Mapgirl’s Fiscal Challenge

And no, I didn’t write them. *sticks tongue out*

Aside: I am not so grouchy anymore today. Halloween was slightly more than I wished to spend, but still coming to about $38.00 including appetizer, dinner, beers, safe metro and bus rides, and then someone else buying some more cider and a shot. The conversation ended up being key as my friend was also a grouch and boy, did we need the drinks. (Piratz Tavern in Silver Spring is highly recommended. Service is still a tad slow, but the bartenders are excellent and the kitschy pirate decor is fun. Get the cod fritters and the bison burger!)

Anyhow, onto the articles:

The first is from Free Money Finance and how he’s sick of hearing about burdensome student loan debts. I agree that I’m sick of hearing about it as well. I agree with FMF taking on student loan debt is foreseeable and preventable. There are a great many ways to make undergrad and graduate studies more affordable. But if you read my comment, you’ll also see that I agree with some of these former students and I would like to know why the heck college is getting so expensive. Even in-state tuition is getting expensive, thus taking away an affordable option for many students for a first-rate education.

The second is from Justin McHenry at The Personal Finance Weblog and how he’s sick of hearing about ARM sob stories. Again, I agree with him because I’m a Ranty McRant Pants, but also because he has a point. Why isn’t his rate getting lowered for being a good borrower and paying his loan promptly? Why are we rewarding bad behavior? So what if Countrywide renegotiates the terms of the ARM? What if they extend favorable rates for 24 months? Does that mean the borrower will still be able to cope with a mortgage that readjusts in 2 years? Probably not. If they were foolish enough to take on the mortgage they couldn’t afford in the first place, who is say they have learned their lesson and will be able to pay an ARM with rising rates in the future?

Now I understand why on a macro market level why we need to do something about lots of defaulting mortgages. But very few people have said that we need to ensure that borrowers truly understand what they are getting through sound education.

Very few people have said we need to crackdown on liar loans and shady mortgage brokers. Fraud charges need to get filed against people who have knowingly duped the banks. Having been part of a federal fraud investigation by a flipper, I believe there isn’t enough oversight to catch collusive business practices between borrower, broker, appraiser and settlement attorney.

I think the banks are idiots for not reviewing their risk models more closely. Is everyone an effing Yes Man there? It’s a known fact that in real dollars, wages are falling, so why on earth would a bank think that making extremely risky loans to people who will be earning less in the future is a good idea?

I’ll right. I’m done.

As I get ready to do my 2006 taxes, I am already starting my 2007 tax planning.

I am going to make a lot more money than I expected this year. I got a raise, but I forgot that I am also going to receive a bonus for my 2006 performance. What am I going to do? By getting this money, I will lose my eligibility for a property tax break in Arlington because my income will probably be too high. (For some reason, they keep raising the threshold income every year so I can’t tell for sure if I will or will not qualify).

Can I reduce my income or increase my deductions for 2007? I hope so.

First thing, now that I have a second stream of significant income, I am trying to max out my 401k. Yay! 20%! Too bad I can’t put in 21% for the rest of the year since my first 2 paychecks this year were only for about 15%.

I am looking into doing my eye surgery this year so that I spend a ridiculous amount of money on medical expenses this year.

No more student loans, so that’s out. I am planning on taking some classes for work, but those will be reimbursed. I do buy a lot of technical books for work. (er, maybe for fun too) So I can expense those. I think I could write off an OracleWorld trip that way and visit my family at the same time. That would be cool.

Anyhow, just thinking out loud. It’s not like I’m about to have a kid just for a tax deduction.

College Grad on trying to get a student loan forbearance. It’s not as easy as they would have you believe. But then again, consider if your loan is private or government. That seems to be the difference.

Kira at Penny Foolish, she’s one to watch. This a great post and it goes with my old post about increasing blog traffic.

Her at Make Love Not Debt asks if she can charge her rent and make rewards benefits. I think that’s a great idea if you can get it. Her commenters have great solutions.

Bestest. Kid. EVAR. SingleMa is doing something right!

Heads up if you are from Ohio and have used the Ohio University’s health system. Credit Bloggers.com has the story. I have a few people from OH who read this blog and I’m sure they are going to care about identity theft. Especially of deceased relatives who were treated at those facilities. Those are valid SSN’s ripe for identity theft.

FiveCentNickel asks when is an in-state check and out-of-state check? Read on. Basic lesson? Open a local checking account and save yourself the headache when moving across state lines. Take it from me. I moved 7 times in 2 years, including cross country to three different states. Just open a new account. It’s a lot easier.

Though still on hiatus, I still have a few posts lingering waiting to be published. Here’s the first one.

Last week, the WSJ had a Personal Journal article about the rising cost of tuition at private schools around the country. My K-12 school was featured. I attended it for 7 years, 6 on scholarship. It’s the kind of school where both parents are Ivy League grads, doctors married to lawyers type of thing. It’s been mentioned in Wealth Magazine as an Ivy League feeder school. It’s true. My closest friend went to Harvard. Her back up school was Yale. Ex-boyfriend? Brown, but Yale was his first choice.

The secret reason why I am so interested in my net worth is so that when I am gone and there’s stuff leftover, I want it to go to my school for scholarship money. The school has been around for a long time and I’m sure the endowment rivals that of some small colleges. In the almost 15 years since my graduation, tuition for grade 12 has more than doubled, to over $20K. It’s now out of range for some of those white collar parents who struggled to pay their own loans off for professional school.

I got so much from going to my school, wonderful mentoring, fantastic intellectual freedom and stimulation, a love of athletics I would not naturally have. I have a mandate from one of my teachers who did something very special and wonderful for me, ‘When you have the chance to do something like this for someone else, you will do it.’ When the person you adore most gives you a purpose in life, you can do nothing but be inspired and take it on as your mission to the world.

The other thing is that I learned at school was how to be rich. It sounds like a weird thing to say, but there were some really stinkin’ rich people that went there, but you’d never know it. They embodied the Millionaire Next Door mindset. Really classy rich people don’t spend tons of money dressing their kids in the latest fashions. They don’t give them flashy cars to drive (some did, but were *frowned* upon by the other kids as being stuck up). They spend their money wisely and put it towards things they really enjoy, sailing trips, second houses at the shore, etc. These parents didn’t dump us at the mall to entertain ourselves. They had expectations of us to do and be more, developing ourselves as human beings.

Upon graduation, a classmate of mine gave me Life’s Little Instruction Book as a present. There’s only one thing in there that really sticks out to me. Let me paraphrase “Buy the best house you can, not the best car.” That kind of immortalizes the things I learned from the upper-middle class to upper class people I mingled with at school.

Just some stuff to think about.