Enjoying Free TV Shows Online
July 14, 2009
I didn’t get much done last week because I was watching our kids in the evenings after work while my wife was away. One thing I did get to do was catch up on the shows from last season’s “The Office”. Over the course of a few days I stood and watched 12 episodes from […]
Split Loans & Home Equity Lines of Credit
July 13, 2009
Buying a home is a dream of many families, unfortunately, not everyone is in the position financially to buy the house of their dreams. A big hurdle to many families is coming up with money for a down payment. Yesterday we talked about how a low down payment on a home can effect how much […]
Buying A House: Down Payments and Private Mortgage Insurance
July 11, 2009
Buying a house can be confusing if you don’t have someone you trust explaining the process to you. Fortunately for my wife and I, my my mother-in-law is a real estate agent and my dad is a real estate broker, so we haven’t had to play the guessing game with our first two property purchases. […]
Microsoft Office Only $9.95!
July 10, 2009
Microsoft Office is a software product that I use extensively every day. Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel are the two apps that I use daily and Access and PowerPoint are programs that I’ll use off and on. Unfortunately, I don’t have Microsoft Office on my laptop at home which slows me down if I ever […]
Quicken Online Trends
July 9, 2009
Quicken Online is a separate product from the desktop versions like Quicken Deluxe, but it does have some similarities. One of my favorites features of Quicken in general is it’s ability to automatically categorize your spending based on where you made a purchase. Quicken Online learns from all the data its users upload, so the […]
Quicken Online Mobile
July 7, 2009
Quicken Online was developed with the goal of helping people live within their means. In my conversation with Barron, he discussed how many people only have a little bit of money left over each month and can’t afford to pay late fees or bounced check fees and need to watch their money carefully. Since Quicken Online […]
Quicken Online Overview
July 6, 2009
Quicken Online is a free, web-based personal finance tool you can use to keep track of your money. Quicken Online product manager, Barron Ernst, got on the phone with me a while back to talk about the tool and some of the features it offers. I’ve been busy with our new baby and my job […]
Happy Financial Independence Day
July 4, 2009
I hope you all are having a safe and fun Independence Day! It’s a good time to talk about financial independence, which is the main reason why this site exists. Financial independence probably means different things to different people but at the core I think it boils down to being able to make decisions independent of […]
Interest Rates & Mortgage Options
July 3, 2009
Once you’ve been pre-approved for a loan and found a house you want to buy the next step is determining the type of mortgage to use and when to lock in your interest rates. Due to the real estate decline and sub-prime mortgage meltdown, lenders and brokers are more careful with how they lend, what […]
Mortgage Pre-Approval When Buying a House
July 2, 2009
A mortgage pre-approval letter was very helpful for my wife and I when we started looking for houses about 8 months ago. My wife’s mom is a real estate agent, so she helped us every step of the way, but many agents won’t deal with buyers who aren’t pre-approved for a loan. They don’t want […]
