Fortunately, this will be the last in my posts regarding my mortgage refinancing journey. In my last post I mentioned that I was just waiting to close, and today I closed.  It feels fantastic to not have to worry about interest rates, closing costs, appraisals, etc. There was, however, one final obstacle that I had to hurdle prior to closing my refinance.

Three days ago my mortgage broker called and said that there was a minor hiccup with the refinance. He said everything was ready and the refinance was cleared, I just had to come up with $5,600 to escrow for property taxes. $5,600!!!!!!!! What!?!?! I was almost in shock. Why did I have to escrow $5,600 for property taxes? Apparently, the title company requires new construction properties who are closing within two months of property tax assessments to escrow 2% of the appraised value to cover their own behind.

I understand not wanting to be up a creak without a paddle, but $5,600? I discussed property taxes with my Mom for a few minutes where she informed me that when you pay property taxes, you are really paying for the prior year. Every October your property is assessed for property taxes. You then pay those property taxes in two installments, March and October. Your 2008 property taxes are paid for in March and October of 2009. So why did I have to escrow $5,600 to pay 2008 property taxes when I only lived in my condo for three months?

My mortgage lender couldn’t answer my question, so he sent me to his underwriter’s house yesterday. The underwriter had all of my documents ready to sign so that I could close if I got my questions squared away. He showed me the Hud and I nearly cried as the cash from borrower was $10,732.26. All I thought I was paying at closing was my closing costs of no more than $1,600.

There were two reasons for such a high number. First, the $5,600 escrow requirement as well as the fees necessary to set up the escrow account. What a rip. Second, my August mortgage payment hadn’t gone through when the underwriter put the package together so I had some principal, interest and late fees that were going to be removed once he verified my payment went through.

I finally got around to asking my question about property taxes. During the discussion I made him aware that the builder was still in charge of the property and association. As soon as I said that he told me I didn’t have to escrow $5,600 and he would cut the portion of my monthly payment that would be going into my escrow from $466 to $50.

I returned to the underwriter’s house this morning, the day the funds are dispersed, to sign all of the documents. Right away he showed me the Hud and I was pleased. The cash from borrower was now $2,760.41 instead of $10,732.26. The total cash from borrower was higher than the closing costs I was quoted ($1,600) because it included interest to both my old bank (Wells Fargo) and my new bank (Chase) for September. I won’t make my first payment until October. Also, I had to pay down principal until the outstanding balance was $240,000 to reach 20% of the appraised value and avoid PMI.

I’m definitely glad this whole refinancing is behind me. I now know what to expect from a refinancing. I learned some very important information about property taxes. I have a mortgage lender who I will definitely do repeat business with and recommend my friends to. I am no longer paying interest to Wells Fargo, which I’m ecstatic about after they screwed me out of $360. I have a significantly lower interest rate, when coupled with a lower term (15-year) will allow me to build up equity quicker and pay less in interest ($90,954.36 instead of $276,081.18, nearly $200,000 less!!!).

In the near future, look for a post about my new amortization schedule and my foray into property taxes. I will be discussing property taxes with the builder to figure out how this will work until I am given my own tax bill by the government.

Post from: Personal Finance Start-Up Blog

• My First Mortgage Payment And Updated Amortization Schedule
• The Personal Finance Start-Up Blog Begins
• Mortgage Refinance Update
• A Second Attempt at Refinancing my Mortgage
• Current Status of Mortgage Rates and Refinancing Prospects

• Refinance or not?
• $68 Property Taxes?
• How to make paying your year end property taxes painless
• Debt Consolidation Tips
• Should You Refinance Your Home Mortgage?

I’ve decided to do a monthly update of my self employed income projects. The monthly goals update keeps me focused on accomplishing my goals. I’m hoping that by updating my self employed projects once a month it will force me to think critically about what I have accomplished, what I want to accomplish and define task lists to follow for the upcoming month. Hopefully these posts will keep me accountable and on task, as well as be informative and motivational for my readers.

Marketing a new sports drink online

I went a few weeks without making any progress on this project, but then in the past two weeks, I have made significant progress. My Dad and I met with the supplier of the sports drink and talked about our ideas and decided which products we will be selling. We decided to form an LLC for our company. In the past week I have done a lot of research on LLCs and I’m hoping to have one registered within the next two weeks. At the same time my Dad has been in contact with the supplier working out the details about what percentage of the sale will go to us. The following is my current action plan:

1. Register our LLC
2. Sign up for a Business Checking Account
3. Sign up for a PayPal merchant account
4. Set up the online store with PayPal
5. Finalize the website
   • Reasons To Use
   • FAQ
   • Articles (Blog)
6. Begin marketing campaign to gain organic traffic

Writing ebooks for academic subject tests

I haven’t accomplished very much in the past month with regard to this project. I did narrow my website name down to two options. Last month’s update discussed my project scope. I will do more work on this project once the school year commences and I have completed the bulk of the work on the sport drink project. The following is my current action plan:

1. Decide on website name between the two options
2. Set up website
3. Develop outlines for ebooks
4. Begin creating content as blog posts
5. Develop tutoring credentials page
6. Develop contact page

Affiliate marketing campaigns

I’ve done some minimal work on my only affiliate marketing campaign. So far I’ve made four sales on this one project. The negative is that I spent a good amount of time creating it to only have made four sales. The positive is that I made four sales off of a pretty poor product. I have two products in mind that will hopefully be much more successful.

The first attempt at following the One Week Marketing approach taught me one valuable lesson. Do not take a product to completion unless you’re confident it will convert. From this lesson I have derived a new plan for my affiliate marketing campaigns. Instead of making multiple pages for one product, I will make one page for each product until I find one that converts. Once I find a product that converts I will perform a full One Week Marketing assault on that product. The following is my current action plan:

1. Create one page for each of the two product ideas
2. If one of them converts, create a full scale marketing assault
3. Research more products to market
4. Create one page for each product
5. If any of them convert, create a full scale marketing assault
6. Repeat steps 3-5

Ebook about taking ideas to products

This project is in a holding pattern until the sport drink is up and running. I did some keyword research and decided on a website name for the sales page. I also developed an outline based on some minimal research, as well as a slogan for the product. I am waiting for my Dad to create an outline, which probably won’t happen until the sport drink is up and running.

Create a fantasy sports membership site

I have yet to do anymore on this site. I have a domain name reserved. I don’t know if I will be able to pursue this project much further until I have time to consistently blog about baseball and football. If I’m not consistently blogging with this site I will not be successful. I am targeting the beginning of fantasy baseball 2010 as my starting point. Until then I will be trying to develop the website so that all I have to do when 2010 baseball rolls around is write articles.

I also might experiment with the whole ehow game. At the very least, I see people making $100 a month, which will cover all of my online expenses. Additionally, I might start using this monthly update as a forum for expressing my future plans for this blog as they pertain to monetization. That way you all can get inside my head (not that that’s a good thing) and see where the blog is going. Feel free to provide some input as I am definitely not an expert.

Post from: Personal Finance Start-Up Blog

• My List of Projects for Self Employed Income
• My Favorite Articles of the Week
• Goals Update for End of February 2009
• My Favorite Blog Articles of the Week
• End of July 2009 Financial Status

• Blog Commenting - An Easy "How To" For Tons Of Traffic
• Are You Using Social Networking Enough for Your Corporate Blog?
• Increasing Link Popularity
• Why Bad Websites Happen to Good Companies, Part 2: Creating a Website that Doesn't Accurately Represent Your Company
• Selecting a Search Engine Optimisation company

Time continues to fly in 2009. Now that we are into August, I only have 5 months to meet my goals. I still think I can meet most of my goals, however, unforeseen circumstances might have changed the importance of a few of my goals. I will discuss these circumstances in the relevant sections. On to the update towards my goals for 2009.

Personal Finance Goals

• Fully fund 2008 Individual 401k ($8,207.00/$8,207.00) – Completed in March.
  
• Fully fund 2008 Roth IRA ($5,000/$5,000) – Completed in April.
• Fully fund 2009 Individual 401k ($0/$5,264.00) – Last month I said I would put any additional funds that went above my $10,000 emergency fund into my individual 401k. One of the unforeseen circumstances mentioned above has been the ongoing journey towards refinancing my mortgage. I was above the $10,000 mark at the end of July, however, I am now very close to refinancing my mortgage into a 15-year fixed mortgage. This will increase my monthly payments, but greatly decrease my interest over the course of the loan. The new mortgage makes this emergency fund significantly more important. After I pay the closing costs, I will put everything above the $10,000 into my individual 401k. I will fund my Individual 401k before my Roth IRA as I have to pay taxes on that money if it isn’t invested in the account. My Individual 401k account goal for 2009 will increase every month as I realize more self-employed income.
• Fully fund 2009 Roth IRA ($0/$5,000) – Funding this account is secondary to funding the Individual 401k, however, I believe I will be able to fund both.

Alternative Income Goals

• Turn blogging into a source of income – The month of June saw many changes and additions to this blog in an attempt to monetize it. In July I did some tweaking and removing of ineffective ads. I removed the tabbed hopbuilder as it was completely ineffective. I wouldn’t be surprised if I didn’t even get one click. I am finding Microsoft’s Pubcenter to be rather ineffective as well, but it is bringing in a minimal amount of money. The large block of ads in the individual posts that I added showed no income for July, so I will most likely change to another Lending Club ad. I strongly believe in Lending Club. Once I finish investing in my retirement accounts, I will put some more money into Lending Club. Finally, I added a text ad for Casden Properties LLC, which will provide me with fixed income. In July I earned a total of $3.21 from text ads, which is a decrease from last year as my total traffic also decreased. So far I have earned a total of $140.27 through affiliate marketing and text ads, which is already enough to cover the $35 for my first year of hosting and the domain name. My overall goal is $565, which also covers my new laptop.
• Increase monthly page views and subscribers – After switching my focus towards producing self-employed income, I haven’t done a very good job promoting my blog and I’ve also slacked off in the number of posts. My monthly page views decreased from 1,212 to 894. I will try to spend more time in the next month or two to get my blog to ranking higher for specific keywords. This is super important if I want to monetize my blog and I will place a renewed focus on this task in July. I also want to host a carnival by the end of the year.
• Replace tutoring income through a company with my own personal clients – The school year is starting up, but in past experiences, the tutoring generally doesn’t get into full swing until a few months into the school year. I haven’t decided if I will really try to tutor on my own or focus my time on self-employed ventures.

General Goals

• Travel to two cities I’ve never been to – I’m still planning on going to Atlanta to see the Braves play some games. I could potentially travel to San Francisco or Cincinnati to watch the Bears on the road. That could be pretty interesting. I will have to nail down those plans in the near future if they’re going to take place.
• Get in shape – I’ve managed to refocus on getting in shape in July. I’ve started getting up at 7 every morning to bike. I’ve been biking most mornings prior to work. Days that I don’t bike I try to lift. Unfortunately I haven’t seen a major improvement in my weight loss, which means I’ll have to redouble my efforts and stay focused in August. I really wish I was able to run. I suppose it might be time to see a doctor.

It’s scary to think that the year is more than half over. I feel as though all of my goals are still within reach, however, some of them have definitely changed. I know replacing my tutoring income with personal clients is not that high on my list, although I may still do this. Also, I would like to fund my retirement accounts for 2009 before the end of the year, but with a heightened need for an emergency fund and the ability to fund them after the end of the year, that might take a back seat. I suppose we’ll find out in the months ahead. I hope to have some significant accomplishments next month as my mortgage refinancing looks like it will actually take place.

Post from: Personal Finance Start-Up Blog

• My List of Projects for Self Employed Income
• Financial Goals As Of December 1, 2008
• Financial Goals Update as of September 1, 2008
• Goals Update for End of May 2009
• Financial Goals Update As Of November 1, 2008

• The state of my finances
• Blogging for Money Guide
• Feb07 Review of 2007 Goals and Progress Report
• 2007 RateLadder Goal Review -- Overall A-
• Our Family Financial History

July was a great month for my net worth. The market took my investment funds to 2009 highs. I greatly increased my cash position. I finally think I’m going to be able to refinance my mortgage. I will be closing on my mortgage refinance this month with a 15-year fixed mortgage and a rate of 4.750%. Last month I said I would contribute everything above $10,000 in my cash assets to retirement funds. With closing costs pending, I decided to hold off on investing until I officially close. After that I will begin investing in my retirement accounts.

Cash

Last month I joined the $10,000 club and this month I soared past it. It always helps to have three paychecks instead of two, which happens twice a year. I said that I would start shifting funds into retirement accounts to meet my 2009 financial goals, but I want to make sure everything goes smoothly with my closing before I move any funds. The $10,000 emergency fund will be even more important now that I am refinancing into a 15-year fixed mortgage. My monthly payments will increase by $350, but I will build equity much faster. I initiated the process of signing up for a high interest rewards checking account to take advantage of a 5.51% interest rate. Hopefully that account is opened in the near future.

Retirement

My retirement accounts shot up to a 2009 high. I made no new investments even though I have the cash to spare. As mentioned before I am waiting until I close on my mortgage refinancing. The retirement category consists of my solo 401k and Roth IRA, which are both held at Vanguard.

Non-Retirement

My non-retirement accounts went up by a higher percentage than my retirement accounts. My non-retirement category consists of my Target stock through Schwab, US Growth mutual fund through Vanguard, Sharebuilder account and Lending Club account. I don’t foresee any major contributions to my non-retirement accounts, at least not until my retirement accounts are funded. I am thinking about opening up a TradeKing account for the $50 bonus.

Liabilities

Once again my liabilities only decreased by the standard car and mortgage payment amounts. I will very shortly refinance my mortgage, which will require me to pay down the mortgage until $240,000 is remaining prior to closing to continue not paying PMI. The new mortgage is 15-years instead of 30-years so I should be decreasing my liabilities by a larger margin once I close.

Net Worth

My net worth increased by 4.2%. I hit the trifecta this month with an increase in cash, investments and a decrease in liabilities. Hopefully I will begin making more money through my self-employed projects to drive my net worth even higher.

Post from: Personal Finance Start-Up Blog

• End of July Financial Status
• Solo 401k Retirement Account for Self-Employed Income
• End of April 2009 Financial Status
• Overview of Online Savings Accounts
• Current Status of Mortgage Rates and Refinancing Prospects

• Inflation and Retirement Investing
• Your Retirement Savings Account: How To Avoid Tax Problems
• Money Merge Accounts: Just Say, No Thanks.
• Getting Ready to Buy Some Stock
• Banking Reviews: Huntington Direct's Online Savings Account

The last post about my mortgage refinance journey left off with me waiting for either the DU refi program to come through or Fannie/Freddie to revoke their ridiculous hatred towards condos. So I waited and waited for one of the two situations to shake out so I could reap the benefits of a 4.875% 30-year fixed mortgage. Neither happened.

My lender called two days ago and said he could get my application approved without either of the two options above. I didn’t really follow all of the details except that I was good to go. The only problem was that my 4.875% was no longer valid.

My lender said he had been waiting for a week or two for rates to drop and he was concerned the rates weren’t going to drop any lower. Also, if we didn’t close soon, the appraisal and paperwork that had already been filled out would no longer be valid.

He quoted the current rates as follows:

• 30-year fixed – 5.375%
• 15-year fixed – 4.750%

I had a huge decision on my hands. My current mortgage is 30-year fixed at 6.25%, which comes out to a monthly payment of $1502. The 5.375% 30-year fixed has a monthly payment of $1354, a savings of $148. The 4.750% 15-year fixed has a monthly payment of $1842, an increase of $340.

I took a few hours to weigh the pros and cons of a 15-year vs. a 30-year mortgage. Obviously I will be spending significantly less on interest with the 15-year mortgage. The 30-year mortgage comes with significantly less risk since the monthly payment is $488 less.

I can afford the 15-year monthly payment as long as I don’t lose my job. I feel pretty secure with my job. If I were to lose my job, I have contacts at a few local biotech/engineering companies, which should make finding a new job easier. I also have $10,000 built up as an emergency fund, which would make losing my job significantly less disastrous. I still have the option to return to tutoring for some good money. Finally, this added risk will make me even more motivated to make money through my self-employed projects.

In the end, I decided I was a risk-taker. Why should this decision be any different? I will most likely not make another payment to Wells Fargo, which is good because they were not very kind to me. My next payment will be in September so my August “payment” will go towards covering my closing costs.

Hopefully the next installment of my mortgage refinancing journey will be my last. When I close I will update you all and also post about my updated amortization schedule and run a few numbers regarding how much interest I will be saving. It will also be interesting to see how much more equity I will be building with this new mortgage.

Post from: Personal Finance Start-Up Blog

• Estimated Taxes For The Self Employed And How To Avoid Them
• Understanding the Mortgage Amortization Schedule
• Goals Update for End of May 2009
• End of April 2009 Financial Status
• Goals Update for End of July 2009

• All About Emergency Funds
• The Cost of Cash
• Present Value and Future Value - Understanding the Difference
• Making Progress Toward Buying Our Life Insurance
• Accelerated Mortgage Payment Plans: Don’t Waste Your Money

Now that I have enough cash to consider it an emergency fund, I’ve decided to open a rewards checking account. I previously blogged about high interest rate checking accounts. I’ve been thinking about opening one up for awhile and decided that it was necessary since the highest online savings accounts are only hovering around the 2% range. After doing some research, I decided to open an Elite Checking Account from the Members Choice Community Credit Union. It comes with a 5.51% APY for the first $25,000 and 1.01% APY for the funds above $25,000. This great rate doesn’t come with some requirements.

Requirements

• Make 12 Visa Debit purchases per month.
• Have one Direct Deposit or authorize one automatic payment per month.
• Receive electronic statements.
• Access online banking.

The last two requirements are super easy as I do this with my current accounts anyways. Making 12 debit purchases per month should be easy as well. I go out to lunch at work and normally pay with my AMEX true earnings business card, which nets me 3% cash back. For the first 12 lunches of the month I will pay with the debit card and then switch to the AMEX card for the remainder. The last requirement should be easy as well. I will probably switch most of my automatic payments to this account anyways.

Account Setup

So far I’ve only filled out one page online with the standard information: address, name, social, email, etc. I will be contacted within one business day to arrange the completion of the account setup. At that point I will transfer some money into the account and begin transferring my automatic payments to that account. Once all of my automatic payments are coming out of my high interest rate rewards checking account, I will transfer nearly all of my cash into this account to take advantage of the 5.51% APY.

Other Benefits

As long as you fulfill the requirements each month, I will receive the 5.51% APY and $25 in ATM reimbursements. If I don’t fulfill the requirements for a month I will only receive a 0.10% APY and no reimbursements for that month. There is no minimum balance requirements and there are no monthly fees. They have online bill pay. From what I can gather they provide all the bells and whistles of your standard checking account. Additionally, my account is insured up to $250,000 until 2013 and $100,000 afterward by the NCUA (National Credit Union Administration).

After my account setup is complete I’ll post an update that will include what I plan on doing with my remaining accounts. Here’s to having a smooth account setup.

Post from: Personal Finance Start-Up Blog

• New Vanguard Individual 401k For Self-Employed Retirement Savings
• Current Savings and Checking Account Setup
• The Anatomy of My Credit Score
• Links
• End of July 2009 Financial Status

• 5 Reasons to Throw Away Your 401K
• Paying Off Your Credit Cards -- PSA via Mrs. Micah's Dad
• Century Bank Direct - Online Banking But No Bank to Bank Transfers
• 9 Reasons You Need An Online High-Yield Savings Account
• My Cars and My Life

This goals update for the end of June is coming rather late in July as I spent a good amount of time working on my self employed income. Also, my company shipped me out to Knoxville to set up for a clinical trial. Finally, I was sick for a good week, which kind of killed my ability to think. Enough with the excuses, I did get some good work done towards my goals for 2009.

Personal Finance Goals

• Fully fund 2008 Individual 401k ($8,207.00/$8,207.00) – Completed in March.
  
• Fully fund 2008 Roth IRA ($5,000/$5,000) – Completed in April.
• Fully fund 2009 Individual 401k ($0/$5,264.00) – As mentioned in my end of July financial status post, I have $10,000 in cash, which will act as my emergency fund. At the end of each month I will siphon off whatever I have above $10,000 in cash and put it into my Individual 401k. If I have to reach into my emergency fund, I will do so to fulfill these goals by the end of the year, however, the goal is to not have to do that. I will fund my Individual 401k before my Roth IRA as I have to pay taxes on that money if it isn’t invested in the account. My Individual 401k account goal for 2009 will increase every month as I realize more self-employed income.
• Fully fund 2009 Roth IRA ($0/$5,000) – Funding this account is secondary to funding the Individual 401k, however, I believe I will be able to fund both.

Alternative Income Goals

• Turn blogging into a source of income – I’ve done some extensive work with my blog format to enable the monetization of my blog. Last month I added Microsoft’s Pubcenter Ads to my blog for the first time. In June I expanded further and added a large block of ads to the individual posts. I’ve read that the location of this block of ads should be pretty effective. I did add a plugin to prevent them from showing up to my regular readers as they can be pretty annoying when reading a post. I finally added the affiliate ads that I’ve been saying I will adding for months now. I have four 250 X 250 ads in my sidebar. I’m anxious to see how these ads will do. Finally, I added a tabbed hopbuilder that promotes clickbank products. I’m not sure how well these will work, but it can’t hurt to try. In June I earned a total of $7.06 from text ads. So far I have earned a total of $107.06 through affiliate marketing and text ads, which is already enough to cover the $35 for my first year of hosting and the domain name. My overall goal is $565, which also covers my new laptop.
• Increase monthly page views and subscribers – After switching my focus towards producing self-employed income, I haven’t done a very good job promoting my blog and I’ve also slacked off in the number of posts. My monthly page views decreased from 1,304 to 1,212. I will try to spend more time in the next month or two to get my blog to ranking higher for specific keywords. I also want to host a carnival by the end of the year.
• Replace tutoring income through a company with my own personal clients – I’ve decided to spend most of my free time developing niche marketing campaigns and working on projects with my dad. For this reason, my blogging here will probably be effected, but in the long run this is better. I hope to develop enough income to quit my job. At that point I will have more time to pursue blogging. I may still tutor on my own, but I will not consider doing so until the beginning of the next school year.

General Goals

• Travel to two cities I’ve never been to – Technically I went to Knoxville for the clinical trial this past week, but I was sick and didn’t spend very much time checking out the city. I did have some delicious BBQ. If you’re in Knoxville you have to check out Boomerz BBQ. I am definitely going to Atlanta to watch some Braves games and visit a few college friends. I’m still hoping to visit DC, Cleveland or somewhere in Mexico by the end of the year.
• Get in shape – Getting in shape has been very non-existent this past month. Getting sick and having some friends visit has killed my exercising groove. I hope to get back into a groove soon. I’m going to try to exercise not only once, but twice a day as many times as I can. Between biking, rollerblading and swimming, I think I should be able to do that if I find the motivation.

I made some good progress towards some of my goals this month. I will continue to strive towards completing my goals by the end of the year. Now that I think about it the end of June marks the halfway point. I should step up my efforts if I really intend on completing all of these goals. I will continue to share all of my successes and failures on this blog.

Post from: Personal Finance Start-Up Blog

• Financial Goals Update As Of November 1, 2008
• Solo 401k Retirement Account for Self-Employed Income
• Goals Update for End of April 2009
• Personal Finance, Alternative Income And General Goals For 2009
• Financial Goals Update as of October 1, 2008

• Alternative Income Streams - October 2007 (One Year Recap)
• Consider Municipal Bond Funds for Your Fixed Income and Cash Investments
• How To Hedge Your Bets: 10 Ways To Diversify Your Income
• I am a spreadsheet budgeter
• Introduction to the IRA

No major purchases were made in June, although I decided to condense the categories. I grouped all of my investment assets into retirement and non-retirement categories. Below I will explain what is included in each category. I still haven’t completed the mortgage refinance process because Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are discriminating against condo owners. I was again able to increase my cash standing, finally reaching the $10,000 plateau, however, the stock market declined ever so slightly. The influx of cash was able to overcome the slight drop in the stock market to push my net worth higher once again.

Cash

I finally reached the $10,000 plateau and will begin shifting funds into retirement accounts to meet my 2009 financial goals. From now on I will be skimming any available cash above $10,000 into my solo 401k and Roth IRA, starting with the solo 401k. I suppose I will consider this $10,000 as my emergency fund, but if need be I will go below the mark to achieve my goals by the end of 2009. In the near future, I hope to put my cash into a high interest checking account.

Retirement

My retirement accounts took a slight hit as the market went down a little in June and I made no new investments. In the upcoming months I will be funding my retirement accounts for 2009. The retirement category consists of my solo 401k and Roth IRA, which are both held at Vanguard.

Non-Retirement

My non-retirement accounts took a slight hit as well due to the market drop. My non-retirement category consists of my Target stock through Schwab, US Growth mutual fund through Vanguard, Sharebuilder account and Lending Club account. I don’t foresee any contributions to my non-retirement accounts, at least not until my retirement accounts are funded. Until then I will be relying on the stock market to carry this category.

Liabilities

Once again my liabilities only decreased by the standard car and mortgage payment amounts. As I’ve already mentioned, I found a new lender to refinance my mortgage and hopefully will be lowering my payment by $200 a month, which would be awesome. Hopefully this happens soon.

Net Worth

My net worth increased by 2.0%. The increase in my net worth was driven by cash and the standard payments toward my liabilities. Hopefully in the near future, I will be relying once again on the stock market to drive my net worth. It feels good to be able to offset the stock market losses with influxes of cash, but at the same time it means I don’t have enough in the stock market. Next month is the last time I will have a tutoring check. I am done tutoring for a company and will begin tutoring on my own when the school year starts up. Until then I will have to start making more money through my other self-employed projects.

Post from: Personal Finance Start-Up Blog

• Biggest Lesson Learned from this Bear Market
• The Personal Finance Start-Up Blog Begins
• Solo 401k Retirement Account for Self-Employed Income
• End of April 2009 Financial Status
• End of July 2009 Financial Status

• Net Worth Update - November 2007
• Net Worth Update - December 2007
• Financial transparency
• net worth or net worthless?
• Net Worth: How To Include Your Retirement Account

A few posts back I described the various projects for self employed income. My pursuit of these projects has limited my activity on this blog,  but in the end I believe it will be beneficial for the growth of this blog. I’m hoping to make a significant enough amount of money from these projects that I can quit my day job. This will free up more time for blogging. I’d like to provide a quick update for how my projects are progressing.

• Marketing a new sports drink online – I met with my Dad about the sports drink and putting up a website/sales page online. The website is live. There is still a good amount of work to be done, but I am very happy with the progress of this project. The following is my action plan:
  • 1. Sign up for a PayPal merchant account
    2. Complete the sales page using the PayPal account
    3. Write articles about the benefits of the sports drink
    4. Increase my page rank in search engines for targeted long tail keywords

• Writing ebooks for academic subject tests – I’ve developed my scope for this project, which is actually a pretty significant development. I am planning on creating a webpage that will fulfill multiple objectives. I want it to serve as my online presence for future tutoring pursuits. I will have a page that details my qualifications as a tutor. My tutoring ads will point towards this page that will have a contact form to set up appointments. Also, I want to have a blog on the website where I will post all of the subject information. I will convert this info into ebooks and also use it as a reference while I tutor. This way I don’t have to lug text books around to remember equations and hard to remember concepts. The following is my action plan:
  • 1. Keyword research to develop website name
    2. Set up website to be fully functional
    3. Develop outlines for ebooks
    4. Begin creating content in individual blog posts
    5. Develop tutoring credentials page
• Affiliate Marketing Campaigns – I created my first affiliate marketing campaign according to the One Week Marketing plan. I’ve only made one sale, but not because the OWM plan doesn’t work. I’ve sent numerous people to the affiliate product’s sales page, but only one has converted. This means the sales page is most likely not all that good. I will have to select an affiliate product with a better sales page for my next campaign. I’m hoping to continue working on these in between my other projects. I highly recommend One Week Marketing if you are interested in creating affiliate marketing campaigns.
• Ebook about taking ideas to products – I discussed this project with my Dad. Our current action plan is as follows. My Dad will create an outline as to what he thinks should be in the ebook. I will create an outline based on what I think should be included. We will compare outlines and discuss what is necessary and merge our two outlines. I will also do some keyword research to determine the name of the ebook and the website for the sales page.
• Create a fantasy sports membership site – I have yet to do anymore on this site. I have a domain name reserved. I don’t know if I will be able to pursue this project much further until I have time to consistently blog about baseball and football. If I’m not consistently blogging with this site I will not be successful. I can work on the theme and design of the website.

I am making progress on my projects and I’m still very excited and enthusiastic to work on these projects. For now it is still just a pipe dream that I will be able to quit my job and support myself through online income. What good are dreams if you don’t pursue them? I will be keeping you all abreast of my advancements as I make progress.

Post from: Personal Finance Start-Up Blog

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I was able to get a hold of my mortgage broker and have an interesting update about my second attempt at refinancing my mortgage. When I initially talked with this mortgage broker he said that he likes to close within 15 days, which allows him to keep his rates lower than anyone else.

Condo Appraisal

My condo appraisal went really well. It appraised at a value of $280,000. 80% of that value is $1,000 less than what I currently owe on my existing mortgage. This meant I would be able to refinance without any government programs as long as I had the $1,000 plus closing costs to cover the difference. When the 15 day mark came and went I started to worry.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Troubles

I sent a few emails hoping to find out some more information. He finally returned one of my emails and recommended that I call him. When I called him I learned about the Fannie and Freddie’s new attempt to screw me over. Fannie and Freddie are taking 5-10% off the appraised value of every condo.

I’ve previously written about higher interest rates for condo owners. Apparently, Fannie and Freddie did some study that proved condo owners are more likely to foreclose.

Personal Rant

Here I am, a young home-owner trying to refinance into a lower rate, and I’m being blocked because of some study that claims condo owners are more risky. I put my 20% down at closing. I did my due diligence and purchased a reasonably priced condo. My condo’s value has not decreased much. Why am I being prejudiced against? Shouldn’t each case be different and unique. Why do other condo owners affect my mortgage refinancing?

Shouldn’t I be the only person who affects my mortgage loan? I’m the only one applying for the loan. I’m not applying with the other condo owners as partners.

My Remaining Refinancing Options

This unfortunate and prejudiced situation leaves me with two options. I can either hope Fannie and Freddie remove the 5-10% reduction of my appraised value before my rate is no longer valid. Or I can hope a “DU refinance” works to my benefit. As of right now, no condos have been closed using the DU refi program, only single family homes.

The DU refi program would allow me to refinance without PMI at the wrongfully depreciated appraised value. My broker thinks that condos aren’t getting approved for the DU refi program because of the condo association. Apparently, there is a thought that if one person in a condo association doesn’t pull his weight, it will drag the others in the association down. I feel like this is a valid concern, but it shouldn’t prevent a refinance.

I already have a mortgage. Why is it so difficult to refinance to a lower rate that will decrease my payments by $200 a month. Shouldn’t that make it less likely that I default on my payments? I will never understand this issue.

Is anybody else having refinancing issues?

Post from: Personal Finance Start-Up Blog

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• My Mortgage Closing and Effects of the Credit Crisis
• End of June 2009 Financial Status
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