3 Things to Know Before Buying a House with Delinquent Taxes
Real estate is often considered an investment, especially in one’s retirement. You buy a house, pay on it for 30 years, and when you’re in retirement, you can sell and add the cash to your retirement fund. Or, your heirs can sell and add the money to their inheritance. However, real estate isn’t always an investment. One of the ways real estate becomes a liability for homeowners is when they...
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Why We Do a Yearly Budget Audit
My husband and I established a budget over 20 years ago when we married. We don’t find a budget restrictive; instead, adhering to our budget has allowed us to make financial gains we couldn’t have if we didn’t monitor our income and expenses carefully and budget for every dollar. However, times change—our income increases, and, recently, inflation has driven up the cost of everything–which...
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Here’s How to Deal with Bad Reference from Previous Job
An excellent job reference can open doors when applying for a new job. Unfortunately, the opposite, having a bad reference from a previous job, can close doors faster than a positive reference opens them. After all, no one wants to hire a troublemaker. If you’re in the unfortunate latter position, here’s how to deal with a bad reference from a previous job.
Steps to Avoid a Bad Reference
Avoiding...
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Why We Don’t Use Escrow
We bought our first house in 2014. However, we didn’t have enough for a 20 percent down payment, so we had to take out private mortgage insurance (PMI). Therefore, we also had to have an escrow account for our homeowner’s insurance and property taxes. We didn’t realize that our property tax would go up the following year, and we’d have to either pay a lump sum for the difference or increase...
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3 Reasons Why There’s No Such Thing as a Stable Job
Sixty to eighty years ago, people graduated from high school and started a job. They would likely work at this job until they retired. Then, at retirement, they received a pension from their employer and enjoyed retirement until the end of their lives. My, how times have changed. As much as we might want to tell ourselves our jobs are secure, there’s no such thing as a stable job. Maybe there never...
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