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meadandale
ParticipantIf you can calculate the tax savings of the write off for your property tax and mortgage interest deduction, you don’t need to wait until next april to ‘realize’ the savings. You can adjust your withholdings so that you can free up the money now.
Participant“15-20% is a kind low for int’l fund last year and also it falls into high risk category.”
I know it’s high risk, that’s why I only have 15-20% there. I’m trying not to fall prey to the seven deadly sins of investing….
ParticipantI have about 15-20% of my portfolio in an international index fund. It has beat the returns in my U.S. index funds so far this year better than 3:1 (>13% ytd versus about 4%).
However, even though it is an index fund, it’s far from low risk which is why I’ve resisted the urge to try and multiply my gains by funneling more money into it.
ParticipantJosh, I told you that you need to do the contracting thing 😉
Participant@kev
Wow, that’s just great. All the benefit of an ARM (lower payments) and none of the risk (not able to refinance at reasonable rates when the ARM adjusts).
Looks like I should have gone with the ARM instead of the 30 year fixed. I would have saved a bunch of cash.
Of course who knew that Nanny Sam was going to step in?
Participant“Poor lenders were taken advantage of by greedy lenders”
That’s the gist of what I get from her letter.
I disagree. I knew what an ARM was when I bought my house–I figured I ought to educate myself before making the largest investment of my life so I bought a couple of books (including the Dummy Guide to buying a House). I decided that the risk of rising interest rates wasn’t one that I was willing to take so I opted for a fixed 30 yr loan instead of having to fret over refinancing in a few years at potentially higher rates.
If these people didn’t know what they were signing, they have noone to blame but themselves.
This just further proves why I’ve never voted for Boxer or Feinstein and will continue to try and vote them out of office. I don’t support the nanny state.
ParticipantClassic example of the Cultural Pathology alluded to in another post. Even if they put in $250k in upgrades, they are still trying to get almost $500k in profit out of it. Over 8 years, that’s a tidy $62500/yr. Who needs a job?
And, really, a 2100 sq ft house for a million? You can get a 3500 sq ft mcmansion for that price in a much nicer part of town.
You also gotta love the website:
http://www.fmsrp.com/6398.html
Looks like someone scanned a flier and posted it as a web page. Geez, for a half million in profit, at least you could have spent a hundred bucks for a web developer to put a page together for you.
Participant“On April 3, 1998 Cisco closed at 11.78.
Today it is at 26.”Well, for those of us who bought it on the way down during the tech crash, it’s been a long few years back to profitability. I bought at about $14 and watched it drop below $10 before it started a long slow climb back up. The Oracle that I bought at $18 has only recently come back up for air. The Lucent that I bought at $9, never recovered.
April 4, 2007 at 6:50 PM in reply to: Some housing market newspaper clippings from the last Iraq war #49225ParticipantGore Jr and Sr have been cozy with Occidental Petroleum for years. Don’t kid yourself.
April 4, 2007 at 9:59 AM in reply to: Some housing market newspaper clippings from the last Iraq war #49163ParticipantOil was not $30 per GALLON, it was $30 per BARREL. Otherwise, $60-70 bbl would seem like a bargain.
You can’t blame the price runup on GWB. More like greedy oil companies and OPEC responding to the growth in demand for fuel in China.
ParticipantYou gotta love a market where a fixer upper in an older neighborhood is still fetching almost $600k.
ParticipantWell, I can’t provide you with any hard statistics on any of this, just my gut instincts. I’d say that less than 10-15% of 25-35 year olds in so cal have any kind of real savings, let alone something approaching $70k. Most are living on borrowed time.
Most of these people (of all ages) driving these expensive cars are leveraged to the hilt. I know a young woman who is a waitress and her husband works as a salesman at a BMW dealership. They typify most young people I know. She wants a new BMW to replace her 5 year old car. Her annual income is MAYBE $30k. She has no business driving a car that costs more than her annual salary (note that HE is already driving a used Mercedes that they probably can’t afford).
My niece (early 20’s) is a shop-aholic. She impulsively buys expensive designer clothes that she can’t afford, has a car that doesn’t run (and she doesn’t have any money to fix) and is about $30k in the hole and she just keeps digging. She even lives at home so has very few expenses against her $40k-ish salary. I’ve been trying to talk some sense into her but she just doesn’t want to hear it. She’s going to wakeup up in 5-10 years with a bunch of ‘stuff’, nothing in the bank and a $60k ball and chain around her ankles that is going to take her years to pay off.
April 2, 2007 at 6:29 PM in reply to: OT – Mrs. Piggington’s company hiring .NET and Java developers #48985ParticipantToo funny Josh. Good to see you over here.
I’ve been preaching the gospel of the coming bubble burst to my coworkers, several of whom are sitting in million dollar plus homes in carmel valley. They seem to think that there’s no way that their houses will lose equity.
Good luck with that!
Charles
April 2, 2007 at 6:00 PM in reply to: OT – Mrs. Piggington’s company hiring .NET and Java developers #48980ParticipantIs this the infamous Josh G from the JUG message boards?
LOL,
Charles
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