses, three of them being flipped investment properties, I wish I had done things very differently my first time around. So, learn from my mistakes, and be sure to ask these eight important questions when buying your first or next house. Questions To Ask When Buying a House 1. How Much Can I Afford? This question may seem to be the most obvious every potential homebuyer should ask. But, unfortunately, it’s not unheard of a person falling in with a house for sale without looking at their finances. So, although they may have a huge and beautiful house, they may not have the money to support their other needs. This situation is often referred to as “house poor.” Pre-Approval Letter Unless you have hundreds of thousands of dollars to spare, you will most likely be financing your home purchase. Therefore, one of the first steps a new home buyer should take is to speak with a mortgage lender and request a pre-approval letter. The pre-approval letter will let you know how much a lender is willing to lend you. However, the amount on the letter shouldn’t dictate what you can buy. Instead, it will let you know what you can’t buy. It’s one of the first steps you should take to filter out houses above what the bank is willing to lend. Mortgage Payment Following the assumption you’ll be financing your house purchase, the mortgage payment is the monthly payment you’ll be making to the bank. The mortgage payment consists of two parts: principal and interest. And, depending on how much you put towards a down payment, you may also be required to pay private mortgage insurance. As a result, you’ll spend most of your homeownership years paying interest versus paying down the principal. Most online real estate marketplaces, such as Zillow and Realtor, offer a feature to calculate the monthly mortgage payment. All that is needed for you to provide along with the asking price is your planned down payment amount, the term (i.e., 20 years, 30 years), and interest rate. As a general rule of thumb, the mortgage payment should not be more than 30% of your household income. So, for example, if your monthly net income is $1,500, then the mortgage payment should be
Human services careers can be a little like being part coach, part problem-solver, and part calm person in the storm. If you want work that helps people and still pays the bills, this field is worth a closer look. Some roles start modestly, but others offer solid income as you gain training and experience. The trick is knowing where the better-paying paths are and what daily life in those jobs actually feels like before you […]
When people hear I grew up poor in rural China, they usually imagine everything I lacked. The tiny shack shared by three generations. The lack of safe, drinkable water. The constant worry about money. Those things were real. But there was something I had growing up that has become surprisingly difficult to find in modern life. A village. When my mom injured her back so badly she could barely walk, a neighbor carried her to […]
A widowed homeowner should review insurance documents with an agent while comparing coverage options, deductibles, and policy updates before renewing home insurance. (Pexels). Losing a spouse often means taking on financial responsibilities that were once shared, and renewing homeowners insurance can suddenly become one of those important tasks. While it may be tempting to simply renew the existing policy, life changes can affect coverage needs, deductibles, and even available discounts. Home insurance markets have also […]
Minimalism isn’t about owning as little as possible. It’s about being intentional with what you keep, so that everything in your home actually serves you. That means some things are always worth holding onto, even in the middle of a big declutter. Here are 10 of them, and why getting rid of them tends to backfire. 1. Important Documents Birth certificates, tax records, property deeds, and other essential paperwork should always be kept, even when everything else in the filing cabinet gets shredded. These aren’t the kind of thing you can easily replace, and losing one can turn into a genuinely expensive, time-consuming headache down the road. Don’t let tax season sneak up on you unprepared. With this organizer, you’ll have everything you need at your fingertips—so you can file with confidence and peace of mind. Make Tax Time Effortless—Get Your Tax Documents Organizer Today! 2. Family Heirlooms and Sentimental Items It’s easy to throw out sentimental or expensive things in a fit of cleaning inspiration. Don’t get swept up in the momentum of a big decluttering session and let something go just because it’s been a while since you looked at it. Be intentional about what you part with, especially anything that carries real memory or meaning. 3. Photos and Letters From Loved Ones Old photographs and letters take up very little physical space but hold a lot of weight. These are exactly the kind of items people regret tossing during a fast, momentum-driven purge. If you’re short on storage, digitizing them is a much better option than getting rid of the originals altogether. 4. Tools and Equipment You Actually Use Minimalism values function over quantity. If a tool gets regular use and does its job well, its age or its lack of a sleek design isn’t a reason to replace or discard it. Holding onto a well-made, working tool is often the more minimalist choice, not the opposite. 5. A Small Reserve of Household Backups A modest stockpile of practical supplies like light bulbs, batteries, and basic first-aid items isn’t clutter. It’s what keeps a household running without an emergency trip to the store every time something runs out. The key is keeping the quantity intentional rather than letting it grow unchecked. 6. Versatile Capsule Wardrobe Pieces If a piece of clothing works with several other items in your closet and you reach for it often, it earns its place, even if you already own a lot of clothes. The goal of a capsule wardrobe isn’t to own the fewest items possible; it’s to own pieces you actually wear, and that work well together. 7. Books You Reread or Reference Not every book needs to go to the donation pile. Books you actually return to, whether for comfort, research, or reference, are worth the shelf space. The ones worth letting go of are usually the “someday” books you’ve been meaning to read for years and never do. 8. Anything That Still Serves a Clear Purpose There’s no
How I Shorted Spacex Most investors only think in one direction, buy and hope the price rises, but when a company’s valuation gets stretched, there’s another route- shorting In this guide I will walk you through how spread betting works, give you some real examples and how I used the strategy to profit from Spacex. What’s Inside: – Buying Shares vs Spread betting – How Leverage and Margin Actually Work – Why risk managememnt is […]
Estate sales and antique shops are hidden gems for finding one-of-a-kind home items at a fraction of the cost. You can often find dishes, coffee mugs, cooking utensils, or furniture at prices that are significantly lower than retail. It’s not uncommon to find boxes of kitchenware for just a couple of dollars, and there’s something satisfying about giving a well-made piece a second life instead of buying something mass-produced. Here are nine items frugal people always grab at estate sales if they see them! 1. Cast Iron Cookware Cast iron cookware is incredibly durable and can last for generations. Used cast iron pans and skillets found at estate sales are often already well-seasoned and ready for immediate use, which gives you excellent value and performance for just a few dollars. 2. Vintage Pyrex Vintage Pyrex is highly sought after for its durability and charm. Estate sales frequently turn up a variety of pieces perfect for cooking and serving, and older Pyrex is often sturdier than what’s sold new today. Do You Own Any of These Vintage Pyrex Dishes? Check Before You Donate Them 3. Solid Wood Furniture Solid wood furniture often improves with age, gaining character and patina over time. Vintage pieces found at estate sales can be much sturdier than modern particleboard alternatives, and with a little DIY effort, they can be restored to their former glory. 4. Framed Art Estate sales are treasure troves for unique and affordable framed art. You can find everything from vintage paintings to modern prints, often at a fraction of the cost of new artwork, and the frames alone are frequently worth more than the asking price. 5. Tools and Yard Equipment Estate sales are where you’ll find tools and other home improvement items and yard equipment like shovels, rakes, and lawnmowers for dirt cheap. These items are built to last, and buying them secondhand gets you reliable gear at a fraction of the cost of new. 6. Small Kitchen Appliances Crock pots, Instant Pots, and bread machines are amazing machines and make meal prep much easier, and they’re common finds at estate sales. A bread machine, for example, isn’t just for bread; it can make pizza dough too. These appliances tend to be well cared for since they’re often used only occasionally. 7. Books Books are timeless treasures that don’t lose their value over time. Estate sales often have boxes of them going for next to nothing, letting you build an impressive library on a budget. 8. Musical Equipment Musical instruments and equipment can be costly when bought new. Used instruments, amps, and accessories found at estate sales are often well-maintained and available at a fraction of the price, making it much easier to pursue a musical hobby without the upfront cost. 9. Dishware and Coffee Mugs Boxes of kitchenware, dishes, and coffee mugs are a staple of estate sale shopping, and they usually go for just a couple of dollars a box. It’s an easy way to find unique, well-made
What if I told you that $100 at 25 is worth $500 at 65, even after we adjust for inflation? Well…it is. There’s an unspoken belief in personal finance that a dollar is always worth a dollar (putting inflation aside). We assume that spending $100 today would bring the same amount of joy as spending $100 (inflation-adjusted) in the future. But it won’t. Why? Because of how we experience time as we age. And it took a French philosopher from the 1800s to help me understand why. Why Spending Becomes Less Valuable with Age In 1877 the French philosopher Paul Janet put forth a new idea about why time seems to speed up as we age. He proposed that “the rate of passage of subjective time is proportional to the age of the person making the judgement.” In other words, younger people experience time more slowly because they have lived less total life than older people. When you’re 10 years old, one year is 10% of your life. By the time you’re 50, one year is only 2% of your life. This difference, Janet proposed, is why our perception of time seems to increase as we get older. Each additional year reduces the novelty of lived experience, making time seem like it is going faster. George Mack shared this visual of “Janet’s Law” for someone born in 1990: As you can see, the first five years of your life take up roughly as much perceived time as early adulthood (6-21) and the rest of your life (22-80). Janet’s Law is directionally accurate, but needs to be adjusted for one thing—memory. Most of us have little to no memories of our early childhood, so our perception of these early years as adults is basically non-existent. Research on memory agrees with this. Older adults consistently seem to have a reminiscence bump (or enhanced memory) of ages 10-30. If we adjust Janet’s Law to start at age 10 to take into account this reminiscence bump, then when you’re 20, one year represents 1/10th (or 10%) of your “memorable” life. This also means that, when you’re 60, one year represents 1/50th (or 2%) of your memorable life. Adjusting for the reminiscence bump, your perception of time would look like this: Now, most of your perceived life comes in childhood, followed by young adulthood, and so forth. It also means that your 20s occupy 5x more of your perceived life than your 60s. You can see this in the chart below which shows the percentage of your overall memorable life that each year represents (through age 80): As you can see, age 20 represents 2% of your memorable life while age 60 is 0.4%, or about 1/5 as much. This simple observation has profound implications for how you spend your money throughout your lifetime. After all, if a year in your 20s occupies 5x more of your perceived life than a year in your 60s, then any money you spend in your 20s should
The federal government is executing one of the largest financial reimbursements in U.S. history, unraveling an estimated $166 billion in import tariffs previously collected under national emergency authorities. Following landmark court rulings that declared these trade duties illegal, tens of billions of dollars are flowing out of the U.S. Treasury and back into the commercial ecosystem. Read the rest
It takes a village to raise a child, but that village is gone. Today’s parents flock to the internet, lamenting the loss of help and … Read more
Financial literacy is lacking in the United States. If you don’t believe it, take a peek at the questions on any financial forum. People make … Read more
It’s August and we’re into the last week of Laura’s time with us before she heads to Australia. No matter how much I’d like to, I can’t freeze time. Instead, I’ll share my July 2026 goals report and a look ahead at my goals for August. The post It’s time for my July 2026 goals report appeared first on Boomer Eco Crusader.
I‘ve read many personal finance articles that claim you can save big by ditching your car and jet-packing, hover-boarding, or *shudder* walking everywhere instead. Monevator published a good one recently, which prompted car-swerving frugalista The Investor to claim he could have spun his savings into £300,000 to £450,000, just by ploughing them into a global equities tracker these past 30 years. If that’s right, then hopefully he’s gonna cut us in because The Accumulators regularly […]