Dave Ramsey's $10 Sale

In case you don't know who Dave Ramsey is, he's a financial advisor. We've been following Dave Ramesy's program for a couple months now. This past week he announced he's having a sale this weekend. Total Money Makeover is only $10. You can get the book or the audio version. What a deal! I think everything is on sale... Financial Peace, Dumping Debt DVD, More Than Enough, his envelope systems, and the Total Money Makeover Workbook... it's all $10.00!

The Financial Peace University program is on sale too! It's not $10.00, but it is a great deal.

Since we've been following Dave's program, I feel such a great relief. I know we are going to be okay financially. It isn't happening over night, but it is happening.

If you are having money problems you should at least check out Dave's website.

Appraiser Is Coming

What did we get ourselves into? We have an appraiser coming in a few short days. I wasn't ready for this. Not even a little bit ready. I'm not a flylady. I'm never prepared to have company on a drop in basis. My home isn't ready. It's cluttered.

We have so much to do. There is touch up painting here and there, massive de-cluttering, we need to haul out the john deere for some heavy duty yard work.

I've been clearing clutter, boxing stuff up to haul off to the 2nd hand store. Now I have piles of stuff to get rid of. I also have piles of stuff I sorted, but I don't know what to do with.

I wonder how an appraisal works. Can I hide clutter behind closed doors? Does the appraiser open cupboard doors? Will he open my closets?

I don't have time for this. I wish I had a few more days before the appraiser was coming. He's our key in securing the home refinance loan.

Refinancing Our Home

We have no options now. With the extra money needed to fix the bathroom floors, we must refinance our home. DH contacted a finance company a couple days ago. I'm not sure what type of loan we'll be getting. I'm not sure if it's a 2nd mortgage or if it's a refinance, or a home equity loan? My DH has been talking to the finance company and he's got all the details.

I do know, we have an appraiser coming out to the house within a week. OhNO! We have so much to do before this old house, the place I so lovingly refer to as 'home', is ready for an appraisal.

Second Mortgage

By: Mike Hamel

A second mortgage can be the first step to climbing out of debt, especially for homeowners who have bad credit. A second mortgage is a loan taken out in "second position" on a property that already has a mortgage. There are fixed-rate loans, adjustable-rate loans and home equity lines of credit (also known as HELOCs). Fixed-dollar-amount mortgages are the way to go when you need all the money at once. A HELOC is a credit line that can be drawn upon as needed up to the limit of the loan.



"Bad Credit" Second Mortgages

Your right to credit is guaranteed by the Equal Credit Opportunity Act. You can't be denied credit based on race, gender, marital status or ethnicity. But how much money you can borrow and how much interest you will be charged will depend on your credit score.



Credit is easy to get and hard to control. Not using it properly will get you a low FICO score from the three major credit bureaus. Generally, a score of 680 or better signifies good credit. Scores in the 680-620 range are still considered good, but will cause creditors to take a second look before lending you money. 620 and lower, and you are in the bad credit range.



Here are some indications that you are in bad credit territory:

• You have to apply for new credit cards to pay off old ones, thus rotating but not retiring your debt.



• You can only make the minimum payments on your loans and cards each month.



• You are at the limit on all your cards and accounts.



• You have to get subprime financing when you need to borrow money.

Improving Your Financial Situation

It's a catch 22 that getting a bad credit second mortgage can lower your FICO score initially, but it can also help raise it in the long run-if you use the money to pay off high interest debts. This new loan doesn't reduce your debt; it just restructures it to help you get back on your feet financially. An added bonus is that the interest you pay is tax deductible. The IRS says joint filers can deduct all the interest to a maximum of $100,000 on home mortgages.



It's easy to shop and compare bad credit second mortgages online at reputable sites like www.badcreditsecondmortgages.com. The no-obligation application process is quick and confidential. Interest rates are still relatively low, but might rise in 2006, so now is a great time to see if a second mortgage is a good financial move for you.

Author Bio

Mike Hamel is the author of several books and the Senior Writer for AIM Techs (http://www.salesandmarketingllc.com/), an Internet marketing company that specializes in improving visitor-to-sale conversions using proprietary software and advanced SEM techniques.

Article Source: http://www.articlegeek.com/

Our Aging Neighborhood

We have been talking about refinancing this old country home and taking out extra money to finance a complete remodel. Before we can do that we need to figure out a few things. Is it worth it? Do we like the neighborhood now? The neighborhood was getting older, but now everyone is selling out and a new younger neighborhood is sprouting up around us. We can hear the neighbor kids when they are out playing and it sounds like there are a lot of kids living near us. Do we want to move into an older neighborhood where there are fewer kids?

I know we will have the grandkids over often so maybe the age of the neighborhood doesn't really matter. I think it does. We need to consider it as we decide what to do.

We have done a lot of work in the past couple weeks. The outside of the house looks so much better. We've been working in the landscaping, and on the house and deck. We had a tractor out here for a couple days and that made a huge difference in the amount of labor required to clear around the trees.

This is a lot of work, but we can see progress.

Junk Mail

I have received no less than 10 credit card offers, equity home loans, and refinance offers in my mail box this week.

It makes me wonder what my credit score is when I receive an offer of a home equity loan for $125,000. Is it good? I should check it out. It might be an option now that we are working on our house. We don't want to put a lot of money into the house as we get it ready to sell, but if we made major improvements to the home maybe we'd get the money back when we sell.

I could use some advice.