Product Reviews & Information Blog

Archive for the ‘Money’ Category

I like to donate money to all kinds of needies for animals and children and others. But sometimes I wonder how donating money helps them out. So, please, how does donating Money to a foster home help them?

Usually people who foster children get help from the state when it comes to money. And I am sure they receive all types of donations from people like you and agencies. And thus to your question. Well I am sure the states, agencies and your money goes to food, clothes, bills, entertainment ,,,etc etc. It’s really up to the foster parents and how they use the money and for what.
The only thing I hate to see is sometimes on T.V. you will adults foster kids just for that extra money. sad..

I live in Hawaii and the cost of living is very high. I was wondering if I could save a bundle of money installing solar pannels for electricity instead of paying a monthly bill. I know it costs a lot of money to install solar pannels but in the long run inflation will just raise your bills like crazy. I heard in the mainland the cost of living is way cheaper and I am planning to move up there but will installing a solar pannel save me a lot of money if I live in the mainland?

Solar saves Money over a long period of time, if at all. If you plan to move soon, then it’s not likely you will get your money back from installing a solar system of any kind.

If you are in Honolulu, a solar water heater will pay for itself in 4 years, assuming it replaces an electric. Your electric rates are about 15 to 20 cents per kWh. If you’re in rural Molokai and paying 50 cents, the payback will be faster. Try walking your neighborhood (or just use Google map, satellite view), and you’ll probably see that about half the houses have solar.

For solar electric, the case is less certain. Call a local solar company to get a quote. It will definitely take longer to pay back than solar hot water. Hawaii gets a lot of sun, but it also has a lot of scattered clouds, so the average sun per day is really no better than my part of California.

Whether solar saves money on the mainland totally depends on the local incentives. Arizona and Colorado have fantastic incentives. California’s incentives are rapidly declining, but electricity is expensive here, so solar still makes sense in many cases. We have panels on our roof.

There are so many people building houses now a days, how do they come up with the money to build a house. I would like to rebuild a house that is 150 years old. The basement gets totally flooded and the wood really is not very good anymore. it has 2 floors, 4 bedrooms upstairs with 1 1/2 bath. I don’t actually know how much square feet it is though. But if I still owe about a 150,000 on this house and it is really not worth selling because I won’t get all that money if I sell that house. the house now is only worth about 98,000, all the rest is the interest. I would like to rebuild the house on the land but how do I come up with the Money in the next 15 years?

Typically, there are two ways to do this:

1. People take some equity out of their houses by refinancing their mortgages
2. Use a line of credit on the house (which essentially is another loan)

In Scenario 1, as an example, if you purchased a home for $100K and a few years later the house goes up in value to $300K, then you’ve built up $200K in equity.

Some people take advantage of this by taking some of the equity out by refinancing — restructuring your mortage. Let’s say you want to remodel and need $50K. You refinance your mortage from $100K to $150K. Now, you owe $50K more but you also take $50K out as money in your pocket. You can use this to remodel your house.

Of course, you can take even more money out based on what you think you can handle in terms of monthly mortgage payment. However, if you take too much out, then you’re eating into your equity, and you may not want to do this to give yourself some cushion.

Please note that I’m not taking fees and points into account in this scenario (or any other).

In Scenario 2, taking a line of credit (much like 2nd mortgage) against the house is like getting a very flexible loan, where you can take as much or little out of your line of credit for your use (e.g., fixing up the house), up to the limit of the line of credit. You repay this back based on the terms of the loan. The total amount varies depending on the value of your house. However, the interest on the line of credit is typically adjustable.

Please note that this means that whatever the interest rate, your payment fluctuates with it.

This is a good idea if you don’t have much equity on the house and if the interest rate is low.

However, I don’t personally like this because you don’t know what’ll happen with the interest rate.

I’m not sure if $98K number you provided for the value of your house is based on an appraisal. If so, the value of the house is less than the amount you owe. This means that unfortunately you won’t be able to take more money out of the house. However, if you meant $98K is the balance on the $150K, then you may want to check with an appraiser (if you don’t want to pay someone, check www.zillow.com for a very, very rough estimate).

Please do note again that you need to do your homework and figure out what you can handle in terms of mortgage payment to ensure you don’t get into financial trouble with refinancing, line or credit, or remodeling expense.