My Personal Finance Blog

Are you thinking about buying a home? The time may be right to make your move out of the world of renting and into that of home ownership. There are many advantages to buying a home. However, the first step is get pre-qualified with a mortgage lender today so that you know what kind of home you can afford and so that when you find the right one, you are ready to make an offer.

The Advantages of Home Ownership

1. Home Equity–Although we have been in a declining market over the past few years, historically real estate values go up over time creating home equity for home owners. This equity occurs in two ways. First, as you make your monthly payment a portion goes to pay down the amount you owe. This is called principal pay down and creates equity in your home. The second way equity is gained is through home values going up. This has not happened as of late but because home prices are down this may be a great opportunity to get the home you have wanted at a reasonable price.

2. Tax Savings–None of us like paying taxes. When you get a mortgage at the time of buying a home, you create a great opportunity to save money on your taxes. The property taxes and the interest you pay on your mortgage is a tax deduction. For example, if you end up paying 30% of your income in taxes then you essentially get 30% of your house payment back in tax savings. This is a huge advantage of home ownership over renting. You will want to consult with your tax advisor regarding the tax advantages.

3. Settled In–When you become a home owner, you are able to settle in. By this I mean that you are able to decorate and remodel your home the way that you choose. You are able to make friends with neighbors and know that you will be there as long as you choose. If you have children you are able to settle in to the schools and local sporting programs. There is a feeling of security and consistency that comes from buying a home rather than renting and being at the mercy of a landlord.

If these advantages are what you are looking for, you should look to get pre-qualified with a mortgage lender to see what price range home you should be looking at. Once you know what price home you can comfortably afford, you are able to look at location, style, and the size of the home that you want to pursue when buying a home. Finding a lender is easy online, and oftentimes you can get multiple mortgage quotes for your mortgage loan with one application.

During these times that we are living in; I believe that household families should team up together and come up with a game plan. A plan action that will help the family but also give the family the option to become financially prosperous. One of the things my husband and I did was gather the kids to explain our financial situation and our plans together as a family. We told them that everyone in the household must stick together and not give up on one another. Due to the fact that we already have a spiritual foundation, we believe coming together and praying as a family will change things in life. Above everything else this is priority in our lives as a family because we understand the benefit of it all.

We explain to the kids that we will come up with creative ways to bring more income into the house, and many streams of income that will put us in a better financial position. It is important for us to be very conscious and wise on how we spend our money; so we decided to cut back on buying foods that was not good for the body such as sweets and junk food. My husband and I sat down at the table and wrote down everything and everyone that we were in debt to. We list the smallest to the greatest of the debt we accumulated including bills that were past due. As we paid the smaller ones off, the list got shorter and shorter. There is something powerful happens when you write things down and take the action. You must take action by doing something to see the bills and debts eliminated.

Another things that is very important in our family is giving, it is a powerful way to open yourself up to receive; you should always find an opportunity to be a giver in your time and money. Our children understand the importance of being appreciative of what they have in their home. Teach your children to be givers and not be selfish, it will help them in a long run. Here is the following list of thing:

1. Pray together.
2. Explain the changes.
3. Cut back on junk foods.
4. Be very conscious of your spending habits.
5. Write down everything owed and a plan of action.
6. Take action and do something positive.
7. Give to charity your time and money.

Article by: ForexTradingCrashCourse.com 

What Is A Forex Robot? 

A forex robot is a computer program that analyzes the Forex market based on a particular Forex trading system or strategy. A forex robot is programmed to identify a pre-determined point where it can place an order or exit a trade. Upon determining a particular trade deal where you would be able to profit, the robot can place or continue with the order without the trader actually being present. The great thing about a Forex robot is that it can monitor all the currencies in the world. It can monitor and determine not just one but more than 20 trading signals. With this capability, it could easily monitor all the currencies and let you know if it has detected a profitable trading opportunity for you. 

Unfortunately, not all Forex robots work the same way or deliver the same profitability. If you are looking for a Forex robot, you have to take into account your lifestyle, objectives and previous trading experience. The quality of a forex robot is dependent upon the manufacturer of the program. There are some Forex robots which claim their profitability is about 95%, whilst others claim less.

A common mistake made by traders is to let their forex robot do all the work without getting involved in manual trading. Having a forex robot is not a surefire way of getting rich quick. A forex robot is there to help you identify good trading opportunities and not to completely take over. Only 5% of forex traders make profits every day, to be successful trading forex a good mindset and skill is required before you consider buying a forex robot.

Click here to view my TOP 5 list of Forex Robots.

You can diversify your garden with a bird bath. It is funny to have a birth bath in the backyard. There is big variety of bird baths at the bottom there is a guide to help you in your choice for excellent bird bath.

Bird baths tips

You have to follow some advices when you install a bird bath. The water in the bird bath must not be very deep, you wish the birds to have more space; it averts drowning of the birds and another little animal in the bird bath. It is a great idea to change the water in the bird bath oftener. Birds would avoid locations with many people. You would desire to be the bird bath higher because the birds can be secure from another animal. At the bottom there are several bird baths.

Pedestal

The famous kind of bird bath is the pedestal. Granite, copper, aluminum are from resources which are used for those baths.

Hanging

Hanging baths are excellent out of your window. Birds are oblivious to the fact they were spied on due to the reflection of light from a window.

Electric and solar heated baths

The heated bath is excellent for someone who is living in cold locations. The birds have the opportunity to go to the bath all the cold season. Electric baths and solar – heated baths are the two kinds of heated baths.

Soothing fountains baths

The water is a good idea to stand alone in the backyard or garden area.

Whether you like looking at birds or spend your time in the garden, the bird bath would give you great pleasure. Do not forget to locate a feeder and a bird house close to the bath.

I love investing. Why do I love investing? Because from personal experience I can see it works. The source of our wealth is investing. Yes, the incomes we received from our jobs enabled us to invest, but we would not have become wealthy because of our jobs. Why? Because we always spend what we earn. let me explain using one property as an example.

I purchased a property in 1997 for $165,000. By the end of 2007, the property was re-valued at $410,000. That is a capital increase of $245,000. In ten years, I would have found it impossible to save that amount: over $20,000 per year. Over those ten years, I was on an average salary of approximately $50,000 per annum. It would have been impossible to save an average of $20,000 per year.

To me, investing has been a form of forced savings.

As much as capital appreciation on an investment is very exciting, it also brings with it a level of risk.

The risk is the access you have to the capital appreciation. Loan products are available that allow you to re-finance your property to the current market value and you can access a portion of the capital growth for your purposes.

This access to the capital growth can either be a risk or an opportunity.

Let’s look firstly at the risk. Let’s say your Mortgage Broker tells you you can gain access to $100,000 on your property. You get very excited and buy a new car and a boat for your family. Let’s look at some of the downsides of this decision:

- Increased expenses: you now have to pay interest on the $100,000 loan. This is a personal expense you did not have before you purchased the car and boat.
- You purchased items that will decrease in value over time (depreciating items). The depreciation rate on a new car can be as high as 25% per annum. On the $50,000 car alone, without even considering the boat, you could lose $12,500 in the first year on depreciation.
- You purchased items that are unlikely to generate income for you. It is more likely they are going to increase your expenses. For example registration, petrol, insurance, mooring fees.

Going into debt to purchase depreciating items that do not generate income is not a strategy for financial independence. Cash flow and wealth are going backwards.

Let’s now look at the opportunity. Once again, your Mortgage Broker tells you you can gain access to $100,0000 on your property. Again you are excited but this time you use the $100,000 as a deposit on an investment property. Let’s look at the positives of this decision:

- You purchased an item that will increase in value over time (appreciating items).
- You purchased an item that will generate income for you in the form of rent. Property will also incur expenses in the form of interest on the loan, property management fees, rates, depreciation, insurance, etc. However your Accountant will be able to advise you on the expenses that you can claim as a tax deduction.

Going into debt to purchase appreciating items that generate income is a strategy for financial independence.

Now you might say that you also want to enjoy life and buy some lifestyle items for example a newer car or a boat. Yes, I agree with you. Life is for living. I believe it’s all about balance.

Financial independence is when your passive income covers your living expenses. If your goal is to become financially independent, you need to work on increasing your passive income, not your expenses. If your living expenses are going up but your passive income is not, you are on the path of working for a living rather than financial independence. My philosophy is to buy luxury lifestyle items when passive income covers expenses. Until then, we live within our means.

Our property investment strategy is to build a property portfolio and then just basically hold it for the rest of our lives. You can never say never, so along the journey some properties may be sold, however they are sold with the intention of buying another property that better fits with our strategy.

Given we are passive investors, it is important that we buy property in an area with high potential for capital growth and manage our cash flow well so we can afford to hold a property portfolio, without the need to sell.