On the 10th of August we looked at the ‘financial milestones’ you should have reached by the time you are in your 30’s.
As with many things, these are not ‘set in stone’ but in general, they are good indicators of how you are doing on your road to financial health.
This week on RTE’s ‘Talking Money’ we looked at the cost of raising a child. Everybody who ever had kids knows it’s expensive, but did they realise it can cost about €105,000 per child? That’s a real eye opener and that so many parents cut back on vital financial needs like life insurance to allow for general consumption is a concern. As always, you’re bound to be entertained as Karl Deeter and Jill Kerby ‘talk money’.
When one of the best investors the world has ever known says you should stay out of debt it might be worth listening to! We are advocates of keeping debt as low as possible, this involves financial habits and life habits that lead to financial success. Enjoy the video, the words of this video are full of wisdom.
The idea of ‘financial milestones’ is that at certain times in a persons life they should have achieved certain financial goals. This isn’t materialism, it’s simply a money amount which demonstrates the level of financial sense being instilled in the person, the same as school tests show levels of literacy etc.
Karl Deeter and Jill Kerby went through some that children should have at certain ages and why they are important.
This was our first time to do ‘Talking Money’ on RTE’s Drivetime Show, we looked at financial resolutions, how to make them simple, and most importantly, how to set them up so you actually implement them, the key is to take small steps and form habits rather than trying to do it all at once. Listen in to the clip to find out more!
I have no doubt that as we keep pushing more and more money into the system to keep the ship afloat that it may prove to be inflationary, but how much and when? We already saw the hawks point towards rising oil and gold prices as evidence but then those commodities have come back from their highs – perhaps there is a degree of speculation at play, or the fundamentals changed as prices rose, it is easy to suppose, difficult to factually nail down.
The idea that inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomena is a famous Milton Friedman quote, but there is a difference at play now versus the way things worked in the past in terms of how the timing might work.
When money was ‘real’ (backed by precious metals), debasement had a very immediate effect, and once it became apparent people would take money out of circulation and have it re-minted elsewhere; that is why ‘sterling silver’ has that name, because British sterling was considered to be of a high quality, the …
There was a post on Geckko’s World about Negative Equity Loans – and he rightly pointed out that there had been an instant and widespread denouncement of them, then going on to point out that if a person was to try to reduce their debt that it could in fact be a very good concept. My opinion is that the focus will not be as a facility to reduce a persons debt but rather to increase, however, Geckko makes some very interesting and valid points which show that the first reaction was perhaps not totally balanced, as well as giving some smart operational guidelines (it’s worth leaving here for a while to check out the post).
However, there are some distinct advantages for the lender in this process as well which I have not seen any commentary on (if you have please post links in the comment section!).
1: Reduced borrower risk: Surely a higher LTV makes it riskier right? …
The ‘best rate’ is a misnomer because interpretation of what is the ‘best’ is a subjective question, for a very conservative person a 10 year fixed rate is ‘the best’ and from that point the ‘best’ will likely be whatever is the cheapest ten year fixed rate, having said that, after careful consideration the best 10 year fixed rate mortgage might be one that allows you to pay off a lump sum during the fixed period without any penalty thereby ensuring that you can eat into your capital quicker, is a feature like that worth extra money each month if it isn’t the cheapest? To some people it may be, to others it isn’t.
If you are considering a property purchase and are not a cash buyer then you will need financing, and this comes at a ‘price’, the interpretation of that price is generally the rate, so which rate is better (we’ll assume you want a 1 year fixed rate), 2.5% or 2.6%? Naturally you’d be inclined to say it is …
The approach of underwriting in banks is an ever changing beast, sometimes they seem to focus only on payslips and p60’s, at other times its Salary certs and bank accounts for the last six months, recently we have seen a rise in the number of people who are being asked for marriage certificates or ‘marriage licences’.
Initially it seemed a bit odd and then (this is one of the times where you grin realising the world has changed and failed to inform you) we saw that it was always coming up in married couples where the woman hadn’t changed her last name to that of the husbands.
In our office its a 100% change from the old way, none of the women have their husbands names, and of the married men, none of their spouses took their names (myself included). It seems there is a serious social shift in place with the current generation of people getting married, it would seem that fewer and fewer women are taking the …
We have been touting fixed rates for quite some time on the basis that people needed to fix at the time rates were heading for historic lows, not after the fact, as well as that, the indications from the ECB that they would not go below 1% and instead would seek alternative options (such as QE) meant that once we got close to the 1% the forward market would price that in, but when we actually reached the 1% base that equally the forward market would price in rising rates.
That is exactly what has happened, it wasn’t front page news when we said it, although the Sunday Times did do a big story in their business section in mid-February, but now that banks are starting to raise their interest rates it certainly is!
It gets back to planning, without exception every client we had that deliberately went for a fixed rate in the interim is in a good position, some who have opted for variable rates are doing well …
