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5 Frugal Practices That May Be Costing You Money

Sometimes even the best intentions to save money fail. Are you losing money while trying to be frugal? Here are five frugal practices that may be costing you money. • Stockpiling Do you still have cans of vegetables from 2001? Have the breadcrumbs gone stale? Stockpiling is a great way to save money and to be prepared for rising prices, but when you have half a pantry full of expired food then stockpiling is costing you money. To solve this problem, don’t give up on the stockpiling, just get a little more organized. Rotate your pantry items and keep track … Continue reading →

You Get What You Pay For

This is my father in law’s justification to never buy cheap items. It took years to convince him that inexpensive does not always mean cheap. Some things have reduced prices because a new model has just been made. Other items have low prices because because they don’t come with alot of bells and whistles. Cheapism.com is a new website that proves that you can buy things for less money, and get the true value of your money. There’s nothing worse than buying a less expensive item trying to be frugal only to have to replace it in a few months. … Continue reading →

What is Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)?

Community Supported Agriculture, or CSA is a great way to have your household become connected with your community, while enjoying fresh food and even some great savings. In today’s modern form of CSA, community members buy shares in a farm or from a farming community. In turn, these members get to share in the bounty of the farm’s harvest. Members get local, seasonal produce and other farm products. There are a lot of rewards in this system for both the farmer and the member. Benefits to CSA Some of the benefits that you will experience when you are part of … Continue reading →

What Are Mortgage Points?

Whether you are thinking about refinancing or getting a mortgage for the first time, whether or not to opt for points can be a confusing and sticky decision. Here is a quick explanation of points and some general guidelines about whether or not it is worth paying down points to get a lower interest rate. What are points? When applying for your mortgage loan, you may be asked if you want to pay points. Points are a lump upfront sum of interest that you can pay at the initiation of your loan to lower your overall interest rate. The more … Continue reading →

Hiring a Professional Home Stager

These days, if you want or need to sell your home, you’ll need to do everything you can to make it stand out from the crowd. One of the ways to do this is to hire a professional stager who will stage your home the exact right way for your particular market. Here is some general information about professional home stagers. Within the last four years, the practice of staging a home has increased to the point where a majority of homes on the market feature some sort of staging, whether it is done by a home owner or a … Continue reading →

Have Married Couples Got It Wrong?

For married couples the age of having children has gone up dramatically. These days many couples are leaving it later, till their thirties before even considering having children. In the push to have it all and make sure they buy a house and get the house all set up, before having children, as many are doing, are they doing their offspring a disservice? Recent reports conducted in the USA and in Australia claim that children of older fathers have a lower IQ. And it seems that the older the father is, the lower his child will score in intelligence tests, … Continue reading →

Get Fingerprinted to Sell Your Home

If you live in Cook County, Illinois, you might feel like a criminal when you go to sell your home. That is because a law quietly passed that requires anyone notarizing documents for selling a home in that area to provide a thumbprint. Lawmakers say that the legislation was put into affect to dissuade people from committing real estate fraud. Criminals may think twice about selling a home illegally if their thumbprint is on record, I suppose. The law, which was passed last October and goes into affect this June has residents of the county concerned about privacy issues. The … Continue reading →

Don’t Go Too Low When Buying a Home

We all know that it is definitely a buyers market right now. Anyone who is a good qualified home buyer has the opportunity to get so much more for their money today. Desperate home owners are throwing in all sorts of perks with the sale of their home, from free lawn service to fully stocked media rooms. With the situation being what it is, it may be tempted to make a really low offer on the house that you love. But this can wind up backfiring on you. A really low offer risks insulting an isolating your sellers, and it … Continue reading →

What is a Serviced Condominium?

One trend that has been appearing in major cities in the last few years is now starting to go mainstream in not only cities but suburban areas as well. That is the “Serviced Condominium. And with recent downturns in home sales, you may find that you can afford the luxury of a serviced condominium for what you might have paid for standard condominium just a few years ago. Extra services and luxury are luring buyers. So what is a serviced condominium? Basically, you can add all sorts of hotel like amenities to your lifestyle. There are the goodies such as … Continue reading →

Downgrading Your House When You Can’t Sell It

After yesterday’s blog post on downgrading, I learned that there are some of us who would like to downgrade our home but just can’t do so. The housing market makes it difficult to sell a home at all, let alone get a decent price for it. But, it is possible to downgrade your house even if you can’t sell. These ideas may not work for everyone, but they are real options that can be used if needed. One way to downgrade your home is to reduce the amount of the home that you are using. You can rent out your … Continue reading →