Lots of good comments on my previous post on how much to spend on housing. As a follow-up, let's run some numbers for fun. To make things easier, let me refer to what I call mortgage calculator heaven at DinkyTown.
How Big A Mortgage Can I Get?
Let's start with the Mortgage Qualifier calculator and use the 'Total Monthly Payment' option. I'll assume an annual gross income of $100,000, but let's also say I go nuts and pay 41% of it towards housing: $3,417/month. With no cash on hand, a 6.25% APR 30-year fixed mortgage, no other debt payments, and the defaults for everything else, it says I can get a loan for $432,378. Here's how the monthly payment breaks down:
My buddy just had a free meal at Todai, a Japanese seafood and sushi buffet located primarily along the West Coast. They offer free meals to people on their birthday (they check ID), as long as you go with one paying customer. I usually avoid buffets, but where else can two people eat about five pounds of raw fish for $30? And unlimited crab legs. Mmm... I love sashimi. If you see a guy eating only the fish and leaving the rice balls underneath untouched, that's me. Gotta save room!
Here's a nice list of other places to get free food on your birthday. Many are just desserts or kids-only, but it includes such chains as Red Lobster, TGIFs, Baskin Robbins, ...
My new favorite pastime is searching MLS listings for houses. Who needs baseball when you can drool over houses you can't afford? Or can I?
I'm also reading Automatic Millionaire Homeowner by David Bach (free review copy, will give it away when I'm done). Inside it refers to the FHA guidelines for how much of your income should go towards your house payments. Specifically, lenders use a term called PITI - the sum of your principal, interest, (property) taxes, and insurance payments. To get an FHA-insured loan, your monthly PITI should be between 29% and 41% of your gross monthly income, depending on your other recurring debt such as credit cards or student loans. Let's take a look at what that means:
Looks like the Citibank and American Express alliance has started with a bang. The new Citi Dividend American Express Card is almost identical to their very popular Mastercard Dividend card, with no annual fee, 5% cash back on supermarket, drugstore and gas station purchases, and 1% cash back on other purchases.
If you don't have one of these yet, they are a great way to earn some easy rewards on money you're spending anyways, and the rewards rack up quickly. All you have to do is spend $500 a month on groceries and gas, and you will reach the annual cap of $300 in rewards. Already have a card and near the cap? This is the simplest way to double it. Another option is the one ...
I tend to swing constantly between being really interested in trading individual stocks and then not looking at a quote for weeks. To make things worse, I live in the Pacific time zone and the markets close at 1pm here. I am not a morning person, which leaves me with about two hours to trade each day! :/
I've always liked the idea of keeping the majority of my retirement savings in index funds, but having a separate money account to try and "beat the market", as everyone says. Maybe either give it $50 a month, or cap it at 5% of my net worth? I've read several investing books that mention this as a way to manage the urge to actively trade, but does anyone out ...
Everybody hates ATM surcharges. When I can't find one without fees, I just go into the nearest grocery store, and buy something small and pay for with the ATM card and ask for cashback. In urban areas I look for a drugstore like Walgreens. I've never had a surcharge, and it's a 'purchase' so your own bank won't charge you either for using a foreign ATM.
But what should you buy? If you buy something useless, that's wasting money too right? If I see something on sale or need something anyways I'll get it, but my standby is stamps. You'll use them up sooner or later, the price is the same everywhere, and they don't lose value.
If you're a Warren Buffett fan, you'll enjoy this 3-part series by the Charlie Rose show on PBS, free for now via Google Video:
July 10, Monday - Warren Buffett: The Man
July 11, Tuesday - Warren Buffett: The Business
July 12, Wednesday - Warren Buffett: The Gift (not up yet)
From the brief bit I've seen, Buffett seems very energetic and interesting to listen to. I'll definitely watch this later. Thanks to AK for the tip.
There is a new discount brokerage on the block - SogoInvest.com. Mentioned yesterday in the Wall Street Journal, this broker is interesting on a couple of levels.
Automatic Investing Broker King?
It's obvious that this broker has buy-and-hold automatic brokers like ShareBuilder as one of its targets. It offers the same no minimums and easy dollar-cost-averaging via fractional shares and automatic weekly investing. But it's cheaper. At the most basic plan, it offers $3 automatic trades vs. $4 at ShareBuilder. And whereas ShareBuilder charges $14.95 for real-time market trades, SogoInvest charges the same low $3. Nice.
Most people know about online price comparison websites like Froogle or PriceGrabber, but what if you're actually in a physical store and you need to find out if a price is good or not? Enter FruCall, which lets you find out the prices online, including shipping to your zip code, by calling them at 1-888-DO-FRUCALL and entering the UPC barcode number. I gave it a test run:
This week's Carnival of Investing is up at Experiments in Finance. Next week's edition will be hosted at Free Money Finance. For more information on participating and hosting schedule, please check out the Carnival of Investing Information Page.
In addition, MyMoneyBlog participated these other fine carnivals as well:
Carnival of Business at It's Just Money.
Carnival of the Capitalists at Fat Pitch Financials.
