Save with One Hand, Splurge with the Other

Do you know what type of spender you are?
Did you even know there were different categories?

Just do a search for any combination of: spending, personalities, or habits and you’ll be rewarded with dozens of links to quizzes and descriptions of the different categorizations. Probably the most entertaining breakout I found was over at Smart Cookies.

Turns out… I’m a YO-YO SPENDER.

Saving aggressively day-in and day-out, all of my efforts to maximize value and never pay full price can be undermined by these splurges.

Read more

USDA Loans. For everyone?

Is the American dream of homeownership still in your dreams?  Thanks to USDA loans, more and more Americans are becoming homeowners, and you can become one of them. With huge benefits and easy qualification measures, if you’re looking to buy a home in a rural area, a USDA loan could be the perfect finance option for you.

When financing a home, one of the biggest hurdles is often coming up with enough cash to make a down payment on your loan. But with a USDA loan, you don’t have to worry about this.  USDA loans are the only non-military loans that offer $0 down payment even with 100% financing, so you don’t have to wait to start looking for a home.

Read more

Financial Mistakes of Young Families

The following is a guest post by Crystal at Budgeting in the Fun Stuff.  Her blog covers living expenses, saving for your future, and the fun stuff in between.  Quickly gaining popularity and a strong following, make sure to check out her other great articles before she goes big-time!

 

I don’t hit on parental subjects very often since I only have dogs, but I liked these tips in the Yahoo Finance article, The Six Mistakes Young Families Make.  I think these are mistakes made by lots of people, not just young families.

Here’s their six mistakes and my view on them:

Read more

5 Steps to Repair Credit

Today, we’ve got a quick guest post from one of the community members over at Credit Magic. Still on autopilot, will get back to regular writing after The Big Day. Repairing your credit report and removing negative items can make your financial life much easier. The reason? Because good credit is required to get home … Read more