Archive for April, 2008
If you are a senior looking to raise finance to help in retirement, you may have heard the term reverse mortgage. There is still a lot of confusion and misconceptions surrounding this financial product. Here we answer the question "What is a reverse mortgage?" After reading this you should be able to decide whether this is an option that is worth pursuing.
A reverse mortgage allows you to turn the equity in your home into cash. It is only available to people aged 62 or over, so it tends to be used by retirees as a way of supplementing their income.
You can receive payment by way of a cash lump sum, a line of credit or a monthly income. The attractive thing for many customers is that there are no monthly payments to make, unlike a normal mortgage. The money that is drawn down is tax-free.
There are many baby boomers coming up to retirement that are realizing that the amount of income that they are going to receive during their retirement is not going to be sufficient to live on. This has led to there being a big increase in interest in reverse mortgages.
The money raised can be used for any purpose. This includes supplementing existing retirement provisions, paying for medical care or carrying out modifications to the house such as installing a ramp or downstairs shower. You could even use the money to go on a holiday of a lifetime or buy a new car.
While this sounds very attractive, are there any downsides to a reverse mortgage? The main one is the amount of equity in the property will be reduced when you come to sell it. This maybe important to you if you were planning on having your children inherit your house.
There are plenty of helpful resources available to you to further learn about reverse mortgages. You can choose to speak to housing counselor or find resources online.
Get the latest on reverse mortgages at http://www.reverse-mortgage-choice.com. You can also discover how to avoid reverse mortgage pitfalls.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Paul_Elms
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Have you ever thought of saving money on your mortgage? There are several ways to save money on your mortgage. If you wish to save money on your mortgage then read on. Here are some simple tips which could help you save considerable amount of money on your mortgage.
According to financial experts, one of the easy ways to save money on your mortgage is to go for the largest down imbursement you can. By doing so, you can ensure that the original money you are borrowing from your money lender will be much lower and the interest rate you need to pay much lesser than if you had borrowed a huge amount instead. One can also consider down payment from any of his/her family members. Most of the financial firms are not so keen on this practice, but if you can find someone in your family who can afford to loan your money without interest then you can save some money on your mortgage.
I was just reading an article announcing the results of Earth Hour:
"Just before 9 o’clock, the meter at the Toronto Hydro control centre hit a low of 2,738 megawatts – 5 per cent below the demand an hour earlier and about 8.7 per cent less than a typical late March Saturday night."
"In Sydney, the event appeared to be at least as popular as last year, when 2.2 million people took part and electricity consumption fell by 10.2 per cent."
"Australian energy officials said electricity consumption was down by 1,000 megawatts across the country, the equivalent of shutting down two large generating stations."
Did we learn anything? I hope so, turn out those lights and cut down on your personal hydro and energy bill. Anytime we are home at night watching tv we have one light on in the house. It's small light over the stove so we can see our way around the kitchen and to the bathroom. There is no need to have a million lights on when you aren't entertaining and just hanging around the house. Why pay to light rooms that you are not in? When you go to the movies you are in the dark so why not turn out the lights when watching movies at home? There's a savings to be had, turn out your lights and save on your energy bill.
Source: http://www.thestar.com/article/407246
How much money do you think you spend each month or each year paying off your bad credit card debt? You would be surprised. I was reading recently that by making the minimum payments or less that then minimum it can take you seven years to pay off two thousand dollars. That's staggering. That money that you are using paying off the interest could be better used.
If you want to save money on your credit card debt the first thing you should be doing is making sure you are paying more than your monthly minimum payment. If you are not making more than the minimum you are just paying down the interest and not lowering the principle. You will never get the debt payed off doing this.
Another tip is to utilize a balance transfer. There area million offers out there for credit cards. It is very competitive and they want your business. If you search hard enough on the internet you will find offers for zero interest rate cards. Just make sure that interest rate at the end of the free term isn't higher than you existing rate, get the new card and use it to pay off you existing high interest rate card. Why pay interest when you don't have to.
Call your credit card company and try to negotiate a better rate. If your credit isn't bad you can always try and talk them into giving you a fairer interest rate. Just tell them that you are thinking about getting another card with a better rate.
