What To Invest In Remainder of 2009, 2010, and Beyond
The economy has been and remains down, but you don’t have to be.
In fact, the current economic climate poses many great opportunities for you to invest in.
Here are a list of things I’m investing in 2009 (or what’s left of it). It is important to note that I’m a moderately long-term investor so these investment ideas may not be suitable for you.
Real Estate
Take your time on this one. I think the whole credit crisis is just going to get uglier. The 5-year ARM mortgage loans are also coming due soon so there should be another wave of foreclosures (ding ding ding… translates to opportunities).
If you want to get started, get this home study course:
Build A Fortune With Real Estate Foreclosures And Short Sales.
Virtual Real Estate
a.k.a. domain names and websites. In fact, I love virtual real estate more than real estate itself due to the ROI and low barrier of entry. However, if you are not comfortable with operating a website and holding on to a piece of virtual land, this may not be for you.
If you want to get started with investing in virtual real estate, here are some very good resources:
Turn $8 to $2,000 Every Month With Domains
Education
Education is always a good investment no matter what year it is. Be it for career advancement, or better your business, getting educated and learning something will give you ROI that can not be measured.
What are you investing in 2009, and years to come?
How I Saved $700 A Month
There are so many articles written on the web on how to reduce your monthly expenses, especially in today’s economy. With today’s unemployment rate at 9.5% (as of June 2009), it’s not a surprise that everyone is looking for ways to cut expenses.
As for my family, although my husband and I are both employed, our income will be significantly reduced. We’re expecting our second child one month from today (Aug 30, 2009). That means I’ll be on short term disability for a few months. My husband will be taking advantage of the Paid Family Leave program offered by the state (California is among one of the three states that offer protected leave from work to take care of your spouse, child or parent AND get paid approximately 55% of your income). Needless to say, our household income will be reduced even more.
In anticipation of our “pay cut”, we have taken a proactive approach in looking at areas where we can save money. Here’s what we did to get an extra $700:
(1) Reduce APR’s On Our Credit Cards
We called my husband’s CitiCard and asked for a rate reduction. If you have good credit with them, they will drop your interest rate by a few percentage points at the minimum. His CitiCard has a balance of $17,000 with an interest rate of 29.99%. Imagine paying nearly 30% on a $17,000 loan. I don’t know when we’d be able to pay that off. We were able to negotiate for an interest rate of 4.99% for 6 months. Although this is only a temporary reduction, we can always call back after 6 months to negotiate for another rate reduction. The monthly minimum payments went from $690 to $290.
Total Monthly Savings: $400.
(2) Loan Modification On Our Home
Not everyone will be qualified for a home modification and the process is time consuming. The approval process may take up to 90 days, but it could be well worth it in the end. After nearly 4 months of waiting for an answer, our application for a loan modification was approved. We are now paying $200 less per month on our mortgage.
Total Monthly Savings: $600
(3) Cable, Phone and Internet: Need vs. Want
We had the Verizon Bundle for $99 (or $120 after taxes and fees). After looking at our daily habits and our schedules, we realized that we really don’t watch TV nor do we use our landline. The Verizon Bundle is a great deal, but only if you use all three services. We decided to cancel the cable and the phone, keep the high speed internet. We signed up for Netflix ($10 per month) and used our cell phones instead. Our bill went from $120 to $70 per month.
Total Monthly Savings: $650
(4) Consolidate Cell Phone Bills
I’m not too familiar with other phone carriers offer out there, but I do know that AT&T’s family plan works great for us. You add another line, up to 5 lines total, to your plan for $9.99 per month. We transferred my brother’s line to our plan. Our cell phone bill was $120 for 4 lines (we are paying for my parent’s lines as well). His cell phone bill was $75. Together, our bills totaled $195 per month. When we added his line to our plan, we now pay a total of $140 per month. I pay him $80 per month and save $40; he saves $15. It’s a win/win situation.
Total Monthly Savings: $690
We could use the $700 to purchase milk and diapers (lots of milk and diapers) for the baby. But instead, we thought we’d work within our existing budget and use the extra cash to pay down the principal balance of my Bank of America credit card (it has the highest APR right now). That in turn will save us more money in the long run.
I think every household can find areas of improvement when it comes to finances. You just have to look hard enough at where your money is going. It’s important to note that the money you “save” is not used to purchase things that you don’t really need. Now, c’mon ladies. Do you really need to buy those cute strappy summer sandals that are on sale at Macy’s?
Poor Credit? Shared Secure Loans To Build Credit!
Can’t seem to find a way to get credit these days? Do you have a low credit score and want to increase? Have you been trying to pay things as you can afford them but would like to have the cushion of having a line of credit in case of emergencies? Then you might be looking for something like a shared secure loan to help you build credit. Recently, I talked with Jimmy at a credit union close to where I attend school and I asked him about what folks could do to rebuild credit if they ran into some issues of bad or poor credit? He mentioned that a good idea would be getting a shared secure loan from any credit union.
One Way To Lose your Money! Great Deals!
I’m going to have an incredible time writing this article, I’ll tell you why before I begin. Everywhere you go on the net you run into some web marketing guru’s site that offers you the world on a platter by grasping their once-in-a-life time opportunity that has magically been reduced to some great price! If you are reading this article right now, the odds are, you’ve already fallen victim to something like this.
Well, I’ll be honest, I’ve fallen for it too! But its okay, we wont do it again right?
Home equity loan; raise your credit score!
Finding collateral loans these days is not easy. Now-a-days, banks aren’t exactly loaning money if you have collateral. Credit checks have been a key standard now and keeping your credit score up is extremely important. So, you are thinking of getting a loan? Do you have some credit issues and want to raise your credit score? If you don’t own a home, it will take some money; if you do, then it will take a home equity loan. Today I’ll cover getting a home equity loan.
A Second Checking Account; Over-Draft Protection Option
ChaChing! That wonderful direct deposit just came in, its payday! Oh no, now its time to see where its all going to go and whether I’m going to have some left over after bills are fully paid. Recently, after, getting paid two weeks ago, I managed to spend a little more money then I had disposable for expenditures. I ended up over-drafting my account. Even though I managed to get the over-draft fee reversed, I still felt pretty bad about not knowing how much I had in the bank.
Chase Credit Card Offers 0% APR Balance Liquidation Program
I got a call this morning from Chase regarding my missed payment for my credit card. This is a similar story that I posted about my Advanta credit card.
He urged that I pay the minimum and they will waive the late fee (how nice, sometimes you can’t even get them to do that even if you asked).
I told the guy that I honestly don’t have the money to pay (some $500 minimum payment on a $28,000 balance).
He asked how much I can pay and I told him $100 (at that time I don’t know what my balance was because I have multiple Chase cards) and he said that will take me 20 years to pay off and it’s simply not possible… I laughed in embarrassment.
I told him that I don’t have a problem paying what I owe to Chase – it’s just that business has been slow and times are taught for me and my wife right now. He was a nice guy and told me that there is a hardship program that they can put me on that is basically a 5- year payoff program (aka Balance Liquidation Program).
He then took my finances over the phone, and asked me again how much I can pay each month – since he opened that option for me, I basically told him to take my outstanding balance and divide by 60 months (5-years).
He was able to approve me over the phone right away for that payoff arrangement – essentially a 0% APR for 5-years.
The other plus that comes out of this program is that my credit will not be affected by this, and gives me the flexibility to miss a payment as long as I can call 1-day ahead to ask them to push out the due date.
Moral of the story: Again, face your debt. If you can’t pay, then don’t try to finance existing debt with another debt – this is the stupidest thing to do.
Money ≠ Happiness!
Dear Moolahblog,
I read the weirdest article yesterday that expressed how money is the root of happiness! While reading it, I actually found that the author, Cody Scholberg, really meant that money, itself, is a tool that can help brings happiness. In no way would I agree that happiness itself is directly linked to money as in “money makes you happy.” This would imply by direct translation that money itself makes you happy. That is simply not true. The odd thing is, I think if Cody read this article he would agree to with me and point out that his statement only makes sense because the above stated is true.
Saving = Cutting Expenditures!
Financial Freedom: Final Step!
The journey up to now has been a difficult one. Reaching financial freedom takes work and dedication. Achieving this goal is something that takes effort and a desire to see yourself reach new hights in your financial walk.
MoolahBlog.com is about making and saving more money for you! There are several ways to become wealthy and you can do it with just the current income you are making - the secret is in money management and investing! Subscribe to our blog today to learn the money knowledge not taught in schools.
