And obviously, there is a very nice spike for a while.  Incentives do make a bit of a difference.  And, in all honesty, if we had been in a situation where we felt we could afford a new home, we would have jumped at the opportunity to take advantage of those incentives.  But the spike was just that.  A small percentage of people taking advantage of an incentive that made it very attractive to buy a new house.  What it didn’t do was return home sales to anything like previous numbers.  In fact, it didn’t even get the numbers back to 50% of what they were in 2000!  And now, after the incentives have expired, they dropped 33% to an all-time new low. The last time the numbers were this low was in 1981!

I think everybody has the right to purchase a home.  You shouldn’t be dis-allowed from purchasing a home.  But, you still have to pay for it!  Owning a home is not a right.  The ability to purchase one if you can afford it is.  Years and years of politicians buying votes by pushing lenders to finance houses to people who couldn’t afford them is what caused the housing market (and our economy as a whole) to be in the condition it is in.  And that crashs’ ripples are still being felt throughout the country and the world.  Creating incentives to buying a home just extends that streak.  People see that $8000 and think that they can afford a home that they really can’t because they will get a nice $8000 check to help pay it down.  But, when that money comes around, what are they going to do with it?  Spend it.

And in five years, when those mortgages adjust, we’ll have a nice little mess to figure out again.  Sure, it won’t be anywhere near as bad as the current one, but it’ll be there.  If only we could teach people to be responsible consumers.  To not buy what they cannot afford, and to only spend what they earn or less.  If we could do that, then they wouldn’t need those incentives to buy a home.  They might actually be able to afford it without them.

New Home Sales Down is a post from: Beating Broke, if you enjoy it, please visit us and subscribe to the Feed.

In one of the largest FTC-state coordinated settlements on record, LifeLock and its principals will be barred from making deceptive claims and required to take more stringent measures to safeguard the personal information they collect from customers.

“While LifeLock promised consumers complete protection against all types of identity theft, in truth, the protection it actually provided left enough holes that you could drive a truck through it,” said FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz.

“This agreement effectively prevents LifeLock from misrepresenting that its services offer absolute prevention against identity theft because there is unfortunately no foolproof way to avoid ID theft,” Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan said. “Consumers can take definitive steps to minimize the chances of having their personal information stolen, and this settlement will help them make more informed decisions about whether to enroll in ID theft protection services.”

Since 2006, LifeLock’s ads have claimed that it could prevent identity theft for consumers willing to sign up for its $10-a-month service.

There’s a laundry list of other things that they were fined for that includes data security holes and just overall misrepresentation.

It’s been widely reported that most of the stuff that LifeLock does is easily done by yourself without having to pay the $10/month membership fee.  It’s no surprise that they got hit with this, really.

LifeLock Hit With $12 Million Fine is a post from: Beating Broke, if you enjoy it, please visit us and subscribe to the Feed.

But, since this is a personal finance blog, let’s expand that description a bit and talk about financial gluttony. In fact, lets get down right philosophical about it.

The excessive indulgence of money. It may not be an official one of the 7 deadly sins, but it certainly is one of the deadly sins of personal finance.  It’s the rampant consumerism that often runs wild in our society.  Especially around this time of year.  We spend and spend and only stop when our credit runs out.  We give little thought to what the resulting consequences will be of our spending.  Over spending, over extending, gluttonous use of money.

The excessive indulgences of finance.  I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that many of you have probably not thought of this side of the argument.  What I’m talking about is the gluttonous use of financial maxims to save and perform frugal acts.  Moderation is good for all things, even the stuff that is good for us.  You’ll garner no argument from me that saving money and being frugal are good things.  But, it is possible to take it too far.  Making soup by boiling your old belts, not because you can’t afford food, but because it’ll save a buck or two is finance gluttony.  Ok, that’s a pretty extreme example, but you get the point.

What I really want to get at here is that there are extremes for everything.  If we eat too much we get fat.  If we spend too much we get broke.  If we save too much, we fail to appreciate what our money can do for us.  So, the next time you’re doing your budget or even just balancing your checkbook, take the time to think about that.  Are you being financially gluttonous?

Financial Gluttony is a post from: Beating Broke, if you enjoy it, please visit us and subscribe to the Feed.

However, in truth, it’s most likely not all that “limited”.  It’s just propaganda, folks. A sales tactic designed to make you not only buy the item, but also pay more for it than you should.

If you really, truly, think about it, anything that is being made can be called a “limited edition”. Every model of car that rolls off of the production line is limited.  They only make so many a year.  Get yours now!  This article is a limited edition.  At some point I will stop writing articles.  There won’t be any more.  The supply is limited!  Which is why you should pay me now!  Just kidding.  Kinda.

Limited Edition is a post from: Beating Broke, if you enjoy it, please visit us and subscribe to the Feed.