Whether you realize it or not, most people’s ultimate money goal is financial independence: the ability to cover your living expenses with passive income from investments. Most people don’t reach this goal until they retire. But whether you reach financial…
You hear it all the time: “Diversify your investments!” But if you only have $100 to invest, you can’t exactly go out and buy 500 individual shares in large-cap corporations, each of whose stock prices could be hundreds or even…
Stressed about how much it costs to have and raise kids? Having extra mouths to feed barely scratches the surface of the expenses to come. From larger housing to larger cars, higher health care costs to higher education, diapers to…
Wondering how “the market” did today? When American investors refer to “the market” or “the stock market,” they’re usually referring to one of the three major U.S. stock exchanges: the Dow Jones, the Nasdaq, and the S&P 500. Or all…
Getting a mortgage is overwhelming. You have seemingly endless loan options, all of which read like a foreign language. And each type of mortgage comes with its own separate set of rules, which add even more confusion. If you’ve never…
Shopping for a mortgage feels like learning an entirely new language of terms and acronyms. From LTVs to DTIs (front end and back end), cash reserves to credit scoring models, it’s overwhelming. So when your loan officer asks if you’d…
Spoiler alert: Kids are expensive. The most recent estimate from the U.S. Department of Agriculture puts the average cost of raising a child to adulthood at $233,610, and $284,570 factoring in inflation. That doesn’t include college education, if you plan…
Buying your first home, and not sure what all the lender lingo means? Keep a glossary handy when you shop for a mortgage because the terminology gets confusing quickly. And that starts with a basic distinction: whether you want a…
Mortgage lenders earn thousands of dollars every time they close a loan. Although they earn that money in many different ways, one is by charging borrowers upfront fees called points. Don’t want to pay points among your closing costs? And…
Lenders operate on risk. The lower their risk, the less they charge in interest and fees. And one way they analyze risk is by looking at your financial stability. Enter: seasoning requirements. Lenders include these time requirements to make sure…
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