MONEY CLIPPED

Learning about personal finance doesn’t have to be boring for you or your kids.

Thanks to various government agencies, private financial institutions, and charitable foundations there are lots of entertaining ways to improve the financial literacy of all the members of your family including yourself. While most of the sites listed below are geared towards kids and teenagers doesn’t mean you can’t learn something from them as well. You just might find you don’t know as much as you think you do…

FEDVILLE
This game from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco is designed to show kids how to earn, save, and spend money.

IT ALL ADDS UP
Games and simulations for teens from the Council for Economic Education.

GAMES @ PRACTICAL MONEY SKILLS
A collection of games sponsored by Visa including Financial Football, Roadtrip to Savings, Ed’s Bank, and more.

RICH KID SMART KID
A variety of free online games from Cashflow For Kids

FUNACIAL GAMES
Young Americans Center for Financial Education brings you these a broad array of finance games for different agents groups

PLANET ORANGE
ING helps kids, from 1st to 6th grade, learn about earning, spending, saving and investing.

SAVINGS QUEST
An interactive online budgeting game that tests kids’ ability to save for the things they want while paying for all of the things they need. Sponsored by Wachovia Securities.

YOUNG INVESTOR
Finance education games and puzzles for kids, teens, and parents from Columbia Management.

ESCAPE FROM KNAB
U.S. Bancorp brings kids this SciFi adventure that helps them learn to earn and save.

H.I.P. POCKET CHANGE
From the U.S. Mint comes this big collection of games about money, history, and more.

BAD CREDIT HOTEL
Try this clever mystery game about maintaining good credit from the U.S. reasury.

JUMP$TART’S REALITY CHECK
A test to help you understand how your desired lifestyle affects how much money you will need to earn.

These are online games so it helps to make sure you have Javascript enabled in your browser and the latest version of Adobe Shockwave.

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My house had been on the market just over 2 months when we finally got an offer.

The buyer was enthusiastic and had a letter of pre-approval from the bank. After 2 days of negotiations, we settled on a price. We made some major concessions just so we could get the house unloaded ASAP rather than hold out for a better price. What was even better was the buyer wanted to close in 20 days.

For the next 3 weeks we navigated the various repair issues and FHA requirements. In all we spent about $2500 to meet FHA and buyer requests.

I had planned to order all the utilities turned off the day before closing but had been too busy. Good thing. Closing day arrived and our agent called to tell us the buyers financing was rejected.

It seems that the buyer had recently divorced and his wife got their car. Whether intentional or not I don’t know but he left the car title and loan in both their names and his ex failed to make several payments. This oversight was enough to hit his FICO score so hard no one would underwrite his loan. The deal was dead.

Was there an earnest check? Yes. Could we claim it? No. He didn’t back out of the deal intentionally so our agent said we couldn’t get it without a protracted fight.

The house is still on the market but at least we know once we get another offer, everything on our end is ready for a quick close.

There are two lessons you can take from my experience:

2. If you get divorced, DO NOT leave any debts in both people’s names or it may come back to haunt you.

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The Peter G. Peterson Foundation is on a mission to:

increase public awareness of the nature and urgency of key economic challenges threatening America’s future and accelerate action on them

To that end, the Foundation has:

$$$ helped fund and promote the documentary I.O.U.S.A.

$$$ joined forces with mtvU to help promote youth debt awareness via InDebtEd

$$$ released for free the 2009 State Of The Union’s Finances: A Citizens Guide

$$$ acted as a clearinghouse for information on the national debt and issues affecting our debt

Their latest effort is an educational and entertaining parody web site for the accounting firm of OWEN AND PAYNE which features several humerous video clips. In this clip, Owen and Payne explain why you owe $184,000:

Its obvious that the current presidential administration and its predecessor are oblivious to or unconcerned with the dangers of our skyrocketing national debt. Both the Republicans and the Democrats have shown they are willing to placate the masses today at the expense of America’s long-term financial security.

Its up to us as individuals to get involved and speak up to prevent the erosion of our nation’s and children’s economic future.

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Sometimes the state of our nation’s banks seems so absurd and baffling you can’t help but laugh at it. We trusted the ivy league MBA’s and now the jokes on us.

Here are a couple of bank parodies to help keep your spirits up.

First up: Pile Of Money Bank

Next we have: The New F***ing Citibank
Warning: this one is probably considered NSFW due to language

Next time the banks start asking for more bailout money, people should flood the banks’ e-mail system with these two videos.

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This post is running a bit late due to technical incompetency on my part but I wanted to share it anyway

$787 BILLION

Stop for a moment and write that number out with all the zeroes. I Honestly, I can’t really comprehend that number. That’s the size of the Stimulus Bill.

Since the next two generations of Americans are going to have to foot this bill, and they will, because every dime of that $787B is borrowed money, I figured I should at least take a closer look at what its being spent on.

You should to and here’s where you can go to look to see what your state and all the others are getting:

STATE-BY-STATE BREAKDOWN OF STIMULUS BILL SPENDING PROJECTS

Its a pretty detailed breakdown. I have to admit there are a lot of infrastructure things in it that are probably desperately needed like bridge and road repair but amidst all of that are more questioable things like $650,000 for playground equipment for Columbia, MO. Columbia better have some mighty impressive playgrounds. And speaking of playgrounds, America’s playground, Las Vegas, is getting $375,000,000 to construct a new performing arts center. I’m sure that will be very stimulating for all the ballet and modern dance fans in Vegas. I’m not picking on just these two towns. Every state has similar or even more suspect projects whose degree of economic stimulus is seriously questionable.

It comes down to a matter of priorities and common sense. At a time when our deficit is so high, our economy is teetering on the brink, and our long-term financial doiminance questionable- is borrowing money from China and the Middle East to build new performing arts centers really the way to go? Do we have no long-term vision or do we just not care? Spend for today and tomorrow be damned? This doesn’t feel like trying to provide a better future for our children. It feels like instant gratification.

Americans borrowed our way into the current economic crisis and now our government is trying to borrow our way out of it. Brings to mind one of my favorite quotes:

And while we may get what we deserve, our children and grandchildren don’t deserve to pay the price for our lack of foresight and greed.

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I’m envious of those who qualify as first-time home buyers today.

Now that the stimulus plan has been settled, the provisions in it can be factored into the home-buying decision. I can’t imagine a much better scenario. The first-time home-buyer has so much going for them this year:

1. HOME PRICES- In most localities home prices are at or near their bottom. Odds are you’ll never have a better chance to snatch up a house at such low prices. In some areas of the country, a home mortgage payment can be considerably less than apartment rent payments.

2. HUGE HOME INVENTORIES- Whether you’re looking to buy a new house or an older home, there are more houses for you to choose from than ever before which means you don’t have to settle for second best and you are in a great position to bargain.

3. NEW TAX CREDIT- The stimulus bill about to be signed by the president offers first-time home buyers an $8,000 tax credit that does not have to be repaid. It would have been nice if the Democrats had seen fit to throw a bone to those of us who are not first-time home buyers but no such luck.

4. HIGHER LOAN LIMITS- The 2008 higher loan limits for FHA, Freddie Mac, and Fannie Mae have been reinstated to help compensate for regional housing price differences.

5. LOAN HELP IS AVAILABLE- There are first-time home buyer loans available to those who qualify, some requiring little or no money down.

As always, you need to seek the advice of qualified real estate and mortgage professionals and do research, research, research before making a move. Take the time to make sure you know what you’re getting into but don’t procrastinate either or you may end up kicking yourself next year for having missed out on the home buying opportunity of a lifetime.

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And I’m betting I’m not alone.

Yesterday the real arrogance and callous disregard for any kind of budget discipline in Washington came shining through when New York Senator Chuck Schumer’s brain fart made it out into the public. Here it is straight from the horse’s rear-end, I mean mouth:

Just in case you didn’t get that, here it is in print:

And let me say this to all of the chattering class that so much focuses on those little, tiny, yes, porky amendments, the American people really don’t care

Well, I’m an American, Chuck, and I care!

I care that Democrats AND Republicans feel obliged to spend money like the bill will never come due.

I care about the huge national debt that my children’s generation will have to shoulder because you and your comrades just had to have your “porky” favors.

See, unlike you, Chuck, I am not a career politician who has NEVER held a job outside of politics (reference). Your lips have been glued to the teet of one government or another for so long, you have no concept of of the value of work or the realities of debt. As long as the government is funding your salary, health care, and pension, why should you care where else the money goes or who will have to repay it one day?

You don’t want to stimulate the private sector, you want to stimulate government jobs and campaign contributors and you, and your accomplices on The Hill, do that with your “porky amendments”.

The fact that this bill has had SO much opposition in both houses is proof that many American’s DO care about the pork.

Chuck, you are smug and arrogant and I truly pity the people of New York that they have the likes of you for representation. You are supposed to watch the people’s backs, not stab them.

To everyone else, if you are an American who does care about the “porky amendments” of Chucky and his buddies, you can tell him so by going HERE.

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