Over the past 2 weeks, I went kinda nuts running around the house seeking out cold air drafts and plugging them up.  This might sound like a stereotypical PF topic, but seriously, I found areas in my house I’d never even considered (and no, this isn’t a real post LOL – segue way into my weekly roundup).  For instance, I re-caulked some windows that had little cracks around the corners (I could feel the cold air even with tiny little cracks!).  I installed those little insulated cutouts behind outlets against outside walls.  I even identified that our sliding door has a big channel at the top with nothing in the center but cold air coming through and plugged that up).  Finally, I bought that cheesy looking yet effective plastic covering to blow-dry on our dining room windows.  My wife hates how it looks but I reasoned that we’re NEVER in that room anyway, so who cares?

window

(doesn't look that bad does it?)

My only regret is that I waited until January to do all this stuff.  At least we’ll get the benefit through March.  I have some other ideas for sealing up leaks in our basement at bit and perhaps adding some more insulation myself in the attic (paying for the service is like a 15 year payback by my estimates).

Why the energy savings kick?  Why not?  I figure the ROI is quite high and the time required to do some of these little jobs is like 20 minutes here, 30 there, so not a huge time drain either.

With that, here are some reads from the week as well as a shout-out to sites hosting my content:

Great Reads from Around the Web:

Arbor InvestmentReturn on Enterprise Investing Model

Money MambaWarren Buffett Lies

Money CrashersAsset Protection Strategies

The Burning PlatformPaychecks, Propoganda and Power

Invest It WiselyThe Tools of the Blogger

Retire By 40What we Spend on Coffee, Gas and More

Oblivious InvestorTax Exemptions vs Allowances

101 CentavosKiss Real Estate Goodbye

Financial UproarKiss Ethics Goodbye

Len PenzoMaking Ends Meet w Limited Income

Carnivals That Featured My Content Lately

Carnival of Personal Finance
Yakezie Carnival at Little House in the Valley
Carnival of Financial Camaraderie at Financial Success for Young Adults
Totally Money at Passive Income to Retire
Festival of Frugality at Squirrelers
Carnival of Wealth at Control Your Cash
Carnival of Financial Planning at Credit Cards Canada
Yakezie Carnival at Prairie Eco Thrifter
Carnival of Financial Camaraderie at My University Money
Totally Money at Family Money Values
Festival of Frugality at The Frugal Toad
Carnival of Wealth at Control Your Cash
Carnival of Financial Planning at Skilled Investor Blog
Carnival of Retirement at Retire By 40
Yakezie Carnival at Broke Professionals
Carnival of Wealth at Control Your Cash
Carnival of Financial Planning at Skilled Investor Blog
Carnival of Retirement at Passive Income to Retire
Self-Directed Investing Carnival
Carnival of Personal Finance

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We’re all taught to be confident from childhood.  You know, those confidence boosters like getting a trophy no matter where you placed, parents telling you that you can do anything in life and so on.  On some level, having confidence in yourself and what you can achieve does allow you to think big, stretch your limits and achieve great things.  On the other hand, over-confidence is the single biggest predictor of disastrous results and people seldom hold themselves accountable for their bias toward overestimating themselves.  Not sold?  You will be soon:

Here are a few common examples demonstrating how people are overconfident in their abilities and the disastrous results that ensue.

Test Scores:  Rather than provide you with all anecdotes, I’ll include some studies and sources as well.  When it comes to students, time and time again, studies have shown that students tend to believe they scored or placed much higher on a grade or comparative basis than they actually did.  Why?  They’re overconfident in their performance and abilities.  (Study and another Study).  What are the implications?  Well, we all know how important academic achievement and performance is to financial success later in life.  The implication is that students will often tend to procrastinate, slack, underestimate the effort and requirements to prepare for assignments and exams, and ultimately, not realize their potential.

The Financial Collapse:  This is perhaps the most important and impactful evidence of overconfidence in recent history.  More than anything…bad regulations, bad bankers, bad loans or lying on mortgage applications, the single biggest cause of the EXTENT and damage done by the financial crisis was OVERCONFIDENCE.  The biggest banks in the world hired the smartest kids from top technical and math programs like MIT and Harvard.  These quants were to redefine financial innovation.  They were brilliant.  They were so smart that they figured out how to combine and repackage risky mortgages into AAA debt instruments and sell them to clients, while managing their risk with CDOs.  They were so confident in their models that nobody bothered to challenge them…or ridiculously, even notice that the spreadsheet cell for home price appreciation only had the ability to enter a positive number.  Seriously, some models didn’t allow for an entry to show a decline in real estate prices.  Brilliant.  Anyway, this overconfidence in having these really smart quants that “figured it all out”, and then executives who continued to be overconfident in their firm’s risk management and cash positions ultimately led to the worst crash most of us have ever seen.

Fights: Most guys (and some feisty gals) can relate to this.  We all think we can kick pretty much anyone’s ass, especially when you’re a teenager.  You know, some kid’s being a jerk, one thing leads to another and next thing you know, you’re on the ground looking up with someone laughing, saying “he just got knocked the F&*# out hahaha”.  So, if 95% of guys think they can win a fight, but obviously, only 50% actually WILL win a one on one fight, there is a huge asymmetry there.  Lots of kids (myself included) end up with a trip to the ER or worse because they were overconfident in their abilities to best their opponent when they should have just walked away.  Aside from all the ancillary reasons why getting in fist fights is detrimental to your finances, your reputation and your health, the sheer statistics should make you think twice… but we don’t.  We’re overconfident.
Your Own Personal Finances:  I’ll tell it to you straight.  Most of you are overconfident in your financial future.  I’ve been.  Here are 6 common financial miscalculations you should assess.  On top of that, many of us (myself included) used leverage to buy into a crashing housing market and over-estimate how our investment returns will fare (and also foolishly believe investment newsletters will “beat the market”).  Chances are, when accounting for inflation and a lousy job market, your income in the future will not be what you think, your investment returns will be worse than you think, and you will incur expenses that you couldn’t have imagined in your wildest dreams.  Overconfidence will cost you dearly.

Drunk Driving:  Why do people drink and drive?  A large part of it is overconfidence.  You think a) you’re not really drunk, b) you won’t get caught, and c) your driving will not at all be influenced by the delayed reaction that alcohol causes.  You’re a great driver after all, better than most other drivers.  You’re only driving 5 miles home.  And next thing you know, you’re in the police station.  I’ve had a few friends nailed for drunk driving.  Thankfully none of them killed anyone.  But it was quite costly.  Loss of license, thousands of dollars in legal fees and insurance increases.  All for what?  Overconfidence.

What Is the Takeaway?  

Stop Being So Damned Confident!  
Be Scared.  
Be Conservative in Your Assessments.  
Be REALISTIC.  

You’ll Thank Me Later.

Thoughts?

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Newsletter Scam

Let’s imagine the easiest way to make a bunch of money for providing virtually no actual value, having very little accountability, and having the capability to scale your scam as much as you could ever imagine.  Here are a few common “business ventures” that come to mind:

a) Virtually any of the top selling affiliate programs and ebooks you see on numerous blogs. You know, the “make money online” genre, “natural” remedies and cures, diet solutions and workout programs.  Why would so many blogs promote the virtues of ebooks and programs that are worthless?  Well, that’s what affiliate marketing is all about!  The crappier the program, the more they charge for it and then give an ever-increasing cut to bloggers for each sale!  Often upwards of 50%.  Many bloggers don’t really think twice about promoting horribly useless and often, harmful advice for lucrative payouts like that!  Why do you think those reviews are so convincing?!

b) Multi-level marketing of pretty much any sort.  MLM is one of the most vile “business” ventures in existence.  You basically convince other suckers in your downline to be scammed into the same useless system you were just scammed into so you can leach off their exploits as well.  At the end of the day, the goods and services sold through MLMs are invariably overpriced, useless and misleading and a few people at the top get rich.  Within months, the vast majority of all the “suckers” realize they’ve been suckered, they’ve run out of other suckers to recruit, and they quit with loads of time wasted and dollars spent.  Usually, they don’t talk about their lousy experience because they feel so ashamed for enthusiastically promoting something within their social circles and family members only to bail after such a short period.

c) Investment newsletters. Really?

 

Investment Newsletters: As Useless As FREE Investment Advice, But You Get to Pay for It

Here’s the thing about investment newsletters that makes them so appealing – incredible claims!  This newsletter “predicted the market crash” and that one “beat the market”; meanwhile, this one’s written by a “market guru”.  It’s all nonsense (generally, save for probably 1-2% of older more established and respected newsletters with proven track records and advice).  Here are some key reasons newsletters aren’t worth the time or money:

  • Absolutely no Accountability – When’s the last time you’ve heard of the SEC prosecuting newsletter peddlers for making false claims?  They have their hands full with more politically sensitive cases like Ponzi schemes and Insider Trading.  I couldn’t help but notice a great piece in the Wall Street Journal this week about a “celebrity-endorsed” newsletter.  As if Suze Orman didn’t have her hands full pedaling a widely criticized card (and then calling personal finance bloggers “idiots” for criticizing it), now I’ll be looking forward to her defense of this newsletter report.  Since bloggers in my circle have recently been the targets of lawsuits from high profile celebrities for simply repeating something reported at larger, legitimate news sources, I’ll just let you read about it at wsj.com and form your own conclusions.  Just consider whether this newsletter met its claims.
  • Genius…Just Genius.  Here’s a really ingenious way to get around worrying about performance and accountability.  Let’s say you’re a newsletter peddler and you want to tout your best and brightest investment performance and sweep your losers under the rug.  Here’s a classic.  You issue several different newsletters over some period of time, say the last year.  Out of the ten different newsletters with whatever circulation you chose (perhaps zero), as long as you were issuing the newsletters and have proof (timestamps, cached in google or whatever), your newsletters are legit, right?  Well, let’s say 8 of the 10 underperformed the market, 1 tied it and 1 greatly exceeded last year’s market returns.  While this may have been due to sheer luck (random probability actually, since I don’t believe in “luck”), you can legitimately ignore the 9 and promote the 1.  Here’s a common claim, “The Tiger Newsletter beat the S&P500 by 12% last year! Subscribe now for just $39 per month!”.  So, all you’re really buying is last year’s performance history in what was arguably just random probability.  This one newsletter is no more likely to outperform the market THIS year than the 9 that didn’t that aren’t be promoted.  But legally, this newsletter peddler is totally within their right to promote this one newsletter.  After all, they have the performance and the timestamps to prove it!  They just conveniently don’t promote the losers.  It’s quite a lucrative and innovative proposition!
  • If They Were REALLY This Good…Here’s the most obvious one that people seldom ask themselves when paying for “exclusive” advice.  Given the ability to use leverage, the power of compound returns and the infinite universe of investment options, if a given individual were SOOOOO gifted at picking stocks, why on earth would they share this priceless advice where they could be making millions running their own hedge fund or investing for other big-money investors (or themselves) rather than peddling $29 newsletters?  I find this to be especially obvious with some of the broadly advertised radio spots and CNBC ads on satellite radio.  You know, that “trader that made millions during the market crash”?  So, why wouldn’t he just keep making millions more, tens of millions more, in future years with such foolproof advice himself instead of making probably a few hundred grand, max, selling these “stock market secrets”?  It just completely defies logic.
  • You Can Get Plenty of Similar Advice for FREE – If you’re considering a paid newsletter that focuses on data, advice, ideas and whatnot, chances are you can get that sort of information for free.  Why?  Given the thousands of finance and investing blogs sprouting up daily, it’s a virtual race to the bottom.  Bloggers who once enjoyed pricing leverage years ago are now finding themselves in a sea of thousands of other similarly-themed outlets and have to resort to either the “freemium” model, or just outright writing good, useful commentary and using their blog to either make money with ads or promote their books or services.  But the net delivery to the reader is free.  So why pay?

 

Am I A Hypocrite? 

You might question the notion of a personal finance and investing blogger trashing newsletters.  Well, if you check out my portfolio updates, even when I beat the market (which I often did during last year’s reports), I always made it a point to highlight why – not because of my prescient skills and stock-picking abilities, but because I was holding high Beta stocks in an up market.  I also highlighted my WORST Trades.  And finally, I’m not selling you this information.  I make it clear that I’m not a registered investment professional, but I blog and invest as a side-gig hobby and not a profession.

Is an Investment Newsletter EVER Worth It?

Surely, there are some good pieces of advice to be gleamed from some newsletters.  General market commentary and news is worth something, right?  I mean, we pay for newspaper and magazine subscriptions after all.  But we know what we’re getting there – news, commentary and ideas.  Not a portfolio selection that is sure to beat the market.  Sometimes, a technical analysis service may have some promise, but those services could also be prone to all the same problems cited above.  And then, there’s always the FREE newsletter.  As long as it’s really free and doesn’t require some sort of subscription after a free trial and it isn’t loaded with affiliate products they’re looking to sell you, how could you say “free” isn’t worth it?  By its very virtue, it has no cost, so I suppose it’s tough to argue it “wasn’t worth it”.  I have only subscribed to a handful of free newsletters in my lifetime and of those, I found a couple to be mildly useful just from an “idea” standpoint.  I never put much stock in actually following trade recommendations verbatim…since I’m a skeptic.

Do You Have Any Experience With Paid Investment Newsletters?

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Last week, there was a 20% surge in mortgage activity driven primarily by refinancing activity from record low rates.  The mortgage banker’s association said seasonally adjust refinances were up 26% while home purchase loan activity was up 10%.

 

Something’s Working

 

While I tend to be skeptical of reports indicating the economy is improving/growing given all the negative news and sentiment (ya know, Europe imploding, 45 million Americans on foodstamps and continued layoffs), evidently, the low-rate policy that has been killing income investors is certainly rewarding to borrowers.

Rates are at historical lows below 4% on a 30-year and approaching 3% on a 15-year (mortgage rate table for your area) and with people looking to preserve cash and shore up their finances, a no-cost refinance is starting to make a lot of sense to people where they can close without any out of pocket expenses while realizing lower monthly payments from their refi.

 

Am I Missing Out?

 

I’m not a proponent of just going out and buying a home because rates are low.  After all, home prices could fall further and saving $100 a month pales in comparison to closing costs and capital losses.  However, if you CAN refi and you haven’t, it’s something to seriously consider.  I also took advantage of the low rates recently and closed on a set of college campus houses with a partner.  We had to get a commercial loan at a higher rate, but apparently our 5.5% is way better than the 7% or so commercial loans were fetching just a year or two earlier.

I wrote a post recently on no-cost refinancing which I’ve been heavily considering since I don’t want to blow another $4,000 on yet ANOTHER refinance, but for me, it only makes sense to go down to a 15 year from my 30.  I don’t want to extend my loan out again now that I’m a few years into my 30.  However, even with the 3.5% or so I could get on a 15 year WITH the lender paying all my closing costs, our monthly payments would be higher by a few hundred bucks so I have to convince the wife it’s worth it.

I guess between personal home purchases, refis and investment properties, there are plenty of avenues to take advantage of the low rates.  The question is whether you’re missing the boat.

 

Are You Benefiting from Low Rates?

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no-cost-refinance-companies

A no-cost refi is starting to make more sense to me now that I’ve read more about it, and I was especially surprised to see the number of no-cost refinance companies out there.  I’ve been contemplating a refi for some time now and had initially put it off due to the exorbitant fees involved in refinancing (thousands of dollars in title checks, lender’s fees, etc.).  However, by pushing all the fees onto the lender (albeit at a slightly higher rate than I’d get if I fronted the costs), I can have my cake and eat it to – as long as the term and rate work out in my favor.  A no-cost refinance isn’t for everybody, but here’s why I thought it might make sense for me at today’s historically low rates.

Current Mortgage:

  • Loan Amount: $320,000
  • Term: 30 Year Conventional (about 3 years in)
  • Interest Rate: 4.625%

No Cost Refi Rates

I started off my search by going through a few “interest lender lists” by just filling out a few bits of info with  Lending Tree and Bills.com and within minutes I got a dozen auto emails from banks in my area.  Additionally, you can see real-time rates for your state at this rate table.  I copied and pasted the same email to all of them which you can feel free to use or alter yourself:

 

Do you offer “no-cost” and “no-cash” refi options? I would like quotes on having NO out of pocket expenses at closing, so either adding the closing costs to back-end of loan AND/OR quote for having lender bear all fees at closing and having same loan amount (but rate is usually higher for this option). Please only revert with quotes for those options. I am good on credit, LTV, etc. Thanks

I was getting quotes from 3.25% for a conventional 15 Year Refinance to a 3.5% rate with all the closing costs built in.  To me, if I’m looking to refinance down from a 4.625% rate anyway and I can take a 3.5% rate with NO closing costs to me, sounds like a win, right?  The downside is, technically, perhaps I could have won out with a better “NPV” if I just paid the closing costs myself now and enjoyed the additional .25% discount over 15 years.  But after the number of refinances I’ve done with out of pocket costs and my other investment opportunities, I’d much rather just hang on to my cash, start paying down my mortgage more quickly and move on.

The nice thing about comparing the no cost refi options is that it’s easy!  Traditionally, you had to look at various closing costs, rates, points, etc. and try to figure out which loan had the best NPV (net present value) since there were multiple variables.  Here, with a known mortgage amount, no out of pocket expenses and the same terms to compare, it’s as simple as who will give you the lowest rate.  Again, there are probably many refi outfits displayed in typical ad boxes you’ll see on the web, or you can get one consolidated list with auto-emails through just opening 3 browser windows and using Lending Tree, Bills.com and this table of current rates.  Within minutes, you’ll have dozens of apples-to-apples comparisons.

Difference Between a No Cost and a No Cash Refi

Since there are different terms to describe the various loan options out there, it’s important to confirm with prospective lenders exactly what you’re looking for, get it in writing with a GFE (good faith estimate) and then confirm everything checks out with them before closing (do some google searches, check BBB, etc.).

  • A No-Cost Refi is as described above, where the going rate on a 15 year loan might be say, 3.25%.  Well, if I’m going to incur $5,000 in closing costs, they agree to front the funds and I pay nothing out of pocket at close.  Additionally when I start the new loan, my loan amount will be exactly the same as prior (i.e. ensure they didn’t tack those costs onto the new loan).  In order for them to justify eating the $5,000 in costs though, they must charge a higher rate.  So, perhaps it’s 3.5% on the 15-year.  Now, when I’m looking at my existing loan with a longer duration and a higher rate at 4.625%, I’ll take the 3.5% right?  It’s no cost to me either up-front OR in my principal owed and the rate is lower.  The only downside is the higher monthly payment which is a risk I have to assess given my employment situation and personal finances.

 

  • A No-Cash Refi on the other hand, is one where they roll those closing costs onto the back of my loan, so if I owe $320,000 today, I’ll owe $325,000 under the new loan.  In that case, I’d expect that lower interest rate of 3.25% since they’re not really doing anything for me, right?  But I’ve heard of some situations where banks give you the higher rate anyway since you think you’re getting a deal.  If you’re already close to the 80% loan-to-value and don’t want to just take on more debt, the no-cost refinance option might be a better one than the no-cash refinance.

Have You Done a No-Cost Refi or No-Cash Refi?  Would you?

Do You Recommend Any Particular No-Cost Refinance Companies?

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Black Swan Investing – Making a Fortune off Rare Events

For the uninitiated, a Black Swan event as outlined in Nassin Taleb’s excellent book The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable is one in which it is so rare and unpredictable that virtually nobody is prepared for it.  Consider a small handful of 5 hedge funds that stood out as amongst millions of [...]

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$250 Limited Time Signup Offer – Chase Sapphire Offering Best Bonus to Date!

It seems like credit card companies are finally opening the spigot after years of lackluster rewards and signup bonuses.  For a limited time only, you can now get 25,000 bonus points by opening a Chase Sapphire card and spending $3,000 on the card within the first three months.  If your spouse is anything like mine [...]

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3% Cash-Back Card = $500/Year Tax Free!

I’d been thinking about our cash-back rewards from the one credit card we do most of our spending on and decided it’s time to focus on the categories we spend the most on and optimize our cards and usage to get even more cash back each year.  For years, we’ve always enjoyed tax-free cash-back rewards [...]

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$200 Bonus on Chase Freedom® Visa

The $200 Bonus on Chase Freedom Visa is tops among multiple credit card companies upping their marketing campaigns this year. I love competition.  Now that the big banks are out from under their TARP money-grubbing frenzy, they’re starting to loosen up the purse strings and begin offering lucrative credit card deals again.  And once one starts, [...]

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Social Security Tax Deal for 2012 Explained

Social Security Tax changes for 2012 were recently enacted but will likely change again later in the year since the latest deal only carries over for the first two months of 2012 and will likely need to be extended yet again.  Aside from extending the existing payroll tax cut by 2% (payroll tax reduced from [...]

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Chase Freedom Visa – 5% Off on Amazon.com Purchases and $100 Bonus

If you’re in the market for a great cash back credit card or you’re a big user of Amazon.com (I am!), you should check out this latest offering from Chase Visa.  Here’s the scoop: Get a $100 Bonus after spending just $500 within the first three months. 0% APR for 12 months on balance transfers [...]

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25% Off Gift Cards Today Only – LIMITED

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Free Market Economics or Racism? Pottery Barn “Dark-Skin” Doll Cheaper Than White

My wife was checking out Christmas stockings today at Pottery Barn to buy them at a discount after the season and couldn’t help but notice the exact same stocking with a “dark-skinned doll” and a “light-skinned doll” at dramatically different prices. Evidently, you can buy $16.99 for the light skin doll but get a whopping [...]

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5 Things the Internet Can Save You Money On

This is a guest post by comparethemarket.com: If you are like so many other people today, you have made the decision to be more proactive with your finances. One of the best ways you can really take control of your finances is to reduce spending. This is easier said than done, though, as there are [...]

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How the Ratings Agencies Complicit in the Housing Collapse Are Actually Saving the World

This is not a theme you’ll see in the mainstream press, but it’s the truth.  Unfortunately, you can’t prove what “might have been” if it doesn’t come to be, but read on and tell me where I’m wrong.  The same ratings agencies that are fodder for everyone from Obama to European leaders for their utter [...]

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US Debt Now Equivalent to Entire US Economy – Investing in This New Era

The United States has just reached the dreaded 100% Debt-to-GDP ratio with its $15.2 Trillion debt level surpassing the value of all goods and services produced in-country.  This is important because it vaults us into a whole new echelon of debt-ridden societies with financial crises of their own: only Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan and [...]

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