Monthly Archives: January 2007 - Page 3

When will you become a millionaire?

Posted by on January 4, 2007 1 comment

one_million_dollars.jpgIt seems that everyone is trying to climb that millionaire ladder of success, that includes me and Dr. Evil. But unlike Dr. Evil, I don’t intend on taking the world hostage and asking for money. Instead, my goal is to get there by making smart money moves and to be there by early 40′s. Think its reasonable? I certainly do, heres my plans/situations and what differentiate me from the rest.

  • I am currently in school and will have absolutely no loans after I’m done. In fact, I am currently getting paid to go to school.
  • I will have a steady income of 50k+ a year after graduation, which is a nice start.
  • The company that I work for will pay for my masters and in returns will also give me a nice raise.
  • My plans to own my first home by the age of 25 will help me by not dumping my money away to pay for rent. The monthly mortgage will be going towards my house and not be dumping away into someone else’s hand.
  • I have plans for investing in real estate and expect to own a few houses by mid 30′s, where I will be renting out to people for monthly income.
  • I intend on putting away most of my checks in index funds.
  • I have a great start just because I started to save/invest at such an early age.
  • I think long term and have already started planning out my budget for my first home.

These are just some cases and plans I currently have. Here is a site that calculates when your gonna hit your million mark(rough estimation). After putting in my data, my results came out to be 20 years and 6 months. Ha! Take that Dr. Evil!

5 common homebuyer mistakes you want to avoid

Posted by on January 2, 2007 1 comment

coin_house.jpgThere are many things to consider when thinking about buying a home, such as figuring out your budget, defining your search parameters, finding good rates, and the list goes on. But aside from the obvious stuff, you might want to look at some common mistakes that most homebuyers seems to make. I have made a list of 5 common homebuyer mistakes you want to avoid.

  1. Not fixing your credit. Before you even think about applying for a mortgage, obtain copies of your credit report and your FICO credit score and make sure that you check to see everything is in order.You can order your FICO score on the Web for a fee of $14.95, which includes a copy of your credit report.
  2. Not getting pre-approved for a loan. It seems that many first-time borrowers confuse being “pre-qualified” with being “pre-approved.” Pre-qualification is where a lender tells you how much money you can borrow based on how much you make, how much debt you already have and how much cash you have for the down payment.Pre-approval  is a much more rigorous process and involves actually applying for a loan.
  3. Borrowing too much money. Not only are you taking out the biggest loan of your life, it’s probably 3-4 times your annual income. Many people take out the biggest loan they possibly can, figuring that their incomes will eventually increase enough to make the payments comfortable.
  4. Not shopping around for rates and terms. There are too many borrowers with good credit getting stuck with loans meant for people with poor credit. If the borrower doesn’t know what the prevailing interest rates are for someone with their credit standing, they can easily pay thousands of dollars more than they need to.
  5. Not planning for closing costs. Plan for closing costs by getting a good-faith estimate from your lender as early in the loan process as possible. You also want to avoid not having cash on you after your closing costs because your going to be hit with unexpected expenses. So it’s good to have an emergnecy account and not be scraping for pennies when you have get your water heater repaired.

Carnival of New Year Resolutions

Posted by on January 1, 2007 No comments

newyearsfire.jpgHappy New Years everyone!

I can’t believe how fast this year had gone by. So I guess it’s that time of the year for New Year Resolutions. This year I have some critical Resolutions so here they are:

  1. The most important one is to get out of debt. If I follow my current plans, I should be out of debt by the end of February. This is the key goal here because after I get this one out the way, I can start my other goals.
  2. Start my IRA account. I would like to max out the 4,000 dollar limit this year and hopefully continue to do the same year after year.
  3. Maintain my current scholarship. Last semester, I really slacked off and wasn’t able to meet my scholarship G.P.A requirements. Although I was only .05 short of 3.6, I still got my warning from the academic department so I really need to do well this year, if I want to keep my scholarship.
  4. Start a savings account for a down payment for my house. The goal here is to be able to purchase a house 2 years after I graduate. So that gives me 4 years to build up my down payment.
  5. To get back into jogging. Over these past years I have been quite lazy and have gotten out of shape. I am going to make an effort this year to start jogging again.

So that’s it, there they are. I will sometime near the future make deadlines for these goals and post them here. I tend to follow my goals better when they have a due date associated with them.

Okay, so that’s enough of my goals and I want to bring out all the resolutions that I got from other bloggers. I will post them in the order that I received them.

The Simple Dollar’s Resolution:

  1. To give up fast food.
  2. To buy a house with a minimal interest debt
  3. To double my investment in my Vanguard 500 aside from its earnings
     

Madkane‘s Resolution:

My  New Year’s resolution is to stop making New Year’s resolutions.You might enjoy the humor piece I’ve posted on the subject of resolutions.It Is Hereby Resolved
Money Monk’s Resolution:

  1. Increase my net worth by $12,000 by Dec.2007
  2. Travel to Martinique ( Carribean Island)
  3. Increase my stocks/mutual funds contributions by 2%
  4. Increase my income by 5% from blogging and my computer consulting work.

Surfer Sam’s Resolutions:

My New Year’s resolution for 2007 is a simple one, to try new things.
But “new things” doesn’t mean bungee jumping or moving to Sri Lanka. It means smaller adventures, to get out of the rut of the familiar and comfortable where I usually live.  It means talking to new people, eating food that was cooked in a firepit, dipping into unfamiliar books, riding a skateboard, climbing the Purple People bridge and climbing out on a limb once in a while.  It means pushing myself into new roles and it means expanding my lifestyle.
Happy New Year Everyone !!

QueerCents’s Resolutions:

Check out my resolution here

Financial Imbalance’s Resolutions:

  1. Increase my net worth by $20,000
  2. Decrease my student loan debt by $10,000
  3. Eliminate all of my credit card debt (roughly $10,000)
  4. Increase my online revenue streams by 15%
  5. Increase my RRSP account by $5,000
  6. Invest in various stocks
  7. Increase revenues from my freelancing opportunities
  8. Budget my finances for each month (had never really budgeted my money in the past, was a free spender)

Super Saver’s Resolutions:

I did a post that covered both my financial results for 2006 and my financial goals for 2007. Check it out here.

Real Estate Tomato’s Resolutions:

To better organize my schedule so that I can find more time to participate in the real estate blogging community.

Home Business Wiz’s Resolutions:

Here is a post with my resolutions!

InvestorTrip’s Resolutions:

You can read it here

Thanks!

TheDigeratiLife‘s Resolutions:

You can read her resolutions here at My Business, Financial, and Personal Goals for 2007.

And that’s all of em. I want to thank all the bloggers for their awesome submissions and for giving me the chance to post them here with such a short notice. I am glad to be able to post them here at moneywalks and I hope for all the people who submitted, they can look back on this post to help them to remember their resolutions.

Happy Holidays from Money Walks!