Someone explain the difference between a mortgage refinance and a mortgage modify.

I just want a lower interest rate without having to pay the $4k needed in closing costs and go through the whole appraisal process. I am pretty sure the modify part doesn't fit my scenarios or more people would just do that instead of refinancing to an entirely new mortgage.

Someone fill in the blanks for me.

Modifying the existing loan occurs when you call the current mortgage holder and they agree to lower your rate, probably for a fee. However, they have very little incentive to do so since they know the costs of refinancing are high.

Refinancing requires that you originate a loan from the beginning with a new lender, which will require an appraisal, an inspection, a new mortgage document (to be recorded) and new title insurance. You will also pay an origination fee. But at least you won't have to pay a real estate broker.

Thanks. Makes sense. I figured it wasn't that easy.

Not that we can't pay the $4k needed to refinance, I just don't want to for a rate that's likely less than 1% different from our current rate.

Recent article I was reading about hitting the $1M mark by retirement age.


For our example I’ve made a few assumptions to keep the calculations as simple as possible. Using Bankrate’s investment calculator I’ve assumed $0 initial investment, a 7% rate of return, a contribution frequency of once a year, and a compound frequency of once-yearly. We’re also assuming that all taxes will be deferred, so keep in mind that tax implications aren’t reflected in the eventual $1 million.



With these criteria in mind, here’s how much you’d have to save annually to reach $1 million by age 65.

Age 20: $3,500 annually
Age 25: $5,010 annually
Age 30: $7,234 annually
Age 35: $10,587 annually
Age 40: $15,811 annually
Age 45: $24,394 annually
Age 50: $39,795 annually
Age 55: $72,378 annually
Age 60: $173,891 annually


As is always told, it pays to start early.

I've never met a male that made it to fetch their retirement or 401k plenty of woman tho.

I've made a recent long term radical money saving change in my life that started on June 15th that lowered my monthly expenses by over $2600 a month. I also upped my 401K from 10% to 15% with having a lot more money available to spend.

I've decided to get deadly serious about socking away a lot of money in the next 5 years and having NO bills or payments at the end of this year expect my car insurance and food.

Additionally I've also begun losing weight and by early next year I'm going to be in both much better physical and financial health. Want to be much more active in many areas. Had slowly become a slug!

Got tired of pissing away so much money and so much time waiting for something to happen rather than making it happen.

Good on you, but what changes did you make? I'm also curious - after the end of this year you no longer have to pay property taxes, insurance, electric, utilities, etc?
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It is very difficult to modify a mortgage, generally speaking. People think it is unfair, but if rates go up, and the bank calls you to modify the rate upward, what would you say?

Thanks for that, I've been talking to my daughter about that. She just turned 16 and has $2500 in a mutual fund that grandma put in . But she also has $5000 in her savings account she has accumulated. I'm trying to convince her to let me move her savings into the mutual fund. The mutual fund averages a 9% return. Her savings account brings 0.50%

Cool. That's the way to go. I let too much money slide between the cracks in my life and keep thinking that at some point I need to sit down, really work out a budget and figure out where it's going, and start setting up systems to keep costs low. But ... I haven't yet.

Yeah, I kinda think that too, and then realize I'm pretty frugal generally anyway. I could probably optimize a bit more here and there, but I really don't think I'm pissing away money all that stupidly anywhere, and I don't want to overoptimize my finances and make myself and my family miserable in the process.

Does your daughter earn any income? If yes, you should open her a Roth IRA and allow her to start earning tax-free.
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Yeah, I see the point in that.

In my case, I'm not that frugal, but at the same time I don't have many expenses. It's a weird situation to be in, but a good one. I don't really need to watch my everyday finances tightly, but I look at stuff like my cable TV bill and it grinds my gears because I don't think I'm getting good value on it. But I haven't had an impetus to do anything about it, so it leads to this feeling that I'm wasting money.

I laugh, because my cable bill is the one thing I pay for where I really feel like i'm getting screwed. The cost of cable/internet is just ridiculous, IMHO.

That feeling isn't really helped when my cable company (Comcast) calls me and offers to lower my bill by $20/month to renew my contract. Basically, the marketplace is competitive, and they're getting undercut, so they're ****ing their customers a bit less to stay with them. And I'm one of the ones they're ****ing.

Yeah, great. Thanks. Woo hoo. I feel so happy that you'll use lube in the future, compared to what you've been doing in the past. :eek: :shake:

[QUOTE=scho63;12308315]How old were you when you retired?

Old enough. According to my wife. Not bored. 7 grandkids. Some friends also retired. We're all a bunch of old folks.

Main thing is to prepare. ($$)

Good luck.

I know the feeling exactly, premium package , Football and baseball, $250 / month. But then I just try to realize how boring life would be without that and when I'm dead it won't matter any more.

And then a landline with internet, $129 / month . But my landline is for one of my businesses so I have to have it.

Well, that makes me feel better. I pay about $170 per month for cable and internet, but it still chafes me. I keep thinking that I should switch to one of those online services combined with an over-the-air antenna, but I haven't been motivated enough to learn about it.

I'm now living rent free, utility and cable free, property tax free, renter insurance free and I've cut back on going out to an expensive late lunch or dinner 5-6 nights a week until at least December. I've moved into my office. At 120-130K income for the year the money should accumulate rapidly.

I have complete bedroom setup, clean clothes, shower and locker room, full kitchen with convention oven microwave, full refrigerator, dishwasher, normal microwave, free tea, free coffee, snacks,safe and quiet environment.

I have a car payment, which I want to pay off the $14,600 in November, a few other small bills and a Fed Tax bill from 2010 of around $7,000. My 401K has grown faster in 2 years than any other of my savings attempts in 30 years. I'm moving it up from 10-15% and can utilize some catch up provisions.

I'm single and decided to set aside 6 months of serious sacrifice to jump start my retirment goal of living in Scottsdale. :D

I'm in the same boat at home.

Then add another 339 a month at the shop, and add another 90 something to have listings in my local phone book.

****ing assholes

How does living in the office work?

So do you own the office or what? If not, how is your employer cool with you living there?

I'm intrigued.

The main boss and only he knows I am here as I got his approval first. I had been thinking about this for 3-4 months before my townhome lease expired and I launched the plan so it was effortless. I told him I would be staying here for the next 4-5 months or UNTIL someone found out and complained. Told him it was solely to save money. As of this moment, no one knows but I think the Hispanic cleaning lady probably has a good idea because I am always here on the computer until they leave.

I spent $54,500 on rent and utilities for the last two years and also lent the ex-girlfriend $11,000 of which she gave me back a paltry $1,000 total. That's $64,000 AFTER TAX dollars I spent which is around $90,000 GROSS INCOME. When I look back at the fiasco of renting a place too big and too expensive because of her and all the money I pissed away, I wanted to do something very radical in the opposite direction.

I just rented a storage unit in a super clean and safe well known building where I moved all my belongings that costs $75 a month. Keypad entry and I have 3 hanging wardrobe boxes that I have my clothes hung on to rotate what I wear. I have several days of clothes along with clean towels in my trunk. Our building has a complete shower and locker room where I store all my shampoo, soap, razor, toothbrush, etc in a locker with a lock on it. Only two out of ten are being utilized.

I rented a PO box for 6 months for all my mail and all shipments like Amazon are sent to my office.

I have an twin raised air mattress 22" off the floor that blows up with the electric pump in 3-4 minutes and deflates in 1 with the quick release. I blow it up around 9pm after the cleaning people have left and deflate every morning during the week by 6am.

The office I sleep in has a lock on the door so I can prevent someone if they ever showed up from coming in.

The bathroom-shower is directly across from our office and I can go any time at night with no one seeing me.

I have shower pants and a Tshirt I use with flip flops when I change into my sleeping gear. Sleep in my undies.

This commercial building has only two floors and has little to no early workers. It is has two large offices next to us which have been vacant for a while so occupancy is light.

The A/C is on all week and only shuts off on Saturday around 1pm. I have a small Honeywell electric fan that works perfect that I set up to blow on me when I sleep. On Sundays I have to plug in a small lamp in the shower room as the main lights and A/C are off only on that day.

I have a large box with two pillow, two comforters, a cotton blanket, a sheet and the airmattress all fit in that I store on a shelf with my name as PERSONAL. I also have a small little lamp on the desk and I use the flashlight feature on my phone when needed.

I put all my dirty clothes in a hefty garbage bag in my trunk and drop off at a Hispanic run laundry that does wash and fold for $1.25 a pound. It's 10 minutes away and I drop off my laundry once every 8-10 days in the morning and by evening all my clothes are washed to my instructions and folded perfectly, better than I can do! Costs me around $45 a month for laundry service. Very cheap.

There are only 11 other people that work in the office with me and they sometimes telecommute.

I have a full kitchen with coffee, tea, snacks, juice, soda, full fridge, freezer, convection oven, and large table.

So far I've been here 5 1/2 weeks and it has flown by. My bank account is growing again and I should be in great shape at the end of the year.

This is a big trend out in Silicon Valley and certainly not for everyone but it is working out perfect so far for me. Took some planning for sure.

Now you know.....

Scho, that is super legit! Makes a ton of sense if you can swing that for a while and have no attachments. You'd save a boat load doing that.

After these 6 months or so, what's your goal going forward?

If I was single I could do that. Sleep in a hog barn. My advantage is I can piss or shit anywhere in the barn and use a water hose to shower.

Scho, What about the Hookers ? You cutting them out too ? Major expense right there bro.

That's actually kind of ingenious. As expensive as living expenses are in that area, it's like you got a second job of just living ultra cheaply. Good luck with it, and hope the savings pile up in a hurry.

Wow, good for you to work that out.

Scho, do you think if anyone found out that they would complain to your boss? I know that if one of my direct reports was camping out in their office and somebody found out, I would have a dozen people in my office the next day complaining.

Bad Idea jeans

That looks good man.

Personally I need some space to get away. But you should be piling up the cash.

You need space to get away because you're married.

He's not married or attached.

Could it all come crashing down? Sure. But $2500+ per month is probably worth dealing withe a little fallout if it occurs.

well...fortune favors the bold.

No. From work. Usually getting away is hanging out with the wife and kiddo. I work a lot of hours.

1. Have no debt expect my monthly car insurance of $87 a month
2. Put another $25,000 in my 401K
3. Have at least $30K in cash so I have no more boom bust cycles.
4. Work on getting another place in Scottsdale for retirement like I had in 1999.

No more escorts for now

http://2krpib3zzcyl33ajeo1o7z14qul.w...AM-660x330.png

Only one person who would raise a stink and ironically he was just locked out of the outside of the building as I was on the picnic bench smoking a cigar before I came back in to do some proposals so I let him in. His Datawatch card went dead.

The only thing that can happen to me is that they tell me no more sleeping in office. They can't fire me. I'm already $4,000 to the plus side in 6 weeks.

I have an office lease, and it kind of bugs me that we only use it about 12 hours a day. There's a lot of value that we don't get out of it.

It would be hard to use it as sleeping space on a permanent basis, but I feel like I should sublease the night shift to a software company or some other company that can work at night.

Run a night shift.

:hmmm:

I could cut my office space needs in half. Why haven't I thought of that before?

I'll be sending you a bill for consultation.

I think you have a great idea there and while there are shared office space companies like Regus, they just break up one very large office space into individual offices for each company and share common services. The costs can be very high per sq ft but a small business doesn't have to rent a large office to get a presence saving capital while looking official and professional.

With this new sharing economy, don't be surprised that there isn't a new startup company or two that either rents out unused office space by the day, or chops up space, or even rents space for night work, or possible sleep quarters in a building. The sleep part is most difficult because it requires showers for the most, something most buildings don't have.

You do need to take into consideration what happens if the people who sublet your space either steal things or break things, while it be worth it.

ROFLROFLROFLROFL

A plus

Verizon is buying Yahoo! For 4.5 billion. I have no idea why. I probably wouldn't pay $4,500 for it. Anybody have any stock?
http://mobile.nytimes.com/reuters/20...om/r/business/

I've got some Verizon. It didn't seem to get any reaction out of this news.

Today was a good day to own PMD. I bought it a couple of years ago and it immediately lost 20% and stayed there. But today's gain of 31.39% is the largest single-day increase I've ever had in a stock. I'm now in the black on it for the first time ever.

Cha-Ching!

I threw $3000 back at it right after and it's currently up to about $7000. I'm on pins and needles because I'm afraid the investors are going to take their profits and crash it. I still think this company has long term success, they are making bullet proof vests out of spider silk. They genetically crossed the Golden Orb spider with silk worms and the product is stronger than Kevlar or steel. They just opened up production in Vietnam and opened a facility in Indiana to increase production.

http://www.kraiglabs.com/

(KBLB)

I'd take the profits out of that and keep the original $3k only in there to grow. Invest the $4k you made in something less risky or sit in cash for a good time to buy. But that's just me.

Exactly what I was thinking.

I know , I know. That would be the right thing to do ! And in the back of my mind there's this little devil telling me it could go to $10 and you'll be rich. And I think this company really has a future.

I came here to post exactly what Lew posted.

Well , now that I've heard it from a farmer I think i'll just have to do that.

Just play with the house's money, bro. I did something similar with that NVDA stock you were asking about. I got into it when it went down to ~30. Sold half at ~56, despite the company's significant upside. The old saying is that pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered.

In one of my accounts, I set a policy that I would buy a stock, and then when it went up 20% I would sell off the original money, keep the profit in it, and then use the original money to buy another stock. My theory is that I can take advantage of random variations in prices to increase my return, and in the long term I'm building my zero-fee mutual fund.

Lots of smarts in this thread!

It lessens your risk while maintaining your profits, while still being able to profit from that company should it continue to rise. It's a risky sector though, which is why I would maintain a success where I doubled my profits.

Nice job by the way!

My dad and I were kicking around a similar idea. Just cash out after a good pop and leave the remainder in the stock to build a diversified portfolio over time.

I've been doing it for quite a while in one account, but eventually switched to a different strategy. I think I was matching the market but not beating it. I adopted it for a new account and it's been doing quite well.

All in all, I like doing it because you minimize risk, keep some skin in the game if you happen to identify a stock rocket, and you don't get fleeced by mutual fund fees.

I think one of the major upsides is that you end up with a portfolio of companies you have researched and actually like/liked at one point or another.

[QUOTE=Nightfyre;12346528]Just play with the house's money, bro. I did something similar with that NVDA stock you were asking about. I got into it when it went down to ~30. Sold half at ~56, despite the company's significant upside. The old saying is that pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered.[/QUOTE]

Ohh, I like that ! Haven't heard that in a long time.

So your strategy there is to cash out the original investment and leave the profits or cash out the profits and leave the original?

Leave the profits.

Yeah, makes sense to take out the original investment and leave the profits. Then you're playing on free money.

So what's your marker for percentage of profits you need to make before doing it?

I set a threshold at 20% because I'm lazy, but if I had a little more initiative I'd set up a system where I sold the original investment once I got to the point of a 25% annualized return. If you do that, you can take advantage of random small spikes early in the ownership period.

We were just kicking it around, talking pros and cons.

The big pro to me is developing a portfolio of company's you actually believe in.
Minimizing losses and removing the emotional factor is also important.

We talked about using the fixed percentage OR having a specific exit strateg.

IE If I buy NVDA because I know they are going to kill it in the second quarter because their new graphics card is redefining the market, I sell after the earnings announcement is digested. If I buy it because of their potential growth into the automated driving market, I may establish a long-term hold strategy - or just buy long-term call options. In the case of NVDA I did both. However, I got antsy on my long-term call position after it had basically gained 250% on the value of it. That option would now be worth over 6 times my initial investment. But I am happy just to have raked some gains, even if I gave some up because I am a nervous nelly.

Ha. Don't buy into too much of what I say. The only thing I've been very right on is the basis out here.

My problem is I feel like any thing I throw at a stock is just throw away money anyway. My bread and butter is real estate. that's why I have a hard time with stocks.

Interesting strategy. Thanks for sharing that.

I am rather new to actually purchasing individual stocks but have researched for quite a while. After pumping my 401k and Roth IRA, it's taken a while to want to use extra money for more investing. Individual stocks still make me rather nervous. lol

So how did you Hog Farmer invest that money. I got 45 dollars I got left over from the end of the month with my solid budgeting. It was a struggle, but every day I only ate out of the vending machine 4 times.

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Hog Farmer, I hope you've been investing in Neuromama. And then sold it yesterday.

http://money.cnn.com/2016/08/16/inve...sec/index.html

No, I missed that one. I have been enjoying a nice ride with NVDA though.

Dude, you've listed some stocks you've purchased that have had some nice recent runs. I am impressed. You need to start sharing these earlier!!!

Can you guys tell me who you use for online brokerage accounts? I can't remember if we've discussed that.

Schwab, but that's mostly because that's where my work IRA lives.

Well, I've hit a few homeruns lately but I have plenty of strikeouts on my resume. I try not to just blurt out something I've just jumped into because I don't want to cause anyone to be hurt. I still wish I'd bought steel socks. I missed that one.

I was thinking TDAmeritrade because they have 100+ commission free ETFs but the $9.95 per trade is a bit extreme. Trade King looks good at $4.95 per trade but no commission free ETFs.

I have my Roth IRA through TRowe Price but those bitches have insane trading expenses for a brokerage account. My wife has her Roth through Vanguard and the first 25 trades in the brokerage account are $7 and I've made a few buys there. I myself want a discount online brokerage account in my name but having trouble deciding which one.

Etrade for me . 9.99 per transaction

I use Robinhood.

Zero cost, zero fees. Completely free. Works very well once you get to instant trading.(requires a referral)