The giant sucking sound at the bottom of the global pool
If you’re not a regular listener of This American Life, you may have missed the May episode entitled “The Giant Pool of Money”. It explains why what we have now isn’t just a ‘sub-prime mortgage lending...
View ArticlePut that money where it belongs, dammit
Here’s yet another reason why checking online account information regularly is a good idea: My regular monthly electronic payment on our second mortgage went out to Bank of America on June 3. On June 4...
View ArticleTo buy or to rent: failing to predict the future of housing
In the last month I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that purchasing this house when we did was a huge financial error. It’s been hard, and I’ve engaged in a lot of self-flagellation over the...
View ArticleRetrospective rubbernecking at the subprime mortgage disaster
As I mentioned once before, I have a block on ‘formal’ book reviews, so consider this just a friendly little chat, okay? I trust Stacy’s opinions implicitly, particularly on matters of journalism, so...
View ArticleMortgages: knowing when to walk away
In January 2011 Jak and I made a bold and controversial financial decision that would send our lives down a sharply different path. We decided to default on our mortgages. For background, you should...
View ArticleWhat to do — and not do — with your former mortgage dollars
With the decision to stop paying our mortgage, our immediate expenses dropped by nearly $3000 per month. That saved us over $32k in 2011 alone. So what did we do with all that ‘extra’ money? Well,...
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