Archive results for “June 2010f 2010”
On this page you will find the search results for the search term that you queried.
Buried somewhere deep inside my life insurance application is an awful question…
‘What is your total net worth?’
I calculated my mortgage debt, subtracted my tiny home value, added my student loan debt and my auto loan debt, and then subtracted my liquid cash. The total? An astonishingly huge negative number representing my net worth.
Not wanting to stop at the large, large, large negative number, I added the amount in our retirement accounts (though technically locked up for the next 27 years under mounds of government and ESOP paperwork).
I landed at a number closer to zero but still negative none the less.
I received the following question from my insurer:
PLEASE EXPLAIN WHY YOUR TOTAL NET WORTH IS A NEGATIVE NUMBER.
Yes, they wrote it in all caps. As if I needed a reminder that I’ve made some pretty large financial snafus. Little do they know that if my number landed anywhere close to zero, they’d find me dancing excitedly like a lunatic on top of the bus I take every day.
I sent a long explanatory e-mail to the agent and figured she’d understand. Instead, I received a disdainful, ‘Fine. I’ll alert your Case Manager.’
Certainly I can’t be the only one with an insanely underwater mortgage that throws off my net worth right? Let’s do a poll. Is your net worth a positive or negative number?
And if you see 14 comments after I post this that say ‘positive’ and you’re about to say ‘positive’ as well, say ‘negative’ just to make me feel better.
Have mercy.
I bank with Great Western… oops, I bank with Washington Mutual… uh, no, I bank with Chase. Yeah, Chase. Sorry, my bank keeps getting bought out and I never know what to call it anymore. But each time the bank changes hands, I get a whole new set of rules and regulations.
I’m a nerd, therefore, I read the 7 million pages of information they send each time someone takes over.
One piece of information Chase customers couldn’t have possibly missed over the last month, even if they aren’t nerds and throw away 90% of the information, is the new set of overdraft rules. Unless customers are protected by the new ‘Chase Debit Card Overdraft Coverage’, everyday debit card purchases will not be approved if you don’t have sufficient available funds.
If you elect to add the Chase Debit Card Overdraft Coverage, you will be charged the standard $34 overdraft fee per transaction.
I haven’t had an overdraft charge in a very long time but I’m excited that I have the option to be declined rather than accidentally pay $35 for a Snickers bar. I decided to decline the Overdraft Coverage.
Trust me, I can handle the embarrassment of someone telling me I’m broke.
What do you think? Are you a “Decline me. I don’t care” sort of person or do you think there is a reason to keep the overdraft protection?
As my debt free date grows closer, I find myself thinking about the next step. I’m about 6 months away and it’s an incredibly strange feeling. I have had some sort of debt since I bought my first car at 16. I’ve spent half my life paying someone back.
When my debt is reduced to only my mortgage payment, what will I do?!?
If you had asked me, when I first started this journey, what I would do when my debts were paid, I would have said, “I want to remodel my 50 year old kitchen” or “I want to restucco my home!”
The fantasy has changed.
My fantasy now consists of a paid off mortgage and growing mutual funds.
I can’t tell you how strange it was to sit down to deliberate over the next step. Obviously we are going to save a larger emergency fund and aggressively pay our second mortgage but my dreams of ‘big shiny things’ are fewer and farther between. OK, I’ll just spit it out…
I’m an addict.
I’m addicted to the good feeling I get when I see zero balances.
Have you thought about your life after debt? What are your plans (other than investments and mortgage payoffs)?
I took some hits when I wrote about people who choose to walk away from their underwater mortgages even though they can afford them – also known as a ‘Strategic Default’. Several readers disagreed on the idea that walking away is a moral decision and that suggestion alone evoked the most controversy.
Well, regardless of your stance on whether it is a moral decision or a financial one, if you plan to default on your mortgage despite the fact that you can pay it…
You better hurry up.
Fannie Mae is taking steps to thwart strategic defaulting.
Walk away? Sure. Want to buy a house in the next SEVEN years? No longer an option.
I excited that Fannie Mae is as disgusted with strategic defaulting as I am. I love the quote, “Walking away from a mortgage is bad for borrowers and bad for communities and our approach is meant to deter the disturbing trend toward strategic defaulting”
I doubt this action from Fannie Mae alone will work but I’m hoping others will join to curb defaults of homeowners who want out of a bad decision but don’t want to pay the price.
Yay Fannie Mae!
See the article here:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/jun/23/fannie-mae-to-penalize-homeowners-who-walk-away/
I’ve been struggling with my decision to travel to Italy with my family. The cash for the trip is sitting in a separate account but I see the total pop up every time I log in to my online banking. It’s tempting to cancel the trip and pull out the cash to pay off my husband’s truck.
This weekend, I was able to spend time with my grandmother and she asked if I had any big plans for the year. I told her about the Italy trip but mentioned I was considering not going. She said, ‘You HAVE to go’ with more force than I could have expected from an 89 year old woman.
After dinner we sat to talk and she shared a story I had never heard before. My grandmother had always planned to travel with my grandfather. In their youth, work obligations and five children made that dream impossible. She figured they would go when the children were grown and out of the house. My grandfather started to show signs of Alzheimer’s in his forties and by his retirement years the disease had taken over and her dreams of traveling with the man she loved were gone.
‘Don’t ever assume you can go later. Listen to the wisdom of an old lady. Go now.’ She said emphatically.
She gave me the rare chance to look at things through the eyes of my future. When I’m 89, will I look back and say, ‘I wish I hadn’t gone to Italy and had paid off debt 3 months faster instead!’?
I think not.
So, I’m moving forward with my decision to go. Irresponsible? Yes. Will I waffle over the decision for 3 more months? Yup. But…
Will I regret it? No.
Christy!
Seriously, this giveaway was so much fun! I put all the names in a hat and had my brother draw one. He started to ask questions then stopped.
It’s sad when your brother gets used to your particular level of weirdness and stops asking questions.
Congratulations to Christy!
A hearty thanks again to the folks at Blog2Print.com for giving away a free book.
OK, OK, so I do my best to not encourage spending BUT… this is for the bloggers out there.
If you are like me and blog on a regular basis, it’s a bit frustrating not to have a hard copy of your writing. I’ve tried printing pages, or keeping a duplicate copy in Microsoft Word, but nothing looks quite right.
One of my friends recently purchased a blog book from Blog2Print.com. Blog2Print publishes your blog to a soft or hardcover book. 20 page softcover books are only $14.95.
I was so impressed with (and jealous of) her book, I contacted the crew at Blog2Print.com. They were extremely kind, helpful, and most importantly… agreed to give away a 20 page hardcover (or softcover) book to one of my readers.
If you are interested, and you should be, leave a comment on this post. Make sure you include your e-mail address in the ‘Mail’ section so I can contact you back if you are the lucky winner. I will be taking all the entries, throwing them into a hat, and picking one on Tuesday night, June 22nd. Feel free to leave a comment to enter the drawing up until then (please, only one entry per person).
Good Luck!
About This Site
My Debt
- Original Debt: $38,495.86
- Added Debt: $1,781.50
- Total Debt: $40,277.36
- Paid: $36,084.36
- Remaining: $4,193.00
- Broken Down
- Auto Loan 1: $0.00
- Credit Card: $0.00
- Student Loan: $4,193.00
- Auto Loan 2: $0.00
- Vet Loan: $0.00
Categories
- :)
- About Me
- Blogging Buddies
- Book Reviews
- Bump Update
- Carnivals/Festivals
- Childcare
- Confessions
- Coupons
- Credit Cards
- Credit Reports/FICO
- Debt Updates
- Educational Spending
- emergency fund
- Financial Peace University
- food
- Food Review
- Free Stuff
- General Debt
- General Personal Finance
- Giveaways
- Giving
- Good Info
- health
- Holiday
- Home Ownership
- identity theft
- Insurance
- job loss
- Keeping Motivated
- Kids & Money
- Legal Battle
- Life After Credit Card Debt
- Life Experiences
- Living Frugal
- Loans
- Making Home Affordable Program
- Making Money
- Misc
- Money & Relationships
- Monthly Spending
- Morals and Money
- Net Worth
- Parties
- Picks and Pans
- Prosper Borrowing
- Quicken Tips
- Reducing Debt
- Saving Money
- Spending Money
- taxes
- unemployment
- Ways I Save Money
- work
Finance Blogging Buddies
- Beachgirl’s Budget Blog
- Becoming and Staying Debt Free
- Boston Gals Open Wallet
- Debt Free Hispanic
- Debt Kid
- Debt Reduction 101
- Dual Income No Kids
- Everybody Loves Your Money
- Financial Hack
- Free Money Finance
- From the Brink of Bankruptcy
- Generation X Finance
- GRACEful Retirement
- Grad Money Matters
- It’s Your Money
- Josephsangl.com
- Kick Debt’s Butt
- Lazy Man and Money
- Low Income Life
- Make Love Not Debt
- Mapgirl’s Fiscal Challenge
- Mighty Bargain Hunter
- Million Dollar Savings Club
- Money for Military
- Money is My BFF
- Money, Matter and More Musings
- My 1st Million at 33
- My Money Blog
- My Plasectomy
- My Two Dollars
- No Credit Needed
- One Million and Beyond
- Personal Finance Advice
- pfblogs.org
