Say you're working freelance for someone. Your price is £20 per hour, and you work for 5 hours.

£100 total is owed to you, but then when they go to pay you, through say Paypal, the fees kick in and you are sent £80.

You ask why, and they tell you it's because of the fees. They sent you £100, but the fees dragged it down.

Is it up to you as the worker to take the hit, or should they be buffering the payment to a point where you receive what you asked for?

Additionally, there are other sites such as Wise that allow much lower fees; would it be too much to ask them to pay you through that, considering it requires more setup than just a Paypal account, that someone would likely have anyway?

Just wondering what is the money required to be put up by buyer

I am in the early research stages of purchasing a home. There is a new construction neighborhood opening this summer in my city, and ideally, this is where I would like to move. I know that typically, with new construction, you need to put down 2%-5% of earnest money to secure the build, which should not be a problem with my savings.

HOWEVER, I’m currently banking with an online bank. There is no brick-and-mortar building I can walk into, and they do not issue cashiers checks or even regular paper checks, though apparently paper checks are “coming soon.”

I was originally drawn to this bank because they have a ridiculously high APY for savings accounts, especially per today’s standards. Now that I’m looking to purchase a home, I am beginning to have my doubts.

I hear that many builders/lenders will accept a wire transfer, which my current bank can definitely do, but I don’t want any surprises when it comes time to secure my spot in my dream neighborhood.

Would it be wise to open a new savings account with a different bank that issues checks & cashiers checks... just in case?

Any insight is greatly appreciated!

I am having a difficult time full understanding the differences and advantages of one over the over in regards to a large down payment and earnest money when it comes to making an offer on a house. Could someone break down what I would gain or how it favors the seller more if I put up more earnest money vice significant money down?

Hello! My family has our eyes on a new construction starter home. We have been pre-approved for financing and are ready to proceed. However, we have run into a confusing situation. The seller will not give us access to the contract to look over without us first giving an earnest payment. All experienced homebuyers I know have told me this is highly irregular and I wanted to check with you all and get your opinions. Thanks in advance!

My wife and I have been looking at houses for the past 3 months and finally settled on the fact that we are going to build so our kids don't have to move schools. We previously were under contract for 2 different houses that had varying issues that were discovered during the inspections and we backed out and were able to get our earnest money back.

We are now looking to build a house with a local builder (reputable from what I could tell) and they are requiring a $2K down payment. From my previous experience in building a house (San Antonio), I was able to give earnest money and not a down payment.

The contract they sent over for us to sign noted that we are to give $0 in earnest and $2K as a down payment. Their contract also states "In the event of cancellation of this contract by either party, the Down Payment will not be refunded."

My worry is that if something were to come up either during the build or the inspections ( we are hiring our own inspector for multiple inspections throughout the build of the home) or any other facet of the construction and they decide they do not want to take care of it, then we have no recourse to re-coup our money the same way we would if it were earnest money as we previously did. Also, if for some reason the house didn't appraise bc the VA is ridiculous with their appraisers in our area, we are out our money.

The house comes pretty well upgraded and we get to make a boat load of selections for things that are included in the price. However, if we wanted them to do something as an upgrade then we are to pay dollar for dollar for that item and we wouldn't be able to get that money back if it were to fall through. My realtor told us that is industry standard for new builds and it makes sense. We just decided that we wont upgrade anything with the builder, especially things that i can do myself (lights, fans, etc...) Does this hold true for other parts of the country? We are in the Oklahoma City Area (Edmond) if that makes a difference.

Edit: My realtor got the builder to agree to change it to half ($1k) as a down payment and half ($1k) as earnest money to make me fell more comfortable with the whole thing. Turned out for the best. I do agree that the builder needs to protect themselves to some degree for doing whats involved with the process.

I am from California. I put an offer on a triplex in Cincinnati, Ohio with an earnest check of 1K. The contingency period was 10 days based off an inspection. On the listing they advertised that the potential rent for this property is $3200. during the inspection period I called some property managers in the area and they said the most it will rent for is $1900. On day 3 I contacted my agent wanting to terminate the contract. I then called my bank to put a stop payment on the earnest money. My agent advised me to not cancel the check, so I called back and took off the stop payment. However, the stop payment still went through and the seller agency will not respond to emails regarding the release of the earnest check.

My agent informed me I may have a lawsuit on my hands and its best to lawyer up.

I was wondering if this is true. I am aware i breached the contract, but i was wondering if the seller side would notify me of the breach, and give me a timeline on how I can correct it in order to avoid a lawsuit. I was also wondering if it is likely they come after me. Doesn't a lawsuit against me mean they have to come to California courts? Would they go through all this trouble for 1K?

I have no issue sending another earnest check that won't get bounced as long as the way it gets dispersed is fair/decided by a judge.

please let me know your thoughts! I am very new to investing. This would have been my first property.

Hi, I’m a first time home buyer, buying a condo in CA. I am looking for clarification on what costs I should expect after my down payment. What does the earnest money deposit usually cover? Are permits/ inspections included usually in the closing costs? If you can explain it like I’m five, that’s probably best.

I can reason it away as I did miss one, but then again I missed it due to a mistake on my end.

Note: this isn't a complaint and I will happily keep everything, but there is that whole "fair game, fair play" expectation.

Below email message received from Earnest on 18 Feb:

Hi ponyXpres,

Over the past few months, many of you have provided feedback on the changes made to your client dashboard last fall. We’re working hard to restore the beloved Earnest features that were removed, and we’re excited to finally announce a timeline for the return of our first (and most requested) feature, Biweekly Auto Payments!

What are Biweekly Auto Payments?

Instead of making your loan payments once a month, this feature allows you to set up automatic payments every two weeks. Many clients prefer this option so they can align their payments with their paychecks. Making smaller, more frequent payments can actually reduce your accruing interest, saving you more money over time.

When is this happening?

We’ll be rolling out the Biweekly Auto Payment option during the month of April. The exact date can differ per account, so we’ll send you a note letting you know when you can start using it. Your account won’t be automatically switched over, so there’s no need to worry if you prefer to stay on your regular monthly schedule. The option will just be available if you want to try it.

What’s coming next?

Our Android and iOS apps are in the works and will be ready in the next few months. Stay tuned for updates!

Thanks again for your support as we work to make your experience better.

All the best, Team Earnest

Since the buyout and removal of bi-weekly payments, I've been having nothing but issues with payments on Earnest's website. I emailed them a couple weeks back to change my payment amount since I was previously set up for bi-weekly payments. I was told I'd have to submit a second payment that week to ensure my full monthly amount due was paid, even though the system said $0 was due because an auto-pay was received a couple days prior. I didn't see that payment posted to my bank account after a few days, so I scheduled another payment, only to find out just this last week both extra payments were debited from my account. So it took well over a week for the auto-payment to post.

I was also told in the email that I wouldn't have to adjust my auto-pay amount, as it would be done automatically after the next statement period. Well, here we are in the next statement period, and it's still showing a scheduled auto-pay in the old bi-weekly amount, not the full payment amount they told me it would be. However, the amount due still only shows that bi-weekly amount. I have no idea if it's just broken, or maybe that extra payment I was swindled into is throwing the amounts off.

I figured whatever, I'll just un-enroll in auto-pay and fix it. So I risked the loss of the .25% auto-pay discount figuring it won't be a big deal since I'm going to immediately re-enroll. I went through the process, and it still shows my old bi-weekly amount as the auto-pay amount, with no way to change it. And now, refreshing my dashboard still appears that I'm not enrolled in auto-pay at all.

Why is this allowed? There's been plenty of time to iron out any kinks encountered when Navient decided to "fix" a system which wasn't even broken, and now it doesn't work at all. I guess this was their goal, though. The old system was broken to them because it worked for us.

Has anybody else figured out how to get auto-pay working reliably? I'd call them, but I don't want to waste an hour of my time waiting on hold just for the same end result.

Are you considering purchasing a home? If you are, then you will want to understand the difference between Earnest Money Deposit versus a Down Payment. The earnest money deposit demonstrates good faith to the seller that a buyer is serious about purchasing a home. The amount of earnest money is negotiable.

https://preview.redd.it/z09vf9226s941.jpg?width=580&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b1ac890783d45144a04765654ec310e8b3e29a78

The earnest money or initial deposit gets deposited into an escrow account. The escrow company is a neutral holding party between the buyer and the seller.

I'm taking some time off most of my hobbies to study for exams, and I'm wondering if Time, the healer will still give me my payments and reduce my menaces while I'm away. If he doesn't, does anyone know the minimum I need to do to farm them?

I recently refinanced with Earnest, and have a $650 monthly payment, automatically taken from my checking account on 5th of every month. I get paid on the 15th and last day of the month, so with each paycheck, I pay an extra $300 - either on or a day or two after payday.

I've noticed that the extra payments are being split towards interest and principal. My extra payment on January 17th was $207.91 Principal/$92.09 interest. My extra payment on February 1st was $185.29/$114.71. It then shows that my February 5th payment tomorrow (the auto monthly payment) is $619.50/$30.50.

Does it really matter that the extra payments are going towards interest? Because all that does is allow a much larger chunk of my monthly payment to go to principal. Or am I better off setting my extra payments aside, and making an extra payment of $600 on the 6th of every month so it all goes to principal?

It's rather hidden but it's there.

If you are already enrolled in auto-pay scroll to the bottom of the profile tab.

There is a "Change Auto Pay Frequency" button. Then you can select every 2 weeks.

I haven't tried it but it appears to be a self-service feature?

Among the additions are support for same-day payments, payment by check, and paying from multiple accounts online. Going away are the ability to make bi-weekly auto payments, the ability to self-service change your due date in the dashboard, and viewing your payment history from before the switchover. Other changes include that a loan will be reported to all three credit bureaus, and monthly statements will be available. Dashboard and iOS app updates are planned too.

Details: https://help.earnest.com/hc/en-us/articles/360009513493-FAQ-Changes-to-Your-Earnest-Dashboard

Client wants to put 20% down payment and 80% financing. When it goes into contract in NYC, how much do we put down for a deposit? Is there an amount for a coop?

The new week has arrived, and yet I have not received a new Earnest of Payment... and my Nightmares stand by 7!!!

Is it only with the offer to purchase?

Or do you also put up earnest money if you want a no shop clause for a period in which to conduct your due diligence on the business? Obviously you won't know if you'll be submitting an offer until the DD is over.

Our down-payment was only ever 6%. We scratched together 10k, the contract they were hoping to have ready by Xmas, suddenly the contract is ready on the 10th, today(15th) they're pressuring us to make a down-payment of 20k. I'm borrowing money but its going to take a few days. Also we need to have 65k by closing(jan 30th) and a huge paper trail for all of it. It seems the seller is signing on their new house but can't until we come up with the 20k down payment. Am I wrong to think Fuck all of them? Its just a house, far from perfect, doesn't even have a garage, needs a bunch of repairs that they weren't interested in negotiating on. Claiming there's a bigger offer from someone else.

I am doing it. Finally making a decision. I'm sick of renting. I don't make much money but i want out of renting. Only make 45k and putting an offer on a 100k home and I gotta put 5% down and I bunch of other expenses. I only have 13k in savings.

If i sign this offer letter does that mean it's too late to back out?

Our background: My husband and I are a somewhat typical DINK couple, so we probably had an easier path to FI than most. I was extremely frugal long before I'd even heard of FIRE, so much so that I had been able to purchase a townhouse in a LCOL city in my mid-20s while working in customer service (the secret? Rent a room in a house with 8 roommates and suppress your irritation for however long it takes to save the down payment). I moved on to a career that had me earning $80k at my highest in the next decade, and met and married my husband who made $150k at his highest point in the next decade. I learned about FIRE and got my husband interested, so we started saving in earnest. Now we're in our early 40s, have a little over a million in assets/investments, and a house that is worth 750k* that we owe 500k on (our LCOL city rapidly turned into a very HCOL city over the last few years, which actually benefitted us since we'd always kept that first townhouse as a rental).

Anyway, the point is that while we aren't quite ready to retire completely yet, the fact that we could within a few years means that we actually don't feel the need to so strongly. I quit my high-stress job at the beginning of the pandemic and took a year off. Once vaccines were available and I started looking, I was able to be extremely choosy and turned down 3 opportunities before taking on my current one. It doesn't pay as well as my previous job, but is so low stress that the trade-off is worth it. I'm pretty sure my manager thinks I'm broke (possibly because of things like my rusty 2007 Honda civic, my daily brown bag lunches, and my very low key wardrobe), because she's always surprised when I turn down extra hours. However, my years of scrimping mean that now I can sleep in every day and still keep my evenings and weekends free.

There's a chance my husband will lose his job in the next few months, and we aren't worried about that either. He might or might not find something that pays as much. He'll probably take a few months off before even looking. Eventually he'll find something that suits him as much as my job suits me, and retirement might be pushed back to age 50 instead of 45, but who cares? We always joke that our worst case scenario involves selling our house and retiring to the Maritimes.

I still believe that money doesn't buy happiness. My husband has a life insurance policy that would let me pay off the house and retire now, but I'd much rather have him a

Hi everyone. I would like to share this piece that I made. It might just help first time homebuyers.
First published here.

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The TL;DR:

When buying properties on the secondary market or those properties not owned by reputable real estate developers, you first have to make sure that the seller is 110% legit before you even give a centavo. Due diligence is the process of finding out if the seller is 110% legit. This should be obvious, but to some, it isn’t. This is what motivated me to write this piece. ----

The Story

There were two funny events that happened this week concerning due diligence, that I'd like to share with you.

On the first event, our brokerage was on the buying side. The seller of the property insisted that our buyer provide first a down payment BEFORE we could conduct a due diligence.

For the second event, our brokerage was on the selling side. This time, the buying party wanted our seller to basically do the due diligence on himself; submit the Certified True Copies of the Title and Tax Declaration to them (buyer’s party).

Now, before I tell you the mistakes in the above mentioned events, please understand that different brokerages have different policies concerning due diligence so, I would like to explicitly inform you that the views and opinions contained herein are my own.

Alright. Now that we have that cleared up, here’s the mistake or red flag in the first event:

When buying properties on the secondary market (secondary market are those for sale properties that are no longer owned by developers) you should never, in any instance, transfer money or pay a reservation fee or down payment if you have not yet verified the authenticity of the ownership of the seller.

In simple terms: you do not part with your hard earned money if you have not made sure that the full name of the seller is the same one written in the Title and that the Title presented to you is similar to the the copies held by the condo/subdivision administrator and Land Registration Authority/Registry of Deeds.

Explain-To-Me-Like-Im-Five? Don’t give money to that wo/man if you’re not 110% sure that s/he is the owner of the property.

There are scammers who could produce a fake Title and have you fooled! This is the reason why you need to know basics of due diligence so you would not be victimized.

For the second event, the mistake was aski

Three years ago, I discovered the concept of FIRE which opened my eyes to the possibility of financial independence. While I was not naïve to the basics of personal finance, there were clearly opportunities for improvement and so I decided to apply myself to making changes. At the end of 2019, I started a tradition of completing an annual summary write-up which I found to be a useful tool for reflection and planning. In recognition of this year’s financial milestone, this write-up will combine the usual annual summary with additional detail about the journey to get to this point.

Advisory: This is a long post. For those who just want to see the numbers, you can see income/net worth in the 'Net Worth Update' section, and expenditure in the 'Maintaining a Savings Rate of 70%' section.

Net Worth Update:

I am pleased that I have now reached $1,040,247 net worth. The table below summarises my net worth journey.

https://preview.redd.it/2fqhkj6e41981.png?width=1489&format=png&auto=webp&s=6a6830dec957c48035207c5a4b4cb3da920c7048

Notes about the table:

• The net worth calculation is the sum of cash savings, shares, PPOR, mortgage, and superannuation.
• Base salary is presented as gross values and excludes the standard superannuation guarantee and overtime. I worked extensive overtime during the first few years of my career whilst living with my parents which explains the very high savings rate during this time.
• Base salary also excludes a salary packaging arrangement which allows $9,095 of salary to be tax-free (as general living expenses), and a further $2,500 of salary to be tax-free (as meal entertainment expenses).
• Dividend income is presented as gross values (amount paid out + franking credit).
• Cash savings were kept in a HISA pre-mortgage, and are now in an offset account against the mortgage.
• The share portfolio has the respective Dividend Reinvestment Plans (DRPs) switched on for all holdings.
• PPOR values are approximated using CommBank's property app.
• The 'L' values in Work History refer to position grades. The higher the 'L' value, the more senior the role.
• All values are recorded at the close of business on the last business day of the calendar year.

The Person:

• I'm 34, single, and don't have any dependents.
• I live in metropolitan Perth, Western Australia.
• I work in a tertiary public hospital in a senior position.
• I enjoy my work. For me, FIRE is about having the means to go to work purely because

I've hesitated to make this post as I know that there's a good chance that replies will make me feel worse about my situation, but here goes.

I am 37 years old, my wife 33. We do not come from money. Everything we have in life, we've earned ourselves. We expect nothing from our families as they age except potential further financial hardship should we decide to help them, which is unlikely. We have absolutely no debt. I got through school because of financial aid. We paid off both of our cars, which we should be able to get another 5-10 years out of.

My income: $52,000

Wife's income: $66,000

Our current living situation is renting a one bedroom, 750 sq ft. "luxury" apartment in a nice location outside of Orlando for $1425/month.

We live comfortably. We don't pay attention to our budget, we spend around $5 - $6,000 a year on vacations, and we eat out often. We save for retirement, though not as much as we should.

In savings (after the earnest cash I've already given that I'm about to get to), we have $40,000. In our retirement accounts, we have $150,000 (I'm aware that we should have more).

I know that right now you are likely rolling your eyes and thinking "what is this person complaining about? They're in a pretty OK position!" But, here comes the sad part.

I don't know if it was a moment of insanity, housing crazed FOMO, or social media fueled jealousy of seeing many family-rich acquaintances purchase new homes - but last week - I gave $25,000 earnest cash to build a new home with Lennar. I don't know what happened, but it all happened so quickly. Before last week, I never put much thought into owning a home. We drove to a new Lennar community, and it was perfect. Everything was perfect. And I had followed them for a few days prior and saw how fast their inventory was going.

Before I knew it, I was handing over a 5% earnest money on a $475,000 home. What did I do? It's 2,700 sq. ft. and two stories - more than we'll ever need (we don't plan on having kids or pets). Plans of a home theater and gym raced through my mind, and I signed the contract.

At this point, you may be ready to send me Lennar horror stories, but believe me - I've already tortured myself with all of them. I'm terrified. I haven't slept in 4 nights. I called-sick from work which I never do. The other day, I was reduced to tears and had the first anxiety driven panic-attack of my life. I'm still in shock.

And the worst part? The home is supposed

Hi everyone!

I’m in Virginia (I think central VA, I’m 1.5 hours from Richmond) I currently live at home with my mom and grandparents and I’m finally ready to move out. I work as a nurse and make about 53k with base pay, and a little over 60k if factoring in differentials. I don’t have much saved, about 22k in savings and a credit score of 719 when looking at the scores used for mortgages. I have a car loan, but no other debt. I was considering renting an apartment, townhome, or anything else reasonably priced until I actually started searching and I saw that everything for rent in a 30 mile radius was 1300-1800 a month. I’m thinking buying is the way to go, but I’m wondering if I would realistically even be preapproved for a loan for a house in my area. Renting will definitely be my last resort if I don’t find anything, but I’m hesitant to pay $1800 in rent because I’m thinking of having to try and save for a house while paying rent. I’ve started talking to realtor, to get my feet wet but have done nothing more! What should my next move be? Any advice for me?

Hey everyone, I am reaching out as I am at my wits end with Sallie Mae. I knew the company was trash when I got a loan with them, but my family never really helped me understand the loan process and interest because I was only 17-18 when I started my undergrad. Now 6 years later I have over $60k in Sallie Mae debt and have gotten nothing but the runaround from them. I have variable interest rates from 12% down to 8% on the 3 accounts I have with them. They don’t refinance and will not assist with rate adjustment, making my payments $874 a month and they don’t care that that is not feasible regardless of employment status. They also used up all my grace periods while I was applying to and in grad school.

Any recommendations for companies who refi private loans with high balances and rates? I would prefer to avoid default, because I don’t not want to destroy my credit when there are other plans I’d like to make in the next 5-10 years. I have literally resorted to a gofundme because I cannot afford my first months payment, they are refusing to consider my current living expenses.

I’m looking to buy my first house (will be used as a primary residence for at least a few years). I’ve $50k in my savings account and rest is invested in the stock market. I’m planning to sell a bunch of shares to fund the down payment.

Will this be a problem during the loan approval process? Do I need to carry the entire down payment amount in my savings account until I close the loan? Can I use statements from my brokerage along with savings account statement to apply for the loan? (~ $400k down payment for a ~$2M house)?

I’m getting ready to shop around and have been reading about DPA and was wondering if anyone had luck with this or is it even really out there?

tldr: You probably have no idea what PLBY is going to do, and the market probably doesn't either. Take advantage of that. Long term potential, and big catalyst early December. Make money with the bunny. Beware: Lots of execution risk.

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There's an ancient saying, probably: Can't go tits up investing in tits out. Since the dawn of humankind, men have been willing to shell out their hard earned money in order to suspend all disbelief that, despite the reality that they are disgusting and utterly replaceable blobs of flesh engineered strictly to carry and disperse sperm, they are sexually desirable and relevant.

Playboy made its name exploiting this innate male desire and also made it culturally acceptable -- they somehow convinced people that this practice of shooting swimmers all over the planet is not morally bankrupt, not entirely meaningless and pointless, but rather: it is an aspiration for both men and women to be a part of.

To the dismay of the sock industry Playboy also invented a second, rather high margin, use for glossy paper. By printing images of naked women (likely also seeking the feeling of sexual desirability and relevance) on those pages, Playboy was able to sell those glossy sheets of paper for an incredible mark up... every month. They were also able to build one of the world's most recognizable brands. (It's estimated that the brand has 97% recall. Try to name any other brand with that kind of branding valued below $2b)

From the interview within: \"I think any man enjoys flirtations, and if he said he didn’t, he’d be lying or he’d be a politician trying to get the extra four votes. I think everybody likes knowing he’s well responded to.\"

But the times changed, and so did the time honored tradition of rubbing a quick one out between some pages and hastily disposing of the evidence. Though Viagra was able to extend and harden the founder's penis, it did not, unfortunately, have a similar effect on the business. First VHS, then the internet. Before too long, sock companies were once again rejoicing as hoards of mongers fixed their eyes to screens and their hands to computer peripherals and footwear. At least we're saving some trees.

As the popularity of Playboy faded, management tried a few retarded last ditch efforts to pep up their brand, including removing the cartoons, ending full frontal

Hi,

I am looking to buy my first house. We viewed a house recently which we liked and asked our agent to check what we can offer.

I was suggested to put 10% as earnest money, atleast 20% total as down and the offer to start at list and escalate up to 10% over list if we want to have a chance to get the house as it just came on the market

They are also strongly suggesting using their preferred lenders assuring me ok no kick-backs, rather having a reliable closer.

I am not sure what to make of it. Need some advice

UPDATE:- Twist - The seller says I have to use their lender if I am to make an offer. He enjoys this privilege apparently because he owns more than 20% of the homes in the community. Is this a red flag? Or something which commonly happens?
I am contacting the seller's preferred lender to get a quote anyway

I see all sorts of advice on the internet about refinancing student loans, but very few stories about folks who've refinanced multiple times and the benefits of constantly seeking better rates.

Student loans gave me a chance at a better education than my parents were able to obtain, but they came at a financial and emotional cost that the paperwork surely didn't explain.

As someone who just refinanced $100k+ in student loans for the 5th time in as many years, here's what I've learned along the way.

My Student Loan Story

I spent my early to mid 20s after law school launching a small business. I had left law school with $150,000 in student loans at a variety of interest rates, and had not really given much thought to how I would pay off these loans at the time. Figuring out how to pay off those pesky loans seemed like future me's problem

By the time I started to pay serious attention to my student loans (around the time I turned 28), I realized my potential total cost including interest had skyrocketed to $220,000+.

After the initial stomach-churning reaction, I decided to do something about it. I didn't have a particularly strong credit history when I was 28 so I only able to refinance my highest interest loans (some were at 9.75%!!!) in 2016.

Refinance 1: August 2016: SoFi/Mohela - $31,878 at a 6.25 rate with projected payable interest of 10k+ over 10 years.

Once I had improved my credit a bit, and was able to show a bit more income on the books, I consolidated the remainder of my high-interest loans in April 2017.

Refinance 2: April 2017: Sofi/Mohela - $105,510 at a 6.625 rate with projected payable interest of $66,000+ over 15 years.

If the story ended there, and I stuck with the 2016 and 2017 loans interest rates and minimum payment terms, I'd have ended up paying out $209,698 ($166,746 + $42,952)

The next refinance took place in 2018. I knew I'd potentially be starting a new business soon, and I wanted to lower my interest rates and consolidate my first two refinances while I still had steady income on the books.

Refinance 3: Nov. 2018: Commonbond/Firstmark - $138,307 at a 4.510 rate with projected $33,780 in interest (total of $172,087 over 10 years).

This was almost $40,000 in potential interest savings from my past loans. Considering I was making only the minimum payments on the first two refinances, this was a no-brainer move.

In February 2021, came refinance number 4 on a much more aggressive pa

Got the keys!

We Dave Ramsey’d our debt away and I was hell bent on putting 20% on a 15-year mortgage too. I kept anticipating buying in 1-2 years. I’ve looked at Zillow daily since 2014, first in Nashville where I lived and then in Minneapolis where I relocated and the goal post has steadily been moving further.

Apartment we rent is for sale and we have had multiple showings a week since May. It’s disruptive and annoying, like we pay $2,100/m for this? With our lease ending in April, being 38 and 40 yo and not wanting to rent/move again and we had enough and decided this October we don’t care about that stupid plan anymore and we decided to buy a house. Honestly, I don’t think we’d ever have gotten a house with that plan because of widening goal posts and our stupid bougie DINK location expectations and no freeway commute (I have a driving phobia and can’t drive on the freeway).

October 2021 - decided to buy, no timeline as landlord said we could go month to month if it took awhile. Everything moved super fast though (but felt like an eternity).

10/20 - Met with a mortgage broker. We make ~$170k a year but some of mine is OT (nurse, so this is reliably steady and impossible to explain here bc if you have a pulse you can work and also bc of all these convoluted deals staffing makes to work doubles, etc.) We decided to just use my base salary though to qualify, conventional loan, 3% down. Our credit scores used by the broker were 805 and 803. This part is a little crazy but in early November I picked up enough to shifts to make/save $25k by 12/31 and just used my $401k as a financial asset available in the interim in order to move forward while I squirreled away money for closing. Pretty much did it all backwards and def not recommended probably anywhere ever but it worked. Dave Ramsey would be v disappointed though lol.

We set a wide range of $450-$550k. We wanted to keep our DTI below 25%.

Houses in the 400’s and low 500’s were very competitive and went to bidding wars and all sold for much over despite needing work. Went to open houses and scheduled viewings. Looking now on MLS the ones I liked but didn’t offer on eventually sold for $10-30k over in Minneapolis, like hellooo or ur not the Bay Area get over yourself.

11/12 - Had a scheduled a viewing for a house listing that day for $450k. Loved it. Offered $476 that night. Went to open house the next day and it was bonkers people talking about offering over right

I’m 15k and it seems every time I pay my balance goes up!? 3 separate loans with rates of 10,10, and 11 %. I think I should refinance but not sure where to go to get the best rate. Credit score of 725.

I would appreciate your opinion and resources to find somewhere I can get this done at.

Thank you!

Do your worst!

EDIT: If you are interested in this initiative and/or want to contribute technical skills yourself, please sign up on the Monero Matrix server and join the #monero-recruitment room using these instructions. A list of Monero's open research questions is available here. And here is a great guide on how to begin contributing to the Monero Project.

Let me open this half-baked proposal by saying: I have been a silent observer of Monero for years, but I am very new to actually working on Monero, so I may be very off base. Just let me know.

In order to ensure that Monero users' privacy is well-protected, it is essential to recruit more people with technical skills and knowledge to work on Monero. Over the last two years, Monero's already-limited quantity of high-quality talent has dwindled. We can debate forever why this has occurred, but in any case relying on a tiny number of star researchers makes Monero unacceptably fragile. This must change.

Where to start?

Scholars at universities and within university orbits are great targets for active recruitment. Being something of a scholar myself, it is pretty clear to me that a substantial number of them would be willing and able to contribute to cutting-edge Monero development. It should be self-evident that they are capable of doing so, so I will focus my words on the willingness aspect.

Let me first say that working on Monero will remain niche. Only a small proportion of any set of workers would probably be willing to work on Monero. In the case of scholars at universities, this shouldn't be a concern because a small proportion of millions of people is still a lot of people.

First of all, it is not our comparative advantage to compete with other "employment" opportunities on the basis of salary. Governments who wish to attack Monero have virtually limitless budgets. We can't compete with that. We don't have to either. We should target people for whom salary is not the only motivator. We probably wouldn't want someone whose only motivation is money, anyway, since they would have no qualms about turning around and going to work for Monero's adversaries, clandestinely or openly.

From my experience with scholars, money is usually not at the top of the list of the factor

Hi, All-

I’m seeking advice on possible ways to reduce the monthly payment amount on my private student loans. Will be calling Navient later today or tomorrow.

I currently pay almost $800/month to Navient on 4 private (Signature Student) loans. This isn’t sustainable - even with a decent income ($93k/year) and budgeting - due to other necessary living expenses (Chicago).

(Temporary) forbearance & deferment are not available for me, as I utilized and max’ed out those options while in graduate school (MA & PhD).

When contacted previously, Navient representatives merely responded to my call by asking if my co-signer (my dad) could pay part (if not all) of the monthly amount — he cannot (retired/fixed income).

Does anyone have any advice for lowering the private loan monthly amount or has anyone been in a similar situation?

Thanks in advance!

For context I'm a Refuse Driver (Garbage man) & today I was on food waste. After I'd tipped I was checking the wagon for any defects when I spotted a lone pea balanced on the lifts.

I said "hey look, an escaPEA"

No one near me but it didn't half make me laugh for a good hour or so!

Edit: I can't believe how much this has blown up. Thank you everyone I've had a blast reading through the replies 😂

EDIT: Wow, this got way more attention than I expected it to. To everyone who has congratulated us, sincerely, thank you. But there's been a good bit of negativity because, and I recognize this, the home we're buying is unique and has unique costs. We wanted an older home and we knew that there would be unexpected expenses going into this, which we prepared for. This is also part of why we went with a lower down payment; so that we had more money left over for required maintenance.

I think that this comment really got to the heart of what I wanted to express so I wanted to feature it here:

> Looks like people are picking the story apart. They're missing the point. The cost of purchasing a house is a lot higher than just the down payment and there's a lot of unexpected things that can come up. It doesn't matter if your brother is a roofer or you have a friend who is a building inspector etc etc. There will always be things that your insurance, your hoa, or your survival require getting fixed.

For everyone who paid 1.2k down for their VA / FHA loan and has had absolutely no maintenance issues, there's someone who put 20% down to buy a newish home and had to eat $20k in unexpected repairs within the first 3 months. Basically...buying a house can easily cost more than just your down payment, and you should be prepared for it to, and be pleasantly surprised when it doesn't.

I'm sure most of this is known to many here, but my wife and I are about to close on our first house and I thought I would write up some of the process and costs here (mostly to solidify it in my head, tbh).

We offered 305K on an asking price of 299K on a home in a small rural village in Vermont.

Initial deposit / earnest money - $2000 (goes towards closing)

Upon our offer being accepted, we needed to put down a deposit to show we had "skin in the game"; basically to keep us honest. It would have been refundable if we pulled out of the sale for a "valid" reason, which included things like failure to obtain funding / homeowner's insurance, or just finding the house wasn't to our liking after getting inspectors in. This deposit ultimately went towards closing costs.

Buyer’s Inspection - $1200 $906

We bought an old house (built 1870) so there was no chance of us waiving the inspection / contingency period. We basically had two weeks to get a bunch of

It really does, I swear!

I am house hacking if that makes any difference?