Once you spend it, it's gone!

Members present: Brian, Bickford, Yousef

Bickford closed on his refinance, and he had a few interesting tidbits in the consumer advice department: 

*Prices listed in a store must be honored. While this seems obvious, sometimes incorrect prices are listed, and sometimes those prices benefit the purchaser. If this is the case, the business is compelled to sell the item at the [lower] listed price. 

*Estimated prices: Generally the final price of a good or (more likely) services must be within 10% of the estimate. This is a good thing to keep in mind with things like car repair. 

*Settlement statement for a mortgage: There is quite a bit of information on this document, but here we are looking at page three of the HUD (Housing and Urban Development...basically this is the loan settlement statement). This page is a summary page, and there is a comparison of the GFE (good faith estimate) and the final price & HUD charges. In the first section these charges can not increase at all. The second section has charges that can not increase (in total) more than 10%. If there are increases beyond what is allowed by each statement, they must be returned to the borrower. This amount is usually found on line 205 (and 105) of the HUD. 

It behooves you to take a look at these sorts of things, because, at least anecdotally they have saved Bickford some fat stacks. 

Yousef got an interesting piece of junk-looking mail recently. It was an offer to switch to bi-weekly mortgage payments. The upshot is that it would basically shorten the term of the loan and lessen the amount of interest paid over the long run. One would have to crunch the numbers to see if it is worth it or not, but in general it is always good to get ahead on your payments if it is feasible.  

Bickford took a look at the numbers and over the course of a 15 year loan of about $100K, you save about $300 in interest if you make an extra loan payment a year. Also, you end up paying off the loan about a year ahead of schedule.

Brian was wondering if he should be paying more than asked of him on his student loans. His interest rate is: 2.36%, which means that he is doing okay not making extra payments on his loan. However, if he were paying something higher, it might be wise to increase his minimum payments. 

Yousef's sister called during the meeting and she offered some helpful advice:

"You should be careful with your money, because once you spend it, it's gone."

*And though she teacher second-graders, this is still pretty good advice for adults. 

The charts:

EWZ continues on a relative upswing

For next week:

Brian would like to do a short talk on the different Bond types, including the elusive Ten-Year T-Note.

Bickford will try to think of something.

And, again, Yousef needs to do his taxes.

Anyone out there have any ideas for topics? It might be nice to do this more often, maybe closer to once a month.

Profit!