A few years ago my husband and I purchased our first house–the little condominium that we still live in. When we purchased it in March of 2004, it felt like a palace. Now it’s feeling more like a dollhouse, but we still love it.
We purchased this place when real estate values were quite depressed, [...]

I know a lot of people who’ve tried to “borrow themselves out of debt” recently.
It makes sense at first glance to pay off your credit cards at 10% with a home equity loan at 6 or 7 percent. Especially if you’re in really deep. And after all, you’ve got all that home equity just sitting [...]

We’ve now reached the point (just a few months in) where I’ve completely replaced my previous work-outside-the-home income with my mobile notary business and my freelance writing. By implementing the tips I’ve been outlining here–even post-layoff our family is coming out ahead of where we were six months ago financially, as well as in peace [...]

Today Rob and I checked out SmartHippo.com again and decided how to approach our refinancing project. We had our first mortgage, as well as a home equity loan of $15,000. Our first mortgage was at something like 5.5% and the HELOC at 8%. We were able to refinance both into 4.5% with [...]

Back in January I blogged here after reading a magazine article that explained how to know if you should refinance. It’s a tricky question for many of us. I’m personally on the fence about refinancing the condo we’ve had for five years. We’re *this* close to listing it for sale, but at the same time, [...]

Yesterday’s post was on the subject of saving money on laundry detergent. Today that got me thinking about an older, smarter choice we made on the subject of wash that has saved (and cost) our family a lot.
When we first bought our home five years ago, it had a five-year-old washer and dryer. [...]

I met with someone today who mentioned in passing that he was refinancing into a lower-rate 30 year fixed mortgage. But he really wants to be debt-free in twelve years. He just needed to think of how.
I suggested, why not attack his mortgage from both ends? Rob and I have been [...]