"carry more icky germs than a typical toilet seat!"
Ewwww.... I'll have to remember that in the future when I feel too lazy to take off my shoes at home.
"You lost me at the end with the plug for the magazine. Still, these are good tips."
I'm glad you like the tips! This is not an ad for the magazine at all. We don't get paid by All You for featuring their tips on Wise Bread. We did ask All You for permission to share their tips with our readers. Linking back to them is just our way of saying thanks. (We would do the same if we had taken the tips from another blog.)
I like to think of these as "frugal previews" of magazines. This way you get great tips and an idea of whether All You is worth your money (or trip to the library).
"I had been reading on the web for months about the amazing powers of vinegar"
Me too! I started making Chinese cucumber pickles with vinegar, salt, and hot pepper. I think I'm burning a hole through my stomach but they are damn delicious.
I have an almost identical situation to the above comment. I have been unemployed for the last 16 months with no job in sight. I had a good nest egg, but hate using it all up. Should I just stop making my mortgage payments..I am also with countrywide, now BofA, and have called them several times trying to work something out with them, but unless I am pennyless, they won't do anything for me. I am ready to just walk away, since my home is worth 300K, and I bought it 2 years ago for 440K, of which I now owe 365K. Any advice would be helpful..times are tough..thanks..troubled times..
I had been reading on the web for months about the amazing powers of vinegar, so I decided to give it a try. It is great! 1 gallon cost me about $2.50 including tax. I have used it as a fabric softener (pour in during the rinse cycle), all-purpose cleaner (mix in a spray bottle with some water & just a small quirt of dishsoap). It works as a disinfecting rinse on my dishes & does better than jet-dry. I can clean my hardwood floors & tile with it, the windows get streak-free (use newspaper to wipe them with), and it also clears out small drain clogs. Full strength it removes lime/calcium buildup around drains & gets rid of soap scum easily.
Good tips, but I'd caution people about writing their career objective. I've tossed out resumes where the career objective doesn't match up with the position I was offering. Why would I hire someone who obviously isn't interested in what my company does or who I think will leave the position as soon as something better comes up?
I have no connection to any manufacturers/retailers and still think it's lying, cheating and stealing. The fact that only a small percentage of people do it makes not one whit of difference. Blogs that publish these offers are suborning unethical behavior.
That said, I *always* call if I'm genuinely unhappy.
I don't mind advertorials, but I hope Wisebread will be upfront with people about what they're reading. You lost me at the end with the plug for the magazine.
1) Never use chlorine bleach on linen! It yellows it.
2) Buy matching good quality socks a half dozen to a dozen at a time. Train the family to put dirty socks in mesh lingerie bags to be laundered. Never match socks again; as socks become unrepairable, toss them, and the remainder will still match.
3) Fray check and washable fabric glue are your friends. Dot them carefully on stress points and tiny holes from the back, using the smallest amount that will do the job to avoid discoloration. I have knit shirts "glued" five years ago that are still going strong. Fabric glue is also better for tights and stockings, as it isn't stiff like nailpolish.
4) Save a swatch of tough synthetic athletic fabric from a discarded item and use it to patch holes over the big toe from the inside. It's smooth and you won't be darning that sock again... ever.
5) Tie-die good quality knits when they get stained.
6) Before tossing a stained woven item, consider whether a well-placed applique, embroidery or pocket could cover the stain. A stained or damaged skirt might have some of the fullness taken in - or replace the stained section with a vertical or horizontal panel in a cool fabric.
You or the new lender should be able to to pay for a "Letter of Transmittal" this is a legal document from the appraiser that allows the new lender to use the document. The cost is minimal (50-100 dollars).
Or dump the sponges and use a fresh cotton dishcloth every day. They're cheaper, and unlike synthetic sponges, they can be composted after they wear out.
I run my sponges through the dishwasher -- if it's good enough for my spoons, it's good enough for my sponges. And, speaking of which, here's another sort-of-obvious cleaning hack: Never run the dishwasher unless it's full!
Good one, Linsey. I didn't know they had steam cleaners for regular floors. That's good to know. Can you use them on laminate flooring, or only on things like tile and marble?
Decent public transportation in America is relegated to just a few big cities. It's only just getting better here in Denver, but it's still not good enough to replace the convenience of a car. And according to nationmaster.com, there are 765 cars per 1000 people in the US. In my humble opinion, unless a large majority of those people own about 4 cars each, it means most people own a car. Am I allowed to stick my tongue out and say "so there" now?
Most of you, including the original poster, are missing the point entirely. Any experienced thief will not enter a home with people inside it. If they do and find people home, they usually leave immediately. No "scaring off" required. It's simply too much work to deal with the home's occupants. Only in very rare circumstances a thief will break into the house and wake up the occupants inside. Once the occupants are awake, they have to be subdued, watched, and generally babysat until the thief leaves. Too much of a hassle.
This makes the "car alarm scare-off" trick absolutely worthless. It might work in very rare instances -- when the intruder is bent on bodily harm instead of property theft. And if they really want to hurt you, I doubt a car alarm is going to be more of a deterrent than you screaming.
Another issue that brokers now have to contend with is the appraisal that is ordered by the banks, are only good at the banks they are ordered with. So if you want to switch banks to get your borrower better financing terms, you have to order and pay for another appraisal.
Employment issues are complex. Right at the beginning of our current recession, I wrote a couple of posts on how employment has changed. Because of when they were written, they don't reflect the things we've learned in the past year. Still, they might be interesting to people who are already thinking about these issues:
I'm a banker, and we used to be able to personally choose appraisers when processing a loan request. We had to choose from our bank's "approved appraiser" list, but it was pretty open. This puts appraisers in a tough spot because if their client is the bank/banker - so they want to please and keep business coming their way by making values come back as high as possible. This can be done perfectly legally and without the banker's knowledge - but appraisers were incented to choose only the highest comps and overlook foreclosures, etc or else risk making the banker lose the deal and not getting future business.
Now we have to go through another independent dept of our bank to request an appraisal. They come back and give us three bids from "anonymous" appraisers and we blindly select one. I'm in the DFW metroplex, and I've ended up with appraisers who focus in an area 50 miles away doing homes for me.
We've had problems with appraisals coming back for far under what the market will support (i.e. you might have a home with multiple offers all over $500K but the appraisal comes back at $350K because of one foreclosure 6 blocks away - which happens to be in a totally different neighborhood/school zone/etc).
You can contest it but banks are reluctant to order multiple appraisals because to the OCC it might look like we're shopping around until we get a value we like. Appraisers are reluctant to change comps for the same reason.
Is spot on. I've worked with enough moms of young kids to know that if they could have health care for their families, lots of them wouldn't work. It seems like there are a lot of families where the men make decent money as self-employed or commission-only workers, but don't get benefits, so their wives get boring, low-paid cubicle jobs with health care benefits.
Ditto older people who would like to retire, but aren't old enough for Medicaid - my parents worked a few extra years until they qualified for the pensioners health insurance, when they would have just as soon retired at 58 and could afford to, aside from health costs.
A lot of people who don't have little kids and aren't old would strike out on their own as entrepreneurs, too.
My best barter "deal" was trading a 12 year old Ford Explorer with 170,000 miles on it for a new set of gutters on my house. The labor and materials for the gutters would have cost more than the Explorer was worth.
The entire reason HVCC was implemented was because of a lawsuit filed between Washington Mutual/E-appraise IT and NY attorney General Cuomo.
The suit contends that E-AppraiseIT, an AMC (appraisal management company) was in collusion with and inflated values for WAMU.
WAMU owned E-AppraiseIT.
WAMU is a RETAIL bank. not a broker. Not an appraiser.
This was a lawsuit between a RETAIL bank and an AMC. Had nothing to do with mortgage brokers or individual appraisers.
So, what was the verdict. Cuomo forces Fannie and Freddie to implement HVCC, which requires the use of AMC's or third party communication for all lenders, yet allows banks to still own those AMC's
Brilliant. Solved absolutely nothing except to make appraisals more expensive and lesser quality.
It's still 83 degrees at midnight here. I work so that I can have refrigerated air. If I didn't have A/C, why would I bother having a house? I might as well just live in the yard.
"Propping", in the sense of bailing out failed private businesses with taxpayer funds, is a bad strategy. The only way capitalism can work is if those businesses which can't make a profit by their own efforts are allowed (maybe even encouraged) to go out of business so that the labor and material they command can be put to more productive use elsewhere.
"Propping", in the sense of helping our fellow-citizens get through tough times, is a rational and compassionate strategy. There is a world of difference between helping your laid-off neighbor and sending gargantuan amounts of money to the likes of AIG and Goldman Sachs.
Yes, I barter, but only with friends, so it is more of a "mutual gifting" arrangement. I knit for my hair stylist, she cuts my hair; I maintain the web site for my massage therapist, she give me massages. I give my pet sitter eggs from my chickens, she watches my pets when I am gone. Shockingly, I report this on my taxes (as well as paying state income tax on internet sales). I'm just silly that way.
I agree that there's a huge benefit to have some separation between the bank and the appraiser.
However, if you're working with time constraints under the current rules, you have no way of working with an appraiser to get a report prepared more quickly - you're always working through a bureaucratic third party.
It's also much more difficult to make sure you're getting a good appraiser who actually understands the local area, as you're never able to figure out who they are. It's important to get an accurate idea of the value, but a blanket of comparables within a half mile radius won't help if you're looking at an area where small individual neighborhoods have a huge affect on property values.
"carry more icky germs than a typical toilet seat!"
Ewwww.... I'll have to remember that in the future when I feel too lazy to take off my shoes at home.
"You lost me at the end with the plug for the magazine. Still, these are good tips."
I'm glad you like the tips! This is not an ad for the magazine at all. We don't get paid by All You for featuring their tips on Wise Bread. We did ask All You for permission to share their tips with our readers. Linking back to them is just our way of saying thanks. (We would do the same if we had taken the tips from another blog.)
I like to think of these as "frugal previews" of magazines. This way you get great tips and an idea of whether All You is worth your money (or trip to the library).
"I had been reading on the web for months about the amazing powers of vinegar"
Me too! I started making Chinese cucumber pickles with vinegar, salt, and hot pepper. I think I'm burning a hole through my stomach but they are damn delicious.
I have an almost identical situation to the above comment. I have been unemployed for the last 16 months with no job in sight. I had a good nest egg, but hate using it all up. Should I just stop making my mortgage payments..I am also with countrywide, now BofA, and have called them several times trying to work something out with them, but unless I am pennyless, they won't do anything for me. I am ready to just walk away, since my home is worth 300K, and I bought it 2 years ago for 440K, of which I now owe 365K. Any advice would be helpful..times are tough..thanks..troubled times..
I had been reading on the web for months about the amazing powers of vinegar, so I decided to give it a try. It is great! 1 gallon cost me about $2.50 including tax. I have used it as a fabric softener (pour in during the rinse cycle), all-purpose cleaner (mix in a spray bottle with some water & just a small quirt of dishsoap). It works as a disinfecting rinse on my dishes & does better than jet-dry. I can clean my hardwood floors & tile with it, the windows get streak-free (use newspaper to wipe them with), and it also clears out small drain clogs. Full strength it removes lime/calcium buildup around drains & gets rid of soap scum easily.
The best part is that it is completely non-toxic.
Good tips, but I'd caution people about writing their career objective. I've tossed out resumes where the career objective doesn't match up with the position I was offering. Why would I hire someone who obviously isn't interested in what my company does or who I think will leave the position as soon as something better comes up?
I have no connection to any manufacturers/retailers and still think it's lying, cheating and stealing. The fact that only a small percentage of people do it makes not one whit of difference. Blogs that publish these offers are suborning unethical behavior.
That said, I *always* call if I'm genuinely unhappy.
I don't mind advertorials, but I hope Wisebread will be upfront with people about what they're reading. You lost me at the end with the plug for the magazine.
Still, these are good tips.
1) Never use chlorine bleach on linen! It yellows it.
2) Buy matching good quality socks a half dozen to a dozen at a time. Train the family to put dirty socks in mesh lingerie bags to be laundered. Never match socks again; as socks become unrepairable, toss them, and the remainder will still match.
3) Fray check and washable fabric glue are your friends. Dot them carefully on stress points and tiny holes from the back, using the smallest amount that will do the job to avoid discoloration. I have knit shirts "glued" five years ago that are still going strong. Fabric glue is also better for tights and stockings, as it isn't stiff like nailpolish.
4) Save a swatch of tough synthetic athletic fabric from a discarded item and use it to patch holes over the big toe from the inside. It's smooth and you won't be darning that sock again... ever.
5) Tie-die good quality knits when they get stained.
6) Before tossing a stained woven item, consider whether a well-placed applique, embroidery or pocket could cover the stain. A stained or damaged skirt might have some of the fullness taken in - or replace the stained section with a vertical or horizontal panel in a cool fabric.
You or the new lender should be able to to pay for a "Letter of Transmittal" this is a legal document from the appraiser that allows the new lender to use the document. The cost is minimal (50-100 dollars).
Or dump the sponges and use a fresh cotton dishcloth every day. They're cheaper, and unlike synthetic sponges, they can be composted after they wear out.
I run my sponges through the dishwasher -- if it's good enough for my spoons, it's good enough for my sponges. And, speaking of which, here's another sort-of-obvious cleaning hack: Never run the dishwasher unless it's full!
Good one, Linsey. I didn't know they had steam cleaners for regular floors. That's good to know. Can you use them on laminate flooring, or only on things like tile and marble?
Check out my various projects and services at Itinerant Tightwad. I also have a monthly education newsletter.
Decent public transportation in America is relegated to just a few big cities. It's only just getting better here in Denver, but it's still not good enough to replace the convenience of a car. And according to nationmaster.com, there are 765 cars per 1000 people in the US. In my humble opinion, unless a large majority of those people own about 4 cars each, it means most people own a car. Am I allowed to stick my tongue out and say "so there" now?
"Most" people do not own a car. Talk to everyone who lives in major cities with decent public transportation.
Most of you, including the original poster, are missing the point entirely. Any experienced thief will not enter a home with people inside it. If they do and find people home, they usually leave immediately. No "scaring off" required. It's simply too much work to deal with the home's occupants. Only in very rare circumstances a thief will break into the house and wake up the occupants inside. Once the occupants are awake, they have to be subdued, watched, and generally babysat until the thief leaves. Too much of a hassle.
This makes the "car alarm scare-off" trick absolutely worthless. It might work in very rare instances -- when the intruder is bent on bodily harm instead of property theft. And if they really want to hurt you, I doubt a car alarm is going to be more of a deterrent than you screaming.
Another issue that brokers now have to contend with is the appraisal that is ordered by the banks, are only good at the banks they are ordered with. So if you want to switch banks to get your borrower better financing terms, you have to order and pay for another appraisal.
Employment issues are complex. Right at the beginning of our current recession, I wrote a couple of posts on how employment has changed. Because of when they were written, they don't reflect the things we've learned in the past year. Still, they might be interesting to people who are already thinking about these issues:
Appraisal were $350 prior to May 1. Last appraisal, my client paid $500 for it. Appraiser only received $280 of the $$.
The appraisal management company collected and kept the rest.
Does anyone realize it is a couple of senators that own the major appraisal management companies!
Another way for the government to get their fingers involved and untimately have only 5 large major banks doing any loans.
I'm a banker, and we used to be able to personally choose appraisers when processing a loan request. We had to choose from our bank's "approved appraiser" list, but it was pretty open. This puts appraisers in a tough spot because if their client is the bank/banker - so they want to please and keep business coming their way by making values come back as high as possible. This can be done perfectly legally and without the banker's knowledge - but appraisers were incented to choose only the highest comps and overlook foreclosures, etc or else risk making the banker lose the deal and not getting future business.
Now we have to go through another independent dept of our bank to request an appraisal. They come back and give us three bids from "anonymous" appraisers and we blindly select one. I'm in the DFW metroplex, and I've ended up with appraisers who focus in an area 50 miles away doing homes for me.
We've had problems with appraisals coming back for far under what the market will support (i.e. you might have a home with multiple offers all over $500K but the appraisal comes back at $350K because of one foreclosure 6 blocks away - which happens to be in a totally different neighborhood/school zone/etc).
You can contest it but banks are reluctant to order multiple appraisals because to the OCC it might look like we're shopping around until we get a value we like. Appraisers are reluctant to change comps for the same reason.
Is spot on. I've worked with enough moms of young kids to know that if they could have health care for their families, lots of them wouldn't work. It seems like there are a lot of families where the men make decent money as self-employed or commission-only workers, but don't get benefits, so their wives get boring, low-paid cubicle jobs with health care benefits.
Ditto older people who would like to retire, but aren't old enough for Medicaid - my parents worked a few extra years until they qualified for the pensioners health insurance, when they would have just as soon retired at 58 and could afford to, aside from health costs.
A lot of people who don't have little kids and aren't old would strike out on their own as entrepreneurs, too.
My best barter "deal" was trading a 12 year old Ford Explorer with 170,000 miles on it for a new set of gutters on my house. The labor and materials for the gutters would have cost more than the Explorer was worth.
HVCC is complete crap.
The entire reason HVCC was implemented was because of a lawsuit filed between Washington Mutual/E-appraise IT and NY attorney General Cuomo.
The suit contends that E-AppraiseIT, an AMC (appraisal management company) was in collusion with and inflated values for WAMU.
WAMU owned E-AppraiseIT.
WAMU is a RETAIL bank. not a broker. Not an appraiser.
This was a lawsuit between a RETAIL bank and an AMC. Had nothing to do with mortgage brokers or individual appraisers.
So, what was the verdict. Cuomo forces Fannie and Freddie to implement HVCC, which requires the use of AMC's or third party communication for all lenders, yet allows banks to still own those AMC's
Brilliant. Solved absolutely nothing except to make appraisals more expensive and lesser quality.
It's still 83 degrees at midnight here. I work so that I can have refrigerated air. If I didn't have A/C, why would I bother having a house? I might as well just live in the yard.
"Propping", in the sense of bailing out failed private businesses with taxpayer funds, is a bad strategy. The only way capitalism can work is if those businesses which can't make a profit by their own efforts are allowed (maybe even encouraged) to go out of business so that the labor and material they command can be put to more productive use elsewhere.
"Propping", in the sense of helping our fellow-citizens get through tough times, is a rational and compassionate strategy. There is a world of difference between helping your laid-off neighbor and sending gargantuan amounts of money to the likes of AIG and Goldman Sachs.
Yes, I barter, but only with friends, so it is more of a "mutual gifting" arrangement. I knit for my hair stylist, she cuts my hair; I maintain the web site for my massage therapist, she give me massages. I give my pet sitter eggs from my chickens, she watches my pets when I am gone. Shockingly, I report this on my taxes (as well as paying state income tax on internet sales). I'm just silly that way.
I agree that there's a huge benefit to have some separation between the bank and the appraiser.
However, if you're working with time constraints under the current rules, you have no way of working with an appraiser to get a report prepared more quickly - you're always working through a bureaucratic third party.
It's also much more difficult to make sure you're getting a good appraiser who actually understands the local area, as you're never able to figure out who they are. It's important to get an accurate idea of the value, but a blanket of comparables within a half mile radius won't help if you're looking at an area where small individual neighborhoods have a huge affect on property values.