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People Looking Forward to Defaulting on Home Loans .. No, Really!

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In this miserable business of falling prices on homes last year, the crisis that set off the entire economic recession, the papers wrote constantly about how the banks had made home loans to people who could not afford the payments. People who had tried hard and paid off their monthly home payment obligations, lost everything they had put into it when they had to default because of the economic climate, and a number of other reasons. In general, the sense the media tried to bring off was that defaulting on payment and losing your home was about the worst possible that could happen to anyone. But there is a new trend here. People are actually making it their plan to stop paying for their homes, and are planning on losing them. They do this when they could well afford to retain their homes by continuing to pay. Why, there have been nearly a million homes that people have lost this year alone, in a way they’re not sorry for. There are scholars out there now blogging about how this kind of responsibility puts the very American way in jeopardy. How could people in good conscience just enjoy their money going shopping or going on vacations now and not mind losing their homes?

Well you could say, that they take their example from all the big-time financial companies out there that default in just the same kind of planned strategic way. The financial major Morgan Stanley for example, just announced a couple of months ago that it had proper healthy capital worth something in excess of $200 billion. When its managers discovered they were paying a lot of money each month on the loans they held for a bunch of overpriced offices they bought in California a couple of years ago at the top of the market, they thought they would just call it a bad investment, and give up the property, rather than continue to pay back good money for an overpriced asset. It doesn’t happen just for home loans on real estate loans either; large companies like Morgan Stanley, easily, almost casually, default on bonds they sell. If they happened to sell a bond at a high interest rate at one time, because that was the going rate then, and if the rates fall later on, they don’t want to be saddled with that kind of burden.  Why not just send people home disappointed and broken, they wonder.

Walking away from paying the loan on an overpriced home is nothing surprising. This is how it should be done in a cutthroat capitalist economy such as this. The only thing that keeps more people from doing the same is that no one who grew up in the sensible and responsible 50s and 60s can quite believe that it could be right to do this – to default on home loans. The true American way today, as it has been for a quarter century now, as to not think of what is good for society; it is only to do what is good for the most profit. This is the American way that has forced the ordinary Joes and Janes of the country over a financial barrel. It certainly is time they began fighting back, giving as good as they got.

Springtime Home Decorations on a Budget

In the spring, nature redecorates itself beautifully. It’s only natural that we want to spruce up our homes to match the magnificent new season. Unfortunately, it’s really easy to go overboard when you get spring fever and spend way too much on home décor.

Sure, it feels great to transform our homes completely. But when you’re on a budget, that’s just not practical. Here are some ways to spruce up your home for spring in a more economical fashion.

* Hit the dollar stores. You won’t find the top designer labels there, but you probably will find lots of great decorations for spring at low prices. So what if they’re not straight out of the pages of Better Homes and Gardens? Even dollar store product designers strive to keep up with decorating trends, so in all likelihood nobody will ever know the difference.

* Decorate with flowers, but not of the cut variety. Cut flowers are expensive and have a short lifespan. Silk flowers are very pretty and last much, much longer. If you prefer real flowers, consider potted plants. As long as they get enough sun and water, they will live for a long time, making them much more cost-effective than cut flowers. Of course, if you have your own flower garden, using cut flowers from there makes lots of sense.

* Make your own decorations. If your dark curtains make the house look too wintery, sew up some curtains in a lighter color. Make some simple spring-themed throw pillows for the couch, and create a nice spring centerpiece for the kitchen table. If you put your creativity to work, you can have lots of new spring items for next to nothing.

* Is your furniture hindering your spring decorating efforts? Try some slipcovers. You can find them to fit most couches and chairs, and they come in a variety of colors and fabrics. A light or pastel color will complement the rest of your spring décor.

* Get the kids to help by creating decorations using items found in nature. Rocks and pieces of wood are freely available in the great outdoors, and they can easily be cleaned and painted in a spring color and motif. Place them in windowsills and on end tables, and use a large painted rock as a doorstop.

* Pick up some candles in pastel colors and spring scents. They will make your house smell great, and the spring colors make a great accent for any shelf, table or sconce.

Spring decorating is lots of fun, and it doesn’t have to be ridiculously expensive. Finding deals on store-bought items and creating some of your own stuff will allow you to get your home all decked out for spring without going over budget.

Investing in a Plan 529 Florida, Colorado or any Other – Is Any State Better or Worse ?

When young parents put down on paper the expenses they need to be planning for, usually, it becomes clear how simple the arrangement needs to be: separate funds for health care, a daughter’s wedding and college expenses; all easily seen to if they just make do without food and electricity for the next fifteen years. But it doesn’t have to be that brutal. The government, through the Internal Revenue Code sets down a college planning proposal for individual families, in Section 529 of the code, and people affectionately refer to it as the 529 education plan. Each state is free to implement the 529 plan in any way it believes in. 529 Florida plans for example, allows parents to freeze prices on their child’s future tuitions by using the plan to pre-pay college tuitions for the future at today’s rates. Investing in Plan 529 Florida style could mean something like this: if you have a child now in the eighth grade, you can put down about $35,000 today to buy a quadrennial graduate program at the University of Florida for your child when he or she grows up. The tuition fees and all will probably rise to $50,000 by the time, but you will have the advance reservation advantage of freezing the price in time. Alternatively, you could just chip in a couple hundred dollars a month

The 529 plan has been around for years; people haven’t begun really taking notice of it until recently. Investments in 529 plans around the country ten years ago barely drew about $1 billion; it is estimated that by next year, that investments made in 529 Florida plans or any other will hover around $250 billion. It would appear then people have been quite slow on the uptake when it comes to taking advantage of a great government savings plan for their child’s education.

But it would benefit people enormously if they would only get with the program. To begin with, the IRS looks favorably upon investments in 529 plans; you pay no taxes on your investments and the state will often give you a few additional tax breaks as well. You don’t ever have to worry about managing the funds you put into your 529, as it is professionally managed in some states like Colorado, the government will match your contribution dollar for dollar.People have all kinds of misleading information about 529 Florida plans. If you invest in one every month it’s not like you’ll be forced in the end use it for college tuition. You can always use it for anything else in the end. Best of all, you can shop around to invest in plans sponsored by other state governments too, not just your own.

But 529 Florida plans have some drawbacks as well. To begin with, these can be inflexible, and have a limit to how many  plan adjustments you can ask for. These plans can be unnecessarily conservative in their investment policies as well and bring in low market returns. Another problem is, you never know how much exactly your child’s tuition will be. If you happen to invest more than you needed to have, taking the money left over out will cost you 10%.

529 Florida, Colorado and California are all competitive plans.Parents are getting in on this tip now, and as it often is, it’s better done late than never.