What goes into mortgage payment? You borrow money from a mortgage company to buy your house and then you pay it back with interest. So your mortgage payment is the principal (the amount you borrowed) and the interest, right?Sometimes.Many times, mortgage companies also require you to pay a portion of your property taxes and home insurance as your mortgage payment. This goes into an escrow account, and then when the bill comes due, you … [Read more...]
Thank goodness for insurance
My poor car is broken.Well, not broken. Her beauty is just marred.Thursday morning, I was pulling into the tiny parking garage at work. It's very tight. And all of a sudden, someone came flying towards me from the other direction (they were probably going 20). I overcorrected and... CRUNCH.Yep. Ran the side of my car all along a concrete barrier. Awesome.I kept driving and pulled into a parking space. I didn't want to get … [Read more...]
Slight underestimation
This year, for the first time, I set up a Flexible Spending Account for my medical expenses. I didn't have a whole lot of time to play with, so I took a general look at my expenses from last year and just picked a number. I knew it would be low, but decided that a low number was better than way overestimating.What I didn't realize was just how low that number was going to be.I'm going to be out of money in my FSA by the middle of the … [Read more...]
How’s your insurance coverage?
If you have a house, you probably have homeowners insurance, but for those of you who rent (or some condo owners), do you have renter's insurance? Are you prepared if there is a fire, flood (broken water pipes, anyone), or theft?Last week, my friend's home was burglarized. We're pretty sure that it was a planned job. They broke into her condo (getting through three separate locked doors), stole her gigantic flat screen tv, and while they … [Read more...]
May is not as short as I thought
I think I'm used to Memorial Day being the end of the month. Over the weekend, I was convinced that June started this week. I was thinking about what was left in my budget for the month and considering working on my Net Worth update. I even opened up the spreadsheet I use to start entering numbers.Clearly, I was jumping the gun a little bit. May wasn't over yet, not by a longshot.May has not been the best spending month. I had to … [Read more...]