Beating Broke

Personal Finance from the Broke Perspective

The Debt Movement

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I often get asked why I started this site.  And my response is always that it was a great way for me to share some of the things that I was learning as my wife and I struggled with our debt.  All of the things that we were learning through books, trial-and-error, and online that helped us, I tried to fold into some post here.  My goal in sharing these things has always been two-fold.  The first part is that I wanted someplace to record what I was learning.  The second part, and the part that keeps me writing here, is that I wanted that information to help someone else.  The more places it can be found online, the better.  I’ve always felt that it has a bit more weight when it’s coming from someone who’s lived (lives) it.  Nearly 5 years into the life of this site, we still struggle with debt sometimes.  We still have lots to learn.  Today, I’m going to share something that I think has the potential to change a lot of peoples lives.  It’s called the Debt Movement.

The Debt Movement is the brain child of Jeff Rose. Last year, he brought us the Roth IRA Movement, and the Life Insurance Movement.  Both of those were meant to bring the entire personal finance blog community together to talk about one subject on one day.  I think both went very well.  Jeff has raised the bar a bit this time around.  The Debt Movement isn’t just about educating readers on a subject.

What is the Debt Movement?

It’s a 90 day challenge.  Officially, it starts on February 1st, 2013 and will run for 90 days.  Participants, like you and me, are challenged to aggressively reduce our debt over that 90 days.  The goal is to help people payoff Ten Million dollars worth of debt in those 90 days.  It’s a lofty goal, but I think it can be done!

In addition to the challenge, Jeff has rounded up a group of sponsors who are sponsoring a Debt Movement Scholarship.  As of right now, the total is around $10,000 and is likely to grow as the movement gains speed and gathers new sponsors.  There’s an application process, as well as a few rules, but certainly something to look into.

Jeff has also partnered up with Ready For Zero.  Ready for Zero is a company that has created some pretty sweet tools for paying off debt.  Once you’ve signed up, you can enter in all of your information, along with payments, interest rates, and balances, and their software magically (or mathematically, I can never keep them straight) puts together a debt payoff schedule for you.

What do you say?  Will you come along on this journey?  Let’s pay off some debt together!

Mortgage Insurance; Annoyance or Helper?

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One of the things that I’ve learned a little bit about since we bought our house, was something that I didn’t have a clue about when we first started looking.  Heck, I didn’t even have a clue about it after we bought out house.  Mortgage insurance was just something that the mortgage officer told us we had to have, so it got added.

For a long time, I just thought it was an annoying little fee that they (the lenders) added on to the mortgage payment to squeeze a few extra dollars out of me.  In some ways, that’s correct.  Much like any other insurance, it’s really only there in the case of a real need for it.  If you don’t ever need it, it feels like you’re paying a bunch of money to someone for something you don’t need.  If you do end up needing your insurance, though, it can truly be a lifesaver.

Unlike some of the other insurances you’ll buy, mortgage insurance doesn’t really protect you.  With car insurance, or health insurance, the direct beneficiary is you.  If you get into a car accident, your car insurance will help pay for repairs, and your health insurance will help pay for medical bills. With mortgage insurance, if you need it, it’s really the lender that will benefit.  The way it works is much like any other insurance.  But, when an accident happens, and you default on your mortgage, the insurance pays off the mortgage to the lender.  It’s protection for the lender against default.

Generally, you only have to carry mortgage insurance until your loan-to-value is below 80%.  Come up with 20% down payment, and you won’t even see it.  Some lenders will automatically take it off of the mortgage once you fall below that 80% LTV, others won’t, so you need to keep an eye on the loan and make sure that it’s being removed when it should.  Most first time home-buyers will have some form of mortgage insurance on their loan.

Is mortgage insurance an annoyance or a helper?  I think it’s a little bit of both.  You’re buying insurance which only benefits you in that it may allow you to pay a lower down payment than normal.  It’ll mean that you don’t get the mortgage paid off as quickly as well since you’ll not only start with a larger loan, but have a chunk of your monthly payment siphoned off.  It also helps in that it does help you get a loan with a lower down payment because it assures the lender that the mortgage will be made good should you default.

Do you have mortgage insurance on your mortgage?  Do you think it’s more of an annoyance or a helper?

Are You Waiting on Your Finances to Change?

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New years’ is just around the corner.  And along with it, a flood of new years’ resolutions about finances.  People around the world will make resolutions to make more money, save more money, and just improve their finances in general.  Something like 45% will fail within 6 weeks.  Within 6 months, a majority will have failed.  They’ll have failed because they’ve given up.  They’ll have given up because they didn’t take action (or enough action) to make the change that they were seeking.

In short, they are waiting on their finances to change.  Somethings are worth waiting for.  Red lights, for instance will change if you only wait long enough.  The weather, if you wait long enough is likely to change as well.  But, your finances aren’t going to change if you only wait on them to.  If you want them to change, you’ve got to make a directed effort to change them.

new years fireworks

If you’re planning on making a resolution this year, and it doesn’t have to be directly related to finances, make one additional resolution.  The resolution to make an effort to fulfill your resolutions!  Make changes, learn about the steps you need to take to get things moving in the direction you want them to go.  Stop sitting around and waiting on your finances to change for you.  You change them!

Sites like this one are chock full of information on improving your finances.  For most sites, you can easily subscribe to email updates.  Here, you can simply enter your email address in the box under “Subscribe” in the top of the sidebar and click on the “Subscribe” button.

Here’s a few posts to get you started.  (hint: you don’t have to wait until new years to start making changes to change your finances)

Got debt?  Get the debt repayment moving with a Debt Avalanche!

Once you get the debt repayment moving, you’ve got to stay gazelle intense!

Debt gone?  First, congratulations!  Now, get your money working for you.  Perhaps investing in something like a Lending Club account?

Whatever you decide to change this year, make your resolution a true resolution and keep going with it.  If you’re still going strong on it at 6 months, you’ve already done better than the majority of your resolution-making peers!

Will you be making resolutions this year?  Have you in the past?  And did you stick with them?