I joined the Marine Corps in 1967 right after high school. I was in Nam by December. My combat experience and how I dealt with it probably was not much different than many others.

I was only in Nam a couple of days when a South Vietnamese soldier tripped a booby trap and was killed. The first time I had ever seen someone die.He was not dismembered and there was little blood and the experience seemed eerily surreal.

I was a Combat Engineer and a demolitions expert and mines and booby traps were my specialty. I felt as though if I had been where this man was I could have prevented his death.

A couple of days later we were mine sweeping a dirt road between a place called An Hoa and a fire-base called An Loc when we found that a large hole(50 feet in diameter) had been blown in the middle of this road. Loose dirt was everywhere and the V.C.(Viet Cong) had a bad habit of doing this and planting mines in the loose dirt because they were harder to detect. We had the infantrymen set up a defensive perimeter and we ( My partner and I ) began to probe for mines. Laying on our stomach to reduce our profile to explosions we would carefully push our bayonet’s into the loose soil, feeling for solid resistance while being gentile enough to avoid setting off any mines.
My partner(Clyde Dillenberg) and I were carefully and systematically clearing path through this area when the lieutenant walked by me upright. I thought; what is he doing, to myself. He knelt down just a few feet in front of me and began to probe. I looked up just as he pressed his bayonet into the ground and BOOM. The explosion knocked me backwards and I landed on my back about 25 feet back into the crater . As I looked up I saw the LT’s body flying through the air above me. He must have been at leas 20 ft high. He landed about 15 or 20 feet further up the road from where the explosion took place.
Pieces of his flesh and bone and blood were all over me.

Everyone said that he must have seen something because he suddenly walked purposefully directly to the spot where he knelt down and started probing.

I immediately began probing again to clear path to him so we could get him medical attention. When we had secured an area safe for the medical corpsman to come up to him the sight we found could only be described as unthinkable. Here was a man I knew with one leg ripped off taking with it the hip exposing his intestines. The other leg was blown off above the ankle and shredded flesh hung in ribbons from the exposed bone to the knee. The arm he was probing with was gone to just below the shoulder again exposing the bone from above the elbow to the armpit. The other arm was blown off rather cleanly around mid forearm.

We found him face down and rolled him over to expose the most horrifying sight I have ever experienced. His forehead and cheeks had gaping holes in them and both eyes were gone,the rest of his face was in tact. The rest of his torso was mostly in tact.Immediately assuming he was dead I informed the Doc(Medical corpsman) that there was no need to hurry because he was dead. Just then he (the LT.) groaned.

It was chilling. Then he began to talk. I was both horrified and saddened to think this man was still alive in the condition he was in. The doc called in a medical evacuation and we cleared the rest of the area of mines so a chopper could land and pick up the LT.
There was little we could do but watch and listen to this hunk of mutilated flesh talk asking for help. He could neither see or hear us talking to him but he kept calling out to us to help him. I began to wish for his death so he would stop talking.

We picked him up by the limb fragments and put him on stretcher and loaded him on the helicopter.

He died 3 days later. I was 19. New years day.1968.

There were to be many other days and many other horrors for the next 6 months.

I chose to share this experience as a part of my journey back from 40 years of healing. I was mortally wounded that day but not by mortars, mines or bullets. My wounds started that day and continued to become more and more severe over the next 6 months. I was wounded by enemy mortar fire in late June and medically evacuated ultimately back home and Medically retired.

From the time I was evacuated until more than 10 years later the severity of the mental wounds began to show up in increasingly more bazaar and violent ways.

In 1979 I found the true beginnings of healing from my mental prison. My wife and I had always made it our practice to attend Church regularly but it had little effect on my mental state until one summer morning when I met some folks who were involved in the same business we were in and they began to talk about their faith in ways I had never heard.
They talked of being “Born Again” and of a intimate personal relationship with Jesus. As they spoke I realized that I had been desiring a deeper faith and felt drawn to the Jesus they spoke of. They prayed with me and I invited Jesus into every area of my life. Healing emotionally began immediately. Although dramatic changes began that day the changes took several months to reach a level where I knew I was truly free.

I still have some spells where I get emotional and uncomfortable when spending a lot of time thinking about those months In Viet Nam. The hate, bitterness and anger are long gone. The violent incidents, long gone as well, the headaches loss of reality, also gone.

I have functioned as a whole man for many years. Although my physical scars remain and somewhat limit my mobility I am free indeed.

My hope is that by sharing this bit of my life here with my family at VAJoe that maybe one of you will find some healing as I have.

A difficult journey starts with one step. Start today.

If you have questions about any of these experiences you may post a response or email me at

dkirk@forwardfinancialgroup.com

Back to the regular Doug’s Money Matters next week

If you still have not cashed out of the market you are probably singing that song. Thank God It’s Friday!
What a week! Well I have been overwhelmed with people wanting advice on what to do with the money the had in the Market (What is left of it).
Let me share some of our recommendations with you.

1. Establish an emergency cash reserve of at least $3000.00 (This needs to be liquid).
This way if something breaks (Car, Hot water heater etc.) You will not be forced into using debt.

2. PAY OFF DEBT! All the debt you can. If the economy were to collapse your 401k would be useless. If you own what you possess you start out 10 floors above everyone else when recovery begins. and you will have assets of intrinsic value with which to bargain for your needs.

3. Store up basic provisions. If things continue to skyrocket in price and you have food stored up you will not go hungry. You do not get a second chance if I’m right.

4. Find ways to save and invest in things of intrinsic value. Gold ,Silver, etc.
those things will always have value even when our Dollar is worthless.

This is not some far out fringe extremist survivalist strategy but the prudent plan of wise men throughout History.

This is a blog and you are welcome to ignore it completely if you wish. But should you ignore it and these things take place please don’t bother to come calling. There will not be enough for everyone. I am laying up provisions for my family and a few others but they are all moving purposefully towards this goal.

I will be speaking ,as I do almost every weekend in a Church. The people there will get a step by step plan to reach and exceed these goals.

These brief seminars are called Financial Freedom seminars. They are taught weekly in Churches and civic groups Nationwide.

Keep in mind my military family and friends, you must change how you are doing what you are doing if you want your life and future to change for the better.

Insanity is doing the SAME THING and expecting DIFFERENT RESULTS!
If you continue what you are doing or do more of it you will harvest MORE of the SAME results.

Politicians cannot save you. 401k’s cannot save you. Your smarts cannot save you. (If they could you would already be doing far better than you are now) YOU MUST have a plan to get free.

There is hope for all who seek it. But be cautious. There are also those who would have what you have saved, by force or influence.

My job is to be a watchman on the wall. calling out a warning.

Who will heed???

You can be free but you must act now. Freedom is why we served and freedom is what we sacrificed for, but few in this land possess it.

Do you want some freedom? Freedom from employers who control your life? Freedom from want? Freedom to enjoy your life? Freedom to help others? Freedom brings peace and rest, in your body , mind and your spirit.

My prayer for you this day and every day is that you will find true peace and freedom.

” Let Freedom Ring”.

See ya in 2 weeks, Going to Banff Canada for some of that freedom. ( Can you say FISH ON!)

Fixing the money thing!

We have tackled many topics regarding your personal finances, however it’s time we tackled the pending financial disaster in America.

Today the stock market fell once again. Sound familiar?

Remember 2000 to 2003?

The stock market has fallen more than 2000 points since the first of the year, Is this just another minor market correction?

Why are the cost of goods going up at an alarming rate? Why are there so many forclosures on new homes? Why with so little unemployment are we seeing the kind of economic indicators we saw during the Carter administration? Should I be alarmed? What can I do to protect myself from a financial disaster if one should occur.

Doug intends to tackle these issues in this blog.

Lets look at some of the factors that have contributed to the unsettling times we are facing.

High national debt,the highest in history. High personal debt, also the highest in history. The blog host shows stastistics on his website that are alarming regarding personal debt and national debt.

Someone has to pay the piper.

Home forclosures are at a national record. In my sons 4 year old new home subdivision 1 out of every 5 houses is abandoned, in forclosure or severely behind on their payments.

Why?

Builders, bankers, realtors and their lobbies influenced the Government to modify lending rules several years ago to keep the housing boom going. The lenders were able to get people approved for loans that 2 0r 3 years earlier they would not have approved.

Buyers with considerable credit challenges were approved and the builders and realtors were thrilled. They could now get people in homes that they would not have qualified for before.

The problem comes in that the buyers were already in excessive debt and we just added hundreds of thousands to the burden. When you buy a new home the real estate taxes are based on the LAND only the first tax year.The second year the payment including taxes and insurance went up considerably. The third year,the loans were not fixed interest and the interest went up and so did the payment.

Buyers who were struggling to make the payment initially now were unable to make them at all.Thus forclosures! In many new home subdivisions people are just walking away from the home in the middle if the night.

The housing and mortgage industries are in a panic.The stock market is affected and so on and so forth.

Oh what tangled webs we weave in an effort to deceive!

THE STOCK MARKET

In 1960 only 2% of Americans owned stocks.

Then came the Mutual fund!

Today most Americans have Mutual funds through employer retirement plans like 401k’s, 403b’s, 457’s, IRA’s, and Roth IRA’s.

What does that mean?

The stock market is vastly overinflated.

Before mutual funds, the only people who owned stocks were people of means who were able to pay someone to watch, move, buy and sell on their behalf continuously.

Today the American people have been lied to by the brokers and agents who sell these mutual funds at big commissions and continued (Trail commissions ) even when the market goes down!

When the experts sell the mutual fund, owners are told to buy because the market is so good. When the market is low and the experts know what and when to buy the mutual fund brokers say again, buy now because the funds are a good value.

In other words, no matter what is happening they are giving you the exact same advice.

Sound a bit suspicious to you?

When in 2000 -2003 the market began it’s largest loss in history. The advice was exactly the same. It will come back, don’t worry!

Well, they were right! The market did come back. Over all, the average holder of mutual funds and stocks had vertually NO GAIN for 7 years!

How often can you afford those kind of setbacks?

Now, with the largest one week loss in the history of the stock market earlier this year and continued losses for thr first 6 months what do you suppose the advice of the mutual fund dealer is? Same old, Same old!

Why are we not suprised? They don’t want to give up those hefty commissions.

The stock market is more volatile than ever in it’s history and we predict a much longer and much larger loss than in 2000 -2003 over the next several years.

Can you afford it again?

What then should we do?

Lets start by using some of the common sense that our Government, Realtors, Builders , Bankers and Investment brokers seemed to have left on the Table of the BIG COMMISSION!

Start by developing an aggressive strategy to pay off all consumer debt!

First, make sure you have at least $2,000.00 in the savings accounts for immediate emergencies.

Then attack the debts one at a time starting with the highest intrest rate and going down.

Don’t add a little to each debt. Take all the extra money you can free up monthly and attack them one at a time!

Stop paying into retirement plans and eliminate consumer debt first.

That flies in the face of conventional wisdom due to the employers contribution.

Don’t let greed destroy you! Pay off the debt!!!

If a major economic downturn, recession or worse happens you will be on top and not at the bottom!

The choice is yours!

You can keep on doing the same thing you are doing now in whch case if the above
You can keep on doing the same thing you are doing now in whch case if the above happens you will be destroyed financially.

Or you can do something different.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results.

Are you willing to bet we are wrong?

Doug’s Money Matters is a section of the VAJoe Blog to ask for quick financial tips and advice from an expert with more than 20 years experience in counseling families to live without debt and to reach there financial potential. Please leave comments on this Blog. You can learn more about the Money Matters advisor at his website. The posts and comments by JoeMoneyMatters reflect his two decades of financial counseling expereince. VAJoe.com does not endorse any financial strategies, but offers this blog as a service to its site members for discussion.

What in the heck is going on here?

Are you watching the stock market? The Mortgage crisis? The oil situation?

We are free falling into the worst economic period since the great depression.

Think not? Consider this.

The Wall Street Journal says fuel prices could go to between $8.00 and $12.00 by years end. The Housing market that everyone thought would begin to rebound by mid summer is now predicted to continue to tumble for several more years. The world economic scene has NEVER been so vulnerable.

Iran vs Israel? Can you say WWIII? China owns everything of any value in the US and what they don’t own they are negotiating for right now.

Individual Debt is 10 times higher than just 5 years ago.

When we started in financial services 15 1/2 years ago 88% of disposable income of the average American family was dedicated to personal debt. today 135% is dedicated to debt.

How is that possible? We spend far more than we earn on average by using debt to pay for food gas utilities clothing perishable goods.

Where does that leave us?

IMPENDING DISASTER!

We coach thousands of families yearly who are average income earners with a home, 2 kids, 2 cars, both Mom and; Dad work, they feel like they are getting along alright until we do a reflective budget.

SHOCK & AWE!

They are upside down by hundreds even thousands of dollars per month.
How is it that they don’t know? They stretch the check by carrying more and more debt each month. The sad news is that if they don’t submit to some serious changes in the money management they will loose the house, go bankrupt, divorce. 78% of the families who go through this scenario divorce within 3 years.

What impact is this having on the stock market? Check your mutual funds since January.

Conservative speculators say we will see a much greater loss of value in the market this time than in 2000-2003 and it will last far longer.

What can we do? What should we do first?

STOP THE BLEEDING!!!

Do what ever you have to do to get back to better than break even and then have an aggressive strategy to eliminate debt.

STOP the contribution to the 401k, retirement plan etc, temporarily and pay down debt. That flies in the face of everything we have been taught but we must get free from the slavery created by debt.

More later.

Doug Kirk  served in the United States Marine Corps from 1967-1969 Served in Viet Nam 23Dec 1967 to 21June 1968. As a Combat Engineer, attached to Fox Company 2nd. Battalion 5th Marne Regiment 1st Division. served in the Battle of Hue City. and other operations.

Wounded 21June 1968 Medically Retired 17 June 1969.

Worked as a General Contractor in Central Ohio until 1992.

Studied Architecture and Business at Franklin University.

Currently Chief Operations Officer, National Conference Speaker, Personal development and Training coordinator.

Forward Financial Group has been working with Corporations, Small Businesses and Families for 20 Years; teaching, developing and assisting large Businesses small businesses and families in very unique financial systems and development.

No one does all that we can do!

We have National and International Teaching and Training Programs to assist our clients large

 and small to maximize the financial recorces and “Find lost Money”.

Doug Enjoys helping people win in life,especially his Military Brothers and; Sisters and there families! 

We look forward to helping all Joe’s find answers, gain knowlege and practice sucessful financial principals.

In other words “Fixing The Money Thing”.

“Semper Fidelis”

Our friends at VA Mortgage Center.com (who helped us with Charity for Charities and have a nice milblog in their own right) released a video today outlining some of the benefits of the VA Home Loan Program. You can watch it on YouTube here - VA Loan Video.

With the ‘housing crisis’ we are currently living through, it’s most important for qualifying Veterans and Active-Duty members to be aware of their options. Don’t forget to look into what the VA program might be able to do for you upon purchasing or even refinancing a home.

And heck, everyone loves a good time-waster video (especially if you are bored at work). Might as well learn a few things in the process. Give it a look and come on back to VA Joe!

 Fixing the money thing!

We have tackled many topics regarding your personal finances, however it’s time we tackled the pending financial disaster in America.

Today the stock market fell once again. Sound familiar?

Remember 2000 to 2003?

The stock market has fallen more than 1000 points in the last month, most of that in one week. Is this just another minor market correction?

Why are the cost of goods going up at an alarming rate? Why are there so many forclosures on new homes? Why with so little unemployment are we seeing the kind of economic indicators we saw during the Carter administration? Should I be alarmed? What can I do to protect myself from a financial disaster if one should occur.

Joe intends to tackle these issues in this blog.

Lets look at some of the factors that have contributed to the unsettling times we are facing.

High national debt,the highest in history. High personal debt, also the highest in history. The blog host shows stastistics on his website that are alarming regarding personal debt and national debt.

Someone has to pay the piper.

Home forclosures are at a national record. In my sons 4 year old new home subdivision 1 out of every 5 houses is abandoned,  in forclosure or severely behind on their payments.

Why?

Builders, bankers, realtors and their lobbies influenced the Government to modify lending rules several years ago to keep the housing boom going. The lenders were able to get people approved for loans that 2 0r 3 years earlier they would not have approved.

Buyers with considerable credit challenges were approved and the builders and realtors were thrilled. They could now get people in homes that they would not have qualified  for before.

The problem comes in that the buyers were already in excessive debt and we just added hundreds of thousands to the burden. When you buy a new home the real estate taxes are based on the LAND only the first tax year.The second year the payment including taxes and insurance went up considerably. The third year,the loans were not fixed interest and the interest went up and so did the payment.

Buyers who were struggling to make the payment initially now were unable to make them at all.Thus forclosures! In many new home subdivisions people are just walking away from the home in the middle if the night.

The housing and mortgage industries are in a panic.The stock market is affected and so on and so forth.

Oh what tangled webs we weave in an effort to deceive!

 

 THE STOCK MARKET

In 1960 only 2% of Americans owned stocks.

Then came the Mutual fund!

Today most Americans have Mutual funds through employer retirement plans like 401k’s, 403b’s, 457’s, IRA’s, and Roth IRA’s.

What does that mean?

The stock market is vastly overinflated.

 Before mutual funds, the only people who owned stocks were people of means who were able to pay someone to watch, move, buy and sell on their behalf continuously.

Today the American people have been lied to by the brokers and agents who sell these mutual funds at big commissions and continued (Trail commissions ) even when the market goes down!

When the experts sell the mutual fund, owners are told to buy because the market is so good. When the market is low and the experts know what and when to buy the mutual fund brokers say again, buy now because the funds are a good value.

In other words, no matter what is happening they are giving you the exact same advice.

Sound a bit suspicious to you?

When in 2000 -2003 the market began it’s largest loss in history. The advice was exactly the same. It will come back, don’t worry!

Well, they were right! The market did come back.  Over all, the average holder of mutual funds and stocks had vertually NO GAIN for 7 years!

How often can you afford those kind of setbacks?

Now, with the largest one week loss in the history of the stock market earlier this month what do you suppose the advice of the mutual fund dealer is? Same old, Same old!

Why are we not suprised? They don’t want to give up those hefty commissions.

The stock market is more volatile than ever in it’s history and we predict a much longer and much larger loss than in 2000 -2003 over the next several years.

Can you afford it again?

What then should we do?

Lets start by using some of the common sense that our Government, Realtors, Builders , Bankers and Investment brokers seemed to have left on the Table of the BIG COMMISSION!

Start by developing an aggressive strategy to pay off all consumer debt!

First, make sure you have at least $2,000.00 in the savings accounts for immediate emergencies.

Then attack the debts one at a time starting with the highest intrest rate and going down.

Don’t add a little to each debt. Take all the extra money you can free up monthly and attack them one at a time!

Stop paying into retirement plans and eliminate consumer debt first.

That flies in the face of conventional wisdom due to the employers contribution.

Don’t let greed destroy you! Pay off the debt!!!

If a major economic downturn, recession or worse happens you will be on top and not at the bottom!

The choice is yours!

 

You can keep on doing the same thing you are doing now in whch case if the above happens you will be destroyed financially.

Or you can do something different.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results.

Are you willing to bet we are wrong?

 

Joe Money Matters is a section of the VAJoe Blog to ask for quick financial tips and advice from an expert with more than 20 years experience in counseling families to live without debt and to reach there financial potential. Please leave comments on this Blog. You can learn more about the Joe Money Matters advisor at his website. The posts and comments by JoeMoneyMatters reflect his two decades of financial counseling expereince. VAJoe.com does not endorse any financial strategies, but offers this blog as a service to its site members for discussion.

When should I start investing?

The popular belief in our culture today is that we should start investing as early as possible.

Generally speaking that is true, howeve , we want to look at the whole picture before jumping off the bridge.

1. Do I have a sound budget?

      If not, delay starting investments until you have identified where the money is coming from.

2. Do I have any debt?

     If you have a sound budget and debt is restricting your discretionary money,

     then start a systematic debt reduction plan. there are many books on the subject.

     The guest bloger ’s website has a free debt reduction planning area.

     Pay down or pay off all consumer debt before tackling investments.

     Paying consumer debt at the same time as investing is counter productive.

      What you earn and more may be eaten up by the interest you pay.

 

How should I choose what kind of investments to use?

 

We will not be going into great detail here in this blog on specific investment vehicles.

There are several basic groups of investments.

Savings

The most popular and widely known is a savings account at our local bank.

Everyone should have at least $2,000.00 in a savings account for emergency purposes.

You might choose to have more, but at least $2,000.00.

Bank or Savings and Loan savings accounts are relatively safe and earn a relatively small return. They are totally liquid and simple to understand and easily accessed.

Money market accounts pay a little more interest and generally are still very liquid.

They can usually be opened at your local bank.

Certificates of deposit (CD’s) yield greater returns the longer you commit to keeping them. CD’s are less liquid and have substantial penalties for early withdrawal.

Securities

Stocks, bonds,  and commodities are traded in the market. They offer potentially higher yields and potentially greater risk. These are purchased through licensed securities brokers or agents.

Mutual funds are the most common and widely known of security market sensitive investments.

Seen most often in 401k’s ,403b’s, 457’s and so forth ( Employer- employee based retirement/ savings plans. They are also used to fund many IRA’s and Roth IRA’s.

Mutual funds are intended to somewhat minimize risk through diversification ( spreading risk) while still affording the invester the possibility of greater gain.

Mutual funds make up probably the bears share of securities today and are easily purchased through employer plans, banks and brokers.

 

Caution! you should be aware there is a substantial risk of loss in these areas of investment. They should not be purchased without considerable caution.

 

Insurance based investments

Among this catagory of investments are annuities and insurances.

Annuities are broken down into 2 major catagories, Fixed and Variable.

Fixed annuities are generally very safe and produce a lower yield. A relatively new catagory of annutiy is the fixed indexed annuity. Still very safe while showing a very promising yield.

 Variable annuities are funded with mutual funds and have a substantial risk while affording a greater potential gain.( They generally have high fees and “hidden” fees).

Single Premium Life insurance has some unique benefits like tax minimumization or elimination and no risk earnings vary from policy to policy, but are generally good.

They are most often used to pass the death benefit along to beneficiaries and avoid or reduce the tax on the death benefit.

 

There are many other details and topics far too lengthy to explore on this forum.

Contact several advisors before deciding. Each, of course, will be happy to give you their perspective. Do not be rushed!

 

Joe Money Matters is a section of the VAJoe Blog to ask for quick financial tips and advice from an expert with more than 20 years experience in counseling families to live without debt and to reach there financial potential. Please leave comments on this Blog. You can learn more about the Joe Money Matters advisor at his website. The posts and comments by JoeMoneyMatters reflect his two decades of financial counseling expereince. VAJoe.com does not endorse any financial strategies, but offers this blog as a service to its site members for discussion.

 “If you know the truth, the truth will set you free”.

20 years ago I found myself in a great deal of financial distress due to excessive debt. I was looking for ways to cut my monthly costs in order to attack the consumer debt.

In the process of searching for cost cutting ideas ,I began to read a book about the life insurance industry and how they make thier money.

 What I found out was a total shock to me.

The life insurance industry is the richest industry on the planet!

How do they make thier money? Largely they sell insurance against financial loss due to death.

If you pay, lets say $50.00 per month , for a $100,000.00 whole life policy, you are paying a very small fraction of that premium for the death benefit.

The rest of the premium goes into a cash accumulation account.

Lets say $25.00 pays for the death benefit and the rest accummulates in the cash account at interest.

Sounds good so far, right?

Lets say you have that policy for ten years and the interest credit is 0%

Your cash value would be $3,000.00, right?

Ok, lets say you need that cash you have saved in the policy, how do you access it?

1. You can borrow your own savings from your policy and pay around 7% interest to the insurance company. Your death benefit is reduced by the amount you borrow and the premium is increased to pay the interest.

$100,000.00 death benefit - $3,000.00 policy loan = $97,000.00 new death benefit. Old premium $50.00 per month,  new premium $67.50.

How do you like borrowing your own money, paying interest to the insurance company and they lower your death benefit?

2. You can take all of the cash value out by surrendering the policy. In which case if you die, your family is left $97,000.00 poorer.

3. If you die, the cash value is kept by the insurer.

$100,000.00 death benefit at purchase $100,000.00 death benefit ten years later.

Where did your savings go?

Still sound like such a good deal?

You either get your insurance or your savings, But Not both! This is true REGARDLESS OF THE COMPANY!

 Why not insure to insure and save to save?

Using a form of life Insurance called Term , you can get much more insurance benefit for your money and save the difference!

Most life insurance companies offer Term Insurance, but they strongly encourage their agents to sell whole life, universal life, variable life etc. because the profit is “Off the charts” compared to term.

Unfortunately that puts your insurance company in an adversarial position with you.

I’m a paasionate capitalist, but I am also opposed to being sold products without the client fully understanding the products they buy.

The agent makes a substantially larger commission on the cash value style insurance than he will on term insurance, so the insurer is putting the agent in a position where if he sells the best value his income is greatly compromised.

Term insurance can be designed around your benefit and budget needs more easily due to the greatly reduced cost.

Term is the better Value

Generally speaking, if you are 50 years old or younger and in reasonably good health you should buy term insurance.

The problem is finding an agent who will give you an unbiased assessment of term vs. cash value life insurance.

If you would like more information on this or any other “Money Matters” subject, contact the guest host, Joe Money Matters.

Next time, Savng and investing .

 

 

Joe Money Matters is a section of the VAJoe Blog to ask for quick financial tips and advice from an expert with more than 20 years experience in counseling families to live without debt and to reach there financial potential. Please leave comments on this Blog. You can learn more about the Joe Money Matters advisor at his website. The posts and comments by JoeMoneyMatters reflect his two decades of financial counseling expereince. VAJoe.com does not endorse any financial strategies, but offers this blog as a service to its site members for discussion.

Mortgages and your new home.

Ok, there has been a lot of talk about subprime lending.

What is it?

Lenders take a larger risk when they agree to fund mortgages on homeowners who have high debt to income ratio’s, low credit scores,no money down, etc.

Home builders and Realtors are constantly trying to get loans for people with marginal credit or too much debt. The lenders started experimenting with making loans to higher risk clients under pressure from Builders and Realtors.the practice went too far and we found Realtors and Builders sales forces geting people home loans based on both spouses income and not considering their budget.This practice put many home buyers in trouble because with the new buy down loans, 3-2-1 loans,when the payments went up at the end of the first year,the homeowner could not make the payment.If one or the other was laid off or hours cut back or became pregnant or anything disrupted the income the homeowner could not make the payment.

The result of this practice is the largest rate of forclosures and Bankrupcies in History.

Each Political party will try to make this a political issue but the bottom line is “Poor money management practices by each of us.

“We want what we want when we want it”!

The mentality for the last decaid or so has been “I can have what I want when I want it with no regard for how we will pay for it.”

I purchased a new home 4 years ago. When It was being built I watched the people coming in the sales office to buy a new home.

Many of them had credit so bad they could not quallify for the loan on one income or in some cases they could not quallify at all.

They would fenagle and wrangle and lie to get approved for loans they could not afford.

Thinking to themselves”My income will go up and then I can afford it”.

No consideration to the unexpected expensed asssociated with buying a new home,they quickly found themselves unable to pay.

Excessive use of debt is the major factor in this senario.

When should I buy a home?

The popular beliefe in america for decaids is why rent when you can buy a home?

Seems to make perfect sense doesn’t it?

One of the problems is this,if you rent and you find yourself in credit or income trouble,you just move into another lower cost apartment.

If you purchase that home and streatch yourself to the max and beyond

and find yourself in credit or income trouble your stuck!

In My town Home values were giong up 15% per year 5 years ago.Builders were unable to build homes fast enough to meet the demand. As the matrket became saturated and more of the people could not afford the payments on the new home,they found themselves unable to sell and fell further behind until they lost there home’s.

On my street alone (about 40 homes) there are 4 homes abandoned.

The owner could not sell and could not make the payments so they just moved out.

My county has one of the highest forclosure rates in the Nation!

Every street in the newer neighborhoods has forclosures on it.

The home value today in my neighborhood is $40,000.00 Less than it was 4 years ago on average.

We can not blame the Government for this, we brought it on ourselves.

When then shoud I go into debt for 30 years for a home?

Lets consider a few basics.

First we should have a sound budget. One that has money left over at the end of the month.

Second we should eliminate all consumer debt! Credit cards,store accounts,finance company loans  family loans etc.

Next we should establish a sound cash reserve(Savings account) at least $2,000.00

Then we should save at the very least 5% of the ammount financed(preferably 20% or more). for a down payment.

We should establish with great care form our budget what we can easily afford to Pay per month.

Take great care here you will have taxes , insurance and associalion fees added to your payment every month,in most cases and THEY WILL GO UP EVERY YEAR!

Once you have determined these paramiters then go shopping with the mindset, we will not exceed these limits we have placed on ourselves period!

If you follow these guidelines your new home will be a blessing.

If you do not you may find,as tens of thousands of new homeowners have found,how quickly that dream home becomes a nightmare.

Don’t be too quickly pressures by family, friends  Realtors or Builders to buy a home when it is not easily affordable, or when we are in debt. or when our income does not merit the cost.

Take your time, do it right, make that home a dream home! 

Next time we will discuss the largest financial loss area in the American family.

INSURANCE!