- Hire a Lawyer for Your Real Estate Transactions – or Pay the Price
When engaging in real estate (and other large, comlex) transactions, too many people feel that they really don’t need a lawyer. They might have their real estate agent look over the documents, and they might possibly use a stock, one-size-fits-all contract. You know, one of those fill in the blank, downloadable contracts you can find on the web. You will save a few bucks on the front end of the deal, there’s no question about it. You can try to console yourself with all the money you saved by not hiring a lawyer to draw up or examine your contract while you’re grieving aver how you got taken to the cleaners. You may think you can just take this stuff lightly, and far too many people do, despite the advice of experts. However, failure to take this simple precaution can be fraught with peril. I have a neighbor who is selling their home and an adjoining vacant lot. They had listed their home and the lot as a package deal, with the lot at a $20,000 discount over its price if purchased separately.
A prospective buyer made an offer on both, but subsequently had their financing on the home denied. The financing on the lot however, was approved. The way the two properties were listed, and the way the contract was written, the purchaser was able to purchase the property for the discounted price, although they didn’t buy the home along with the lot. Needless to say (although I will anyway) my neighbor is a bit miffed over the whole situation, being out $20,000.
Paying a lawyer a few hundred or a thousand dollars to draw up the contract could have avoided this unfortunate situation, and my neighbor would have an extra $19,000 in the bank today because of it. Think about it the next time you’re tempted to bypass the important step of having your real estate lawyer examine a contract when you’re a buyer, or draw up a contract if you’re the seller. The money you save will be your own.
There’s nothing wrong with using a stock form for some things, or having one of those discount, on-line legal form services create your documents for you. They work well, and can save you substantial money for certain things. Real estate transactions are not one of them however. For that, you need the real thing. There’s nothing like witnessing something like that up close to drive the point home. If you do need a lawyer, here's a free service that is much better than just guessing your way through the yellow pages. Attorney Referrals
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Apple, in an apparent bid to deny product shortages and hacking for the holidays, said yesterday that they'd not allow more than 2 iPhone sales per customer. More interesting is that they will not be allowing customers to use greenbacks to make their iPhone purchases, only credit cards. One assumes that a debit card with a credit card logo may be used as well. It brings up an interesting point. Are we on our way to the all cash society that so many have suspected?
With luck you're going to retire one day. With careful planning you're going to retire with substantial amounts of money in your retirement accounts. One of the things that will impact the ultimate success of those retirement accounts is how taxes will affect them. They can take a substantial chunk out of your nest egg, or a much smaller nibble, it's all up to how you, and your tax adviser choose to allocate your resources.
Car insurance is possibly one of the largest bills you have to pay, after housing, food, and the paying for the car itself. What you pay for car insurance is determined by many things, and thankfully most of them are within your control. There are the usual suspects, such as the type of car you drive. Teams of actuaries at the insurance providers have determined that your Porsche 997 turbo should be much more expensive to insure than your wife’s 2004 Corolla, and both will cost more if you live in New York City, than if you live in Billings. 
If you are one of the majority of Americans (and citizens of just about any other industrialized country) who has and uses credit cards on a regular basis, there are some things that your card issuer does that you should know about. They could be costing you serious money every year. With competition for credit card customers so fierce these days, you have little excuse for not getting the best credit card deals you can find, and leaving the less favorable cards in the waste basket (properly shredded, of course). 
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Every business, even non-profit organizations, wants to make money. For many, it’s no easy proposition. Competition is cutthroat and margins are skinny, yet many businesses have an overlooked profit center somewhere in their organization that can generate substantial revenue. In many cases it can turn a loser into a cash cow, or push a marginal line of business into a solid revenue generator. The best thing is that the capability to do this is often no more than a good idea away. 
Kathleen Casey-Kirschling. Remember that name. Yesterday morning she officially became the first baby boomer to file for Social Security. She is just the beginning of the swelling number of Social Security beneficiaries that will be created by the retiring boomers. The problem is that they’ll rapidly exceed the ability of the Social Security system to support them, or anyone unfortunate enough to retire after them. Since it looks like the chances of Congress ever actually fixing Social Security to the point where it may live long enough to actually benefit the Gen Xers coming next, and company pensions have disappeared like so many cans of Coke from a Microsoft company refrigerator, retirement planning should become a key part of everyone’s agenda (if it wasn’t already). 
One of the things that's imperative if you're going to get debt free is that you stay away from credit cards with high interest rates and fees. That being said, in this day and age you'll have a tough time trying to live completely sans credit card. They are required for so many things from car rentals and airline tickets to on line purchasing of, well, just name it. A few years ago there was an an experiment where someone lived in a home completely cut off from all outside sources of anything, and lived entirely on what they could order on line. At that time their selections, while not too limited, at time left something to be desired. These days, you would have better selection on line than in any city in the world, including New York, London or Moscow. Not, however, without a credit card.
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It’s something you see every time you’re in the bank and they have their daily mortgage rate posted in hopes they can turn you down for a mortgage. The bank will have a rate card posted with the interest rate for 30yr and 15yr fixed rate mortgages. In most cases the interest rate they’re quoting for either of these products has been changed, because instead of a straight interest rate, the lender has shown the effect of points on the mortgage. This will be shown by a notation saying something to the effect of “6.05% + 1 1 point” . What does this mean and how does it affect your mortgage? 
It’s bad enough when a dear relative dies. That last thing you need is for that to precipitate a lengthy legal battle over the estate. When the relative dies, their estate traditionally goes through some legal gyrations called probate, where the decedent’s debts, taxes and assets are reconciled and their remaining property is distributed according to the will. To put it bluntly; what a giant pain in the ass. 
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