Skip-A-Payment Increase Your Holiday Budget: Fill & Download for Free

The requirements today for disclosure of all fees is very stringent. A lender must send a Loan Estimate to every borrower who provides them with six critical pieces of information:Consumer’s nameTheir incomeTheir Social Security numberLoan amountProperty addressEstimated valueThe Loan Estimate lists the fees and costs associated with the loan. It replaces the former Good Faith Estimate, which is obsolete. Many of the fees have a zero tolerance Others can have a tolerance up to 10% of the estimate. If the final closing costs exceed the tolerances, the lender must pay the difference.Three days before the borrower can sign loan documents, they must receive a Closing Disclosure. This document is the same as the initial Loan Estimate, except that the lender will have refined the numbers. A typical example is a change in the loan amount during processing. The lender cannot arbitrarily add or increase fees at the last minute.It is up to every consumer to be informed about every aspect of the loan. Although the final loan documents are full of legal boilerplate (the typical Deed of Trust in California can run 20 pages), the disclosures are easy to read and understand. No one over the age of consent and competent has any excuse for not reading these important documents.Some homeowners take advantage of today’s historically low rates to get cash from their equity. They can use the money for any reason, and many use the money to consolidate other more expensive debt such as credit cards.This can be a “gotcha.” Paying off $20,000 of 18% debt with a 3% loan on one’s home may seem mathematically sound—but paying off that credit card balance over 30 years adds to the cost. The problem becomes far worse when the consumer runs the credit cards up again. It is a sequence I have seen time and again.Even a simple “rate and term” refinance, where the borrower gets a new loan to improve their current loan rate, can have some pitfalls.A homeowner has a $350,000 balance at 4%. They have had the loan for five years, and their monthly payment (principal and interest) is $1.847. They refinance to a new loan at 3%, increasing their balance to $358,000 to cover title, escrow and underwriting fees, deposits to their escrow account, and prorated interest. Their new payment is $1,509—a reduction of nearly $338 per month.They will skip a payment, with prorated interest added to the new loan. They will also receive a refund for the balance in their escrow account from the previous lender.This may look like a sweet deal for the borrower. They have received a payment holiday, which is like getting “free money.” They get a refund of a few thousand dollars from their previous lender. And their payment has gone down. What a deal!Here’s the “gotcha:” They have added $8,000 to their loan, some of which they have gotten in the form of a skipped payment and refund, probably amounting to about $5,000. The money is absorbed into their household budget since they have not earmarked the money for any specific purpose.Their payment reduction of $338 also is mostly absorbed into the budget. Their quality of living is not substantially different from before the refinance.Finally, they have “re-amortized” their home loan—where they had 25-years remaining on their old loan, the new one has a 30-year term. This extension is a significant component of the payment reduction. If they had selected a 25-year loan, they’d still drop their payment $150, but without extending the time to retire their mortgage loan.Any homeowner contemplating a refinance can maximize their benefits by doing the following:Decide ahead of time how to direct the money they’ll get from the skipped payment and the refund of their old escrow account. Paying off more expensive debt is the first place to look.Decide ahead of time what to do with the money saved each month. Paying off debt should take priority. Putting some or all of it in savings or retirement is another. The point is to give the matter some thought.Decide whether you are willing to extend your loan term to get a lower payment. If you want to keep the same amortization schedule as before, specify the loan term you want. Many lenders offer “odd-year amortization” in addition to the more traditional 15, 20, 25 or 30-year loan term. If your current loan has 27 years remaining, some lenders will give you a new loan with a 27-year term. If they don’t offer this kind of program, you can increase your monthly payment to get whatever term suits you.With today’s very low rates, millions of homeowners are rushing to refinance before rates go up, as they inevitably will. The refinance process is less complicated than many people think, but giving the matter some thought beforehand can avoid pitfalls and provide benefits far beyond the bragging rights of having the lowest rate around.I hope this is helpful.

“Poor people work for their money: rich people’s money works for them.”The question essentially comes down to how much you need and how fast you need it.The very first thing many people do is try to engage in cost cutting behavior. Cost cutting is good up to a point. Most people don’t even understand where their money goes. Before cost-cutting, you need to make a budget and track all expenditures. Don’t forget - one trip to Starbucks every day is at least 30 dollars a week. Want an extra 30 dollars? Forget going to Starbucks and throw that 4 - 5 dollars in a jar and every week you have 30 extra dollars and you did next to nothing. “But I gotta have my coffee,” they whine. Fine, get a silver thermos, make the coffee at home and if you must, pour it into a Starbucks cup.Make a budget. A meagerly-paid secretary I know ALWAYS has money in her pocket. She amazes me. She uses the “envelope method”. She labels each envelope, “Electricity, Water, Phone,” etc and puts some money to cover each bill with each paycheck. Then there is one called “fun” or “extra”. She knows where her money goes to the penny and as a result she always has money when something comes up and always has money for that special night out. Knowing where your money goes is almost as good as having more because I guarantee if you don’t know where it’s going then it’s sneaking out the back door every night, never to be seen again. Money talks - if you’re aware of that it says, “Goodbye”, and it says “So long, Sucker!” if you aren’t.There are plenty of places to cut spending. But one of the best pieces of advice I ever received was from Quora, on money: “Don’t focus on cutting costs. Focus on improving income.” Additionally you can have LOTS of extra money right now if you follow the advice, “Don’t buy what you cannot afford”. That means cars, jet skis, motorcycles, flashy pick-up trucks and so on. Never consider a depreciating item an asset or an investment unless you can use it to make more money than it costs. Expensive toys lose money every second they sit in your driveway unused. They lose it “less” if you use it - but they still lose it. “Top of the Line” anything also means “Top dollar”. What can you live without? The real answer is “almost everything”.Of course, paying off interest-bearing debt is a way to save lots of money. Credit cards in particular are harbingers of disaster. They MUST be paid off, in full, every month. Auto loans, second mortgages and so on are extremely money hungry. But I suspect that people who need extra money in a short period are not in a position to pay off their debts quickly.I doubt there is any single thing “most” people do get more money. If I had to guess I would say that most people who need extra money pick up another job, usually in retail, and work something like twenty hours or so per week.People who want more money can do a combination of things including working more, spending less and cutting costs and perhaps liquidation. Unless you have investments then working more is one of the most efficacious ways of raising money over a period of time. Unfortunately, most of the jobs you can get easily pay minimum wage, which after taxes is a disaster. And if you need money “in a hurry” this is not an answer.The fastest way to get money is to liquidate assets and you see this all the time. You need money right now so you look around at your possessions and decide what you can sell. Craigslist and yard sales are ways people make money “right now”.Of course, there’s always “easy credit,” the fool’s way of getting more money. Credit is a fool’s game you cannot win in the end. Some people choose to live on their credit cards when things get rough and then pretend they don’t have an enormous, ugly monster living under the bed in the form of repayment. All they have done is kick the problem down the road - and made it (much) larger. Homeowners can use their house as an ATM if there is any equity in the property and keep refinancing and cashing out til the equity is gone. Whenever I see a thirty foot boat mouldering on a rusty trailer in some guy’s side yard of his tiny house, I wonder how much he’s still paying on that mortgage to pay for that boat he never uses anymore. And of course there’s always the “reverse mortgage” scheme which puts money in your pocket against the equity and resale value of your house at some time in the future. What do you do when the money runs out? Waiting for that to happen is like watching a freight train come at you.There is also the ability to make/find sell things. One of the greatest things about America is that every single person is a natural entrepreneur. There are entire industries of people who collect or buy junk and resell it at a profit. Look at the “Savers” stores, where people donate their used clothing to what they think is charity and then it is resold for profit - what a business plan! Or all those big metal boxes that seek to collect books - all for profit, not for charity. Or people who collect returnable cans for the deposit. Or people who sew quilts or baby clothes and sell them at craft fairs. I know a man who, upon retiring, needed something to do. So he started making bird houses in his cellar. It became so profitable he had to hire two young carpenters to fabricate and paint the birdhouses and he sells them at major craft fairs all over New England. He makes more money now in his retirement than he ever did at his “real” job.The real answer to getting more money is to prepare for the time you need money from the earliest possible age. That means throwing whatever you can spare when you can spare it into a savings account. Some people create special savings accounts dedicated for the purpose. “Christmas funds” and other directed accounts provide funds for a specific occasion or purpose. People save up for engagement rings or holiday gifts. One of the best things I do every year is play a savings game with myself, just for fun. I make a wooden box with a single tiny hole in it and every Saturday I push in 20 dollars. By Christmas I have $1040 for Christmas presents. Or one year I might only put 1 dollar in the box and add one dollar every week until Christmas I have about $1300. Or, you can start with $52 dollars and count down every week til you get to 1 dollar, then open the box. Again, there’s 1300 extra dollars in your hand. I recommend to every young person, to anyone at any time - get on the Internet and look up Vanguard Securities and get an application for a Vanguard No Load S&P 500 Index Fund and then put in the minimum required to open the account, even if you find the account that allows the cheapest hurdle to get into, and then, without fail, every single month put money into that account. The re MUST be a minimum you do every month, whatever you choose, even if it’s only 25 or 50 dollars but more if you can. Dollar cost averaging is a technique that works when you add consistently, not once or twice a year. Do it WITHOUT FAIL every month and in a few years you’ll have a pile of money for that engagement ring, that expensive vacation, a big down payments on a new car - or if you wait long enough, your additional retirement fun money. Or emergency money you need RIGHT NOW. Over time, nothing beats the S&P 500 Index Fund and it’s realistically safe and easy. No worries, no balancing, no hard financial questions or terms, etc.The question essentially comes down to how much you need and how fast you need it.1) Need money right now: borrow it (only recommended for real, true emergencies - credit is EVIL)2) Need Money in the next days or weeks: Liquidate possessions at pawn shops, yard sales, on Craigslist, e-Bay, etc. Keeping dropping the price until it’s gone. You can get rid of lots of junk you don’t need or you can cry over precious things you’re dumping for a song but if you need the money, you need it. “Necessity never made a good bargain.”3) Need money but can wait a few weeks: refinance against home equity or to a longer period(such as 40 years) to get the monthly payment down: finance in the costs, or if you are really desperate, get a reverse mortgage. There’s an entire article on refinancing that I could write but it’s too much for this post but if you need hundreds of dollars a month, find a no-cost refi with an interest rate lower than your current one and refi for the longest period available and close against your equity with cash out, or if you have no equity, just against lower monthly payments. You can put one month or mortgage payment in your hand right now by setting the mortgage payment to start “next month”. That means you get one month of mortgage cash you DON’T pay and is therefore available for something else. This can be thousands of dollars depending on your monthly mortgage payment. This is NOT the smartest strategy but when you need more money it’s one of the easiest, fastest things to do. It’s a strategy of desperation. You can easily get $1000 - $3000 a year doing this but it costs you in interest payments in the long run, but as Gailbraith once said, “In the long run, we’re all dead.” You do what you have to do.4) Need money over time: cut costs, stop spending, cut Cable TV, subscriptions, shop better and less, drive less, skip eating out (eating out is one of the most expensive things you can do), stop going to Starbucks, cut out vices like smoking and drinking or at least cut down. You can put the savings in a box or just realize the gradual increase in funds; Get a part time job. A 20 hour a week shift at 7–11 gives you about 5000 dollars a year (after taxes). It’s a lot of time for a little money but there it is. There are extremes of cost cutting that leave you living like a monk. You will hate it. Only you can determine what you can tolerate. Create a business that you can make with little income and sell on your own on Amazon or e-Bay, at craft shows and so on. I have a friend who makes 30,000 dollars a year buying and selling comic books and vintage porn magazines on e-Bay and Amazon. Become your own entrepreneur even if it’s on a tiny scale. You never know what it might amount to.5) Need money for a goal: open a directed account and have part of your salary diverted towards that account. Open a Christmas Club account. Put money in a “piggy bank” every week.6) Need money for retirement: START EARLY. The bulk of all retirement money saved is made in the first years. The earlier you start, the more you will have. If you have a retirement scheme put the most in that the law allows. It will be hard at first but you’ll get used to it. Keep it up with every job you take. You will be able to retire early if you do it right. On 401K I think the maximum is 15 percent of your GROSS pay, so on your net it’s only about 10 - 12 percent. After awhile you won’t even know you’re doing it. You MUST do this from an early age. You cannot make up the money in later years by suddenly saving more. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try anyway. Any money is better than none. It’s never too late to start saving for a rainy day.7) Need substantially more money consistently: Get a better job. One way to increase salary is either to ask for and get a raise at your job or move to a higher position or move to another company/career. Of course this is a glib, off the cuff answer that does not take into account all the detail of what you need to do for this, but it serves the purpose.In conclusion, you need to know where the money you have is going; you need to cut costs but also focus on improving income; live simply, purchase quality, take care of what you own so it lasts, eschew trends, expensive brands, styles that change rapidly or things that need to be replaced frequently. Money is power in liquid form but it’s still liquid and it will pour from your hands and be lost if you don’t hold it correctly.

There’s a misconception that once you reach a certain income bracket, you’re no longer concerned with saving. I enjoy saving money where it matters, instead of being cheapskate.This is a very quick list of the 27 things that you can immediately start doing in order to save money. Pick and choose the ones that apply to you the most.1. Check on your mortgageIf you’re one of the responsible people who pay their mortgage on time, you might be able to call your lender and find out what they can do for you. Yes, for you. Whether it’s streamline refinancing, removing PMI (private mortgage insurance) or lowering your payment terms — each of these will save you some serious dough. Your lender already has your documents, so the process will be pretty much painless.2. Get yourself better rates on your mobile phone/cable contractsYes, it’s incredibly tedious but it’s possible for you to save some money on your mobile phone and cable contracts, so do it.All you have to do is look at what level of coverage you need and then look at what your providers are offering, you can use Whistleout for that. As for mobile phone plans, you can easily compare them based on your area and then call your provider to speak to their “retention” department and find out what they can do for you.3. Cancel unwanted those unnecessary and no-longer used subscriptionsIf you want to save money fast – find and cancel unwanted subscriptions. We’ve all done it. We’ve signed up for some auto-renewing subscriptions. Some so minimal they go undetected for months, or longer. But that Planet Fitness, Strava, Hulu, HBO GO, or other subscription – will continue. A great tool to detect and cancel these is AskTrim. They do lots of stuff, but what they do BEST is canceling unwanted subscriptions.4. Stop embracing that “overdraft” lifeLiving on a tight budget can be tough. But this shouldn’t be may tougher by paying overdraft fee’s. If you’re in good standing with your bank – you may not have too. There are some great (polite) ways to ask that those fees be waived. One such way is listed here by Ramit Sethi. It’s not foolproof, but should work more often than not.5. Review your life insuranceLearn how to stretch your money by reviewing your life insurance policy. Do a quick review at Policy Genius to see if your service levels and premiums are where they should be. It takes only minutes and could alert you to some possible money savings for 2018.6. Buy your own internet modem/routerPaying rental fees for less than perfect equipment is not the best way to go. Normally, you can break even in under a year. Paying as much as $7-10 to your cable company for these items is costly, so buy your own equipment. Check out Tom’s guide on how to choose the best equipment for your family.7. Quit that smoking habitHaving any vice is going to cost you, but having a vice that makes you a pariah is just a little silly. According to Kristen Bahler, in New York, the cigarette minimum is $10.50 a pack (some brands cost $14 or more), which at two packs a week carries an annual cost of $1,000. Last year, she stopped smoking for good and saved more than $900. And not a moment too soon: In 2018, the minimum price for a pack in New York City will jump to $138. Use Groupon for wellness visitsYou’ve probably already heard about Groupon’s restaurant, fitness, and beauty deals, but did you know you can also use the site for discounted eye, dental, and chiropractic exams? If you visit the chiropractor twice a month, and your insurance doesn’t pay the average $68 fee (as per Chiropractic Economics magazine), you’ll save around $1,000 by using packages advertised on Groupon—which often work out to $25 or less a visit. Just be sure to research each office on Google, Yelp, and social media beforehand, because groupon doesn’t vet its merchants, so if a business doesn’t have a solid Better Business Bureau rating and plenty of good customer reviews, it’s probably worth skipping.9. Get your Medicare on timeOkay, so the general rule is that if you don’t sign up for Medicare Part B by age 65¼, your monthly premium increases by 10% for every 12-month period that you’re late. This penalty lasts as long as you have Part B. Most new beneficiaries paid $134 a month for 2017, which means that enrolling a year late will cost you $1,000 extra after just six years.10. Cut down on impulse buys84% of us have bought something on a whim. Yes, 84% of us — myself included. Many of these purchases are $25 or less, but 54% of people say they have spent more than $100, and 20% more than $1,000, according to ­Credit Cards.com. If you’re going to purchase something over a particular price threshold, set a rule that you’ll give yourself up to 48 hours to think about the purchase, and if you still care about it, get it.11. Use MintYou can’t save if you don’t know how you’re spending your money. When you see exactly how much your spending v. how much you’re saving, it puts things into perspective. Apps like Mint or PocketGuard help because they make it easy to see which needless purchases you can eliminate in the future. Woroch says most of the wiggle room will probably come from clothing, grocery, and entertainment spending.12. Automate itSomeone else has probably already mentioned this in their Quora answer, but it needs emphasizing. If you have a savings goal and you give yourself a time frame in which to accomplish that goal, an app that automatically dips into your account and saves on your behalf can be a game changer. Digit has a monthly fee of $2.99 after a 100-day free trial, which is something to be aware of, however, a lot of the app’s users credit it with being able to help them save money that they otherwise wouldn’t have been able to do.13. Keep checking on your banking appResearch by economists Shlomo Benartzi at UCLA and Yaron Levi at USC found people who downloaded a financial app looked at their account 12 times each month, compared with going to the website twice a month. The results: Spending fell 16% in the four months after people loaded the app, led by less discretionary spending. Dining out expenses dropped by 19%, and grocery bills by 21%. Annual savings on the average grocery bill alone could net you over $880.14. Challenge yourselfThe 52 Week Money Challenge is simple: Save an extra dollar every week of the year—$1 the first week, $2 the second week, and so on, until you reach $52 saved in the last week of the year, for a total savings of $1,378. Immediately stop yourself from having a negative association with your money by actively getting involved with it.15. Book your flights in advanceWhether it’s for business or a holiday, booking flights in advance comes with a great deal of savings (and gives you first dibs to an extent) on certain flights. You can to feel secure that all things remaining the same, you’ll be able to live up to your obligation.16. Drive instead of flyingIf booking your flight early doesn’t save enough money for you, you can always drive. As long as the destination is less than 500 miles away, drive. It’s an amazing experience and you’ll get to see a totally different side of the country!17. Don’t settle on the first place of lodging that you findInstead, shop around and even consider checking out a vacation rental through sites like Airbnb, VRBO, or HomeAway. A recent study found that in 16 of the top 22 cities for travelers, Airbnb stays were cheaper than hotels by an average of $56 a night. That may net only the heaviest travelers $1,000 a year. But in some cities, like London and Paris, the savings were much greater—eclipsing $100 a night. In other locations, including Toronto, Vienna, and Madrid, you could save $90 to $100 on average by renting a room in an apartment where guests share the kitchen and bathroom.18. Stay with a groupConventional hotels are not really suited for group life, but you can take advantage of an ­extended stay hotel like TownePlace Suites or Candlewood Suites. On average, you’ll save $157 a night at this type of lodging—which usually includes a kitchenette and a sofa bed for your consideration.19. Don’t rush to buy the latest and greatest in tech.The new iPhone X is priced at $999 and up. Unless your current iPhone is not working (which is highly doubtful, because A. It’s an Apple product), don’t rush to get the iPhone X. Sit this round out and then wait till the next release, which will ultimately make the iPhone 8 cheaper.20. Ladies - use all of your beauty productsThe average American woman spends $8 a day on makeup and other skin care products, according to retailer SkinStore. The good news: Most women have plenty of unused makeup at home—more than $2,000 worth, according to beauty site Escentual.com.21. CarpoolAt $3.08 a gallon—the five-year national average for gas—a 25 mile commute costs about $2,000 annually in gas alone. And while gas prices have been low recently, gas price researcher GasBuddy predicts they will go up in 2018. By alternating the days you drive to work, you stand to save roughly $1,000—and that’s before you factor in tolls, depreciation, and any parking costs. Bring in a third buddy, and the savings climb to $1,300.22. Scale back on car insuranceCheck the value of your car via Kelley Blue Book. If you’re driving an older model that is worth less than 10 times your insurance premium, consider dropping comprehensive and ­collision coverage, ­suggests the Insurance Information Institute, which could save you between $375 and $1,500 a year on that item alone, ­the group estimates. And always shop around for a new policy: According to J.D. Power, consumers who switched insurers saved an average of $388 in 2015.23. Wait a year before trading in your carThese days the average car is on the road for more than 11 years, up from nine in 2000, ­according to the Transportation Department. Resisting the urge to trade in for a newer model will easily save $1,000 in payments.24. Improve your frequent flyer mileageKeeping your tires inflated could save you $112 a year in gas money, according to one survey by Edmunds—or as much as $800 if they’re severely deflated. Additionally, aggressive driving can lower your gas mileage by anywhere from 10% to 40% in stop-and-go traffic, according to SAE International, an auto industry trade association. With the average American estimated to spend more than $1,500 on gas this year, that’s another $156 to $624 in your pocket.25. Buy an “unpopular” carBuying the most popular model of a vehicle—commonly a Honda or Toyota—may mean you’re paying more than you need to, according to car site Edmunds. There are often comparable, less popular vehicles that cost much less after cash-back incentives.26. Wait for the dealership to have your carIf you can do that, what could potentially happen is that the car that you want, with the exact features that you want will cost less than what the dealership is currently selling. And if that car happens to be the base model, you can probably make your dealerships compete against one another on price.27. Sign up for pretax transit programs if they’re offered by your employerDo you spend up to $255 for parking and/or transit a month? For someone making $37,950 to $91,900, that translates into savings of more than $750. If you park and ride, or make more than $91,900, you can easily surpass $1,000.From saving on habits, to saving on workplace related items, it really all depends on what you’re looking for.I hope my list will be helpful for you as we move on into a new year!