Category: Emergency fund

Are You Financially Fragile?

Published on in Budgeting, Credit Scores, Emergency fund, Personal Finance, Saving money by RyanLaw

What would happen to you and your family if:

  • your fridge broke down?
  • your car transmission went out?
  • the primary breadwinner in your family dies?
  • the primary breadwinner in your family becomes disabled?
  • the Social Security fund goes bankrupt and you will no longer receive a Social Security check?

As many as 76% of Americans live paycheck-to-paycheck – they have little to no savings and they spend more than they earn each month. These people are the Financially Fragile.

Financially FragileWhen one of the above events happens it can be challenging for anyone, but it is devastating for the Financially Fragile.

If you are living this way, you can take a few steps to become Financially Resilient. Being Financially Resilient means that you are able to withstand or recover quickly from difficult financial conditions, such as your car transmission going out. Again, that can be difficult for anyone, but the Financially Resilient will recover quickly while it can destroy the Financially Fragile.

Here are some things I recommend to start down the path to becoming Financially Resilient:

  • Have an emergency fund – start out with $1,000
  • Use a budget[i]
  • Spend less than you earn
  • Have adequate insurance
  • Pay off debt
  • Use a Revolving Savings account[ii]
  • Have some “fun money” or “mad money”
  • Pay attention to your credit score[iii]

For more information on these topics, see the links below. I encourage you to take steps to become more Financially Resilient.

[i] http://blog.ryanhlaw.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/MFH-Guide-to-Budgeting.pdf

[ii] http://blog.ryanhlaw.com/revolving-savings/

[iii] http://blog.ryanhlaw.com/know-your-score/

Share this:
Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

How We Almost Lost a Home

Published on in Budgeting, Credit, Debt Elimination, Emergency fund, Housing, Personal Finance by RyanLaw

by Ryan H. Law

About 15 years ago my wife and I moved to Indiana, excited to start a new adventure far from where we both grew up. We rented a great apartment that fit our needs and expenses. It was close to the library and shopping, not too far from my work and it had a nice pool. It was perfect.

build a homeHowever, after a while, we got restless. We wanted to own a home. After all, that is the American Dream, right? So we started looking for homes. We found a brand new community that was being built, and they offered 100% financing. We picked out a home we liked and put down some earnest money, then they started building it. What an exciting time!

There were some red flags, though. The first one was that we couldn’t actually qualify for the loan on our own. We didn’t have enough income or credit history. The sellers used some “creative financing strategies” to get us qualified, which involved using a tax credit that would bring our income up. We also had to get a co-signer.

Red-FlagAnother red flag was that we had no money for a down payment or closing costs. Of course, to the seller, that was no problem. They could just roll it all in to the loan.

We really couldn’t afford the payment, either, but we were excited about the home and figured if we qualified, that things would work out. We drove out nearly every day to see the progress on our home.

At some point, though, reality set in. We really couldn’t afford this home. We panicked and contacted the seller, asking to be released from our contract. Of course, they said no. We were committed. We explained that we couldn’t really afford it, but that didn’t deter them. We had a real estate lawyer look over our contract. He said he couldn’t see a way out. We weren’t sure what to do.

We got lucky, though. They had committed to have it done by a certain date, but they got behind on construction. We were able to argue that they had broken the contract, and we were therefore no longer bound by it.  They let us get out of the contract and sent our earnest money back.

Perhaps they also realized that if they had forced us to follow through, we might have lost the home in a foreclosure or short sale, which would have looked bad in this brand new community.

We ended up moving shortly after that, and have been very cautious about home buying since that time. In fact, we waited more than 7 years before we actually purchased our first home.

Along the way we have learned some important lessons. Before you buy a home, I recommend you consider the following:

  1. Make sure your income is stable.
  2. Have 3-6 months’ worth of expenses in an emergency funds in the bank.
  3. Pay off ALL high interest debt (credit cards, vehicles, student loans, etc).
  4. Save up 20% for a down payment. If you put down at least 20%, you don’t have to pay Private Mortgage Insurance (PMI). PMI is generally 1% of the loan annually. On a $200,000 home that will be $2,000 per year, or $166 a month. That’s a lot to be adding to a mortgage payment each month.
  5. Make sure your TOTAL home cost (Principal, Interest, Taxes, Insurance, HOA fees) is no more than 25% of your take home pay. The lender will likely qualify you for much more than you can afford, but stick with your price range. Let your Real Estate agent know exactly the price range you are looking at, and stick with it. We were fortunate to find a great Realtor® in Missouri[1] who helped us find exactly what we were looking for in the price range we were comfortable with. Find someone you trust who will help you do what is best for you, not their commission.
  6. Remember that homes come with extra expenses. For example, if the water heater goes out in your home, you have to pay for a new one. Experts recommend that you save anywhere from 1-4% of your home’s value per year for maintenance and repairs. On a $200,000 home that is $2,000 – $8,000. While $8,000 is probably a bit high, the reality is that you will have to pay for repairs.
  7. I recommend that, on top of repair money, you have enough saved up to pay your insurance deductible. After all, if the roof gets destroyed in a hail storm, the insurance company will pay most of the repairs, but you have to pay your deductible first. That can be anywhere from $1,000 – $5,000.

Buying a home can be a great decision. In general, homes appreciate in value, meaning that you should be able to sell it in the future for more than you bought it for. Even that isn’t always true, though. Remember 2008? Some markets have yet to fully recover from that housing crash. Go slowly and buy what you can afford when you are ready.

 

[1] A shout-out to our friend and Realtor® Ted Webber: http://www.tedwebber.com/.

Share this:
Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

The Fiscal Cliff

Published on in Budgeting, Debt Elimination, Emergency fund, National Economic issues by RyanLaw

by Ryan Law

With President Obama’s re-election a number of news articles are saying one of his first challenges is to deal with the upcoming “fiscal cliff”. Today’s article will attempt to explain what that means in simple terms and what it can mean in your life.

The “Fiscal Cliff” will begin on January 1, 2013 and means $7 trillion in tax increases and spending cuts over the next ten years. On the front-end that may not sound like a bad thing, but it could be crippling to the economy the way it is set up.

Spending Cuts

In 2011 the Budget Control Act was passed that increased the debt ceiling and called for a bipartisan debt-reduction deal or there would be automatic spending cuts. No deal was reached, so the following spending cuts begin in 2013:

  • Defense – $50 billion is cut from discretionary defense spending each year for the next ten years. Some military officials have said these cuts would be “devastating”[i]
  • Non-defense – a similar amount would be cut each year from non-defense spending. Some programs, like Medicaid, Social Security, civil and military employee pay and veterans benefits, are protected, but everything else, including education and air traffic safety, will be affected.

Tax Increases

The Bush Tax cuts would be eliminated, which means specifically:

  • Marginal tax rates will increase – they will go from current levels of 10, 15, 28, 33 and 35% to 15, 28, 31, 36 and 39.6%, respectively.
  • Capital gains rates will increase from 15% to 20%
  • Child tax credit will decrease from $1000 per child down to $500
  • The marriage penalty relief will expire
  • The estate tax exemption will go from $5 million to $1 million

In addition, the payroll tax holiday will expire, taking your payroll taxes from 4.2% to 6.2%, which means someone earning $30,000 will pay an extra $50 per month in payroll taxes

The Challenges

Experts have commented that there are two big challenges Congress and the President face:

1. If all tax cuts stay where they are and no cuts are made in federal spending we will continue to face a mounting deficit of $1 trillion per year, which is unsustainable.

2. If all the cuts go into effect the economy could be thrown back into a recession (cuts often mean job elimination or pay cuts and those with jobs will pay higher taxes).

Neither option is a good one – obviously Congress and the President need to work together to figure out the best path. Both parties have expressed that they plan to work together to come up with a solution.

While the country faces difficult economic challenges and has a long road ahead to get on solid financial ground, you can take steps to stabilize your own financial situation. As we always preach, learn to live on a budget, get out of debt and set up an emergency fund. These three steps can lead to financial peace of mind.

Share this:
Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail