Is Homeownership a Good Deal?
Homeownership has a good PR department. 2-in-3 householders in the United States own their own homes. In 1900, less than half owned their homes. It is sold as “The American Dream” but it’s not necessarily a smart financial move. You might be better off renting.
My realtor friends will have to forgive me for taking this arrow out of their quiver: When you buy a home you are not investing, you are spending. I’ll show you what I’m talking about.
Buying a home is like having a really expensive car and renting a home is like having a really inexpensive car. Both get the job done, but you pay more for luxury that comes with an expensive car.
I Have Rented – Now I Own
I’m the king of my castle. I can pretty much do, or not do whatever I want to it. That’s pretty cool. But that coolness comes with a price.
A Fraternity Brother as Veep?
It’s weird when someone from your frat house is actually running for Vice President of the United States. It gave me pause, especially since my biggest recent career highlight is shooting a Viagra commercial with a guy from Welcome Back, Kotter.
As longtime readers may recall, I once caddied for Speaker Boehner. If Ryan gets in, I will have links to the #2 and #3 men in line behind the Prez. Wielding that kind of influence, I should register as a lobbyist.
I like that Ryan is a math guy, a number-cruncher who is talking about how to solve our unsustainable and increasing National Debt. In case you would like to learn exactly what the National Debt is all about, which every voter should, I highly recommend checking out this brief clip from the movie I.O.U.S.A.
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Amazon Payments’ WebPay
You may not know that you need this – but you probably do. Amazon.com has a free service called Amazon Payments’ Amazon WebPay. It’s like PayPal – but without fees. You can send up to $1,000 per calendar month using a credit card.
If you use a credit card, it is not a cash advance as long as you select “Goods/Services” when making a payment. Never use a credit card for cash advances. That way is madness! I have used this for years and never been charged a fee when choosing “Goods/Services”.
Why would you want to use this? Well… This can be really handy when you are trying to meet a spending requirement on a credit card, so you can get a big bonus of airline miles or reward points.
This isn’t a scam. Amazon wants you to use it for everyday stuff “such as buying a digital camera or paying your babysitter.” The website even suggests that you “Send money to your friends and family… Have friends and family send you money…”
Think about it. As long as someone has an Amazon Payments account, which is free and takes a couple minutes to set up, you could send them money on a credit card that earns you miles, rewards or cash back. All at no cost to either of you!
Amazon Payments are virtually instant. Once a payment is received it can be withdrawn to one’s bank account. Heck, you could even ask your landlord if you could pay the rent that way! Earn your credit card’s airline miles, rewards, or cash back – and then take the cash you were going to use for the rent to pay off your credit card charge.
I know a guy who hired a buddy to remodel his basement office. His handyman buddy
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Get NFL Sunday Ticket for Free
DirecTV’s offer expired. Get your NFL team’s Visa card here!
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The Return of $75 in Free Cash
It’s back baby! For the month of August, get an easy $25 – $75 in free dough – even if you have bad credit!
This is NOT a credit card, so even if you have the worst credit in the world, you can do this. Order your American Express Prepaid card, load it up with $200 from your bank account, and you’ll get a $25 gift card. You can get up to three cards.
My abacas says that is $75 free! ANY adult with a bank account can do this offer.
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2012 Sales Tax Holidays
If you’ve had you peepers on a little something in the storefront window, this may be the time to pull the trigger. 16 states are waiving sales tax in the coming weeks, 12 are this weekend.
Clothing is eligible for the tax holiday in all 16 states. North Carolina considers baby diapers “clothing”. This may be a good time to see if Pee Paw can fit into Husky Huggies. Aftershave and deodorant are considered “clothing” in Arkansas. From what I have seen on “Cops – Little Rock”, a shirt is not.
Here are the details on the 16 state sales tax holidays, in alphabetical order:
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Lily Tomlin and I Own a Wall
“Good fences make good neighbors” should be on coins in Los Angeles. Out here, people trust in them more than God. Virtually every home has a six foot high walled-in back yard for privacy and zombie attacks.
Despite earthquakes, a lot of these walls have been up for decades – erected by people long gone. When the wall sits on the property line, neighbors tend to treat them like common property.
A few years ago, my backdoor neighbor Mike was preparing his house for sale. There was a crack in our wall. He asked me to pitch in to have it fixed. Done and done.
Suddenly the neighborhood was all a buzz because Lily Tomlin bought that home behind mine.
I loved her on Laugh-In. I wondered where she’d put Edith Ann’s huge rocking chair. When she called to borrow a cup of sugar, would she say, “One ringy-dingy, two ringy-dingy…”? At her housewarming party, would Arte Johnson stick his face over our wall and peak through the vegetation with “Verrrrry interestink.” If this were 1969, we’d all be laughing heartily.
Update: Slate, as in “Clean”
Wipe your credit card interest slate clean. Pay 0% on Purchases and 0% on Balance Transfers for 15 months + No Transfer Fee!! Oh, and No Annual Fee.
Apply for the card, then transfer your higher rate balances on other cards to this card during the first 60 days your account is open. You will pay NO BALANCE TRANSFER FEE! That’s huge. Any new balances that you transfer over after AFTER your account has been open 60 days, will get hit with a fee of 3% of the amount transferred with a minimum of $5. You wanna avoid that 3% – which is the norm for balance transfer cards.
Stop paying interest with the New & Improved, cleaner and slatier Chase Slate!
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My Year of Loaning Money to Strangers
One year ago, I started loaning money to complete strangers via Lending Club and Prosper. My returns are 7.30% and 8.85% respectively.
Sure, I’m flashy, devil-may-care, makin’ the scene… But when it comes to playing banker, I am quite conservative. I chose to lend only to people who had the highest credit rankings and were deemed lowest risk to default on the loans.
$25 was the most I lent to any of the 30 people. None of them have defaulted. Four have paid back the loan in full. Screen shots and video below.
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1.35% from FNBO Direct
If you are a money-grubbing rate-chaser like me, and have an account at FNBO Direct, you will get 1.35% APY on any new money that you add after close of business on June 29, 2012. This great rate is guaranteed through December 31, 2012. Pretty sweet!
Not you? Here’s a GREAT promotional rate of 1.25% at EverBank.
The FNBO promotion is one reason I rarely close old bank accounts. I have 25. WOW, that even surprised me. I only use 3-4. Since I went to the trouble to open the accounts at some point, for some great promotion or rate, I just leave a buck in them when I pull out the cash. When something like this FNBO Direct offer comes up – I jump on it!
My very first ChipsMoneyTips post was for FNBO Direct.
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