dixiedoodle: Thanks for joining in. You understand the situation. Yes, the land is worth enough to serve as the entire downpayment if we want it to. But we do want to eventually put the entire 250K into to it to reduce our mortgage. I think I'll have to get the bank's draw schedule and actually sit down and calculate how we'll come out under the bigger vs. smaller loan amounts, how much interest our savings will earn, etc., all along the way. I understand what you said about the net cost (interest payments less our savings earnings) being bigger all along on the larger loan. I'll have to calculate how much it'll cost us to do it that way. I think as I read through all your posts, and consider it more carefully, I see that the main thing we would accomplish by getting a larger loan would be to preserve our cash for overages--at least for a longer time into the build. So my thinking needs to shift to: is that worth doing? I do get pretty uneasy about overages and there is not another source of cash readily available outside of the $250K. How does it work with overages? Our builder contract is for a fixed price. We're to have continual internet access to our line item budget, so we can see where we're overspent and underspent. And we can shift things around from one line item to another. But early in the build we can't have much influence over that: a foundation isn't something we can select a less expensive one of. So, if at one of the builder's draw request times we're net "over" on the build do we pony up the cash to the builder then and there??

Early detection is key to cancer survival rates and England does not cover early screening as well as many other countries do and thus they are near the bottom of many cancer survival stats with the Us, Japan and France at the top of a 2008 study of five common cancers. In our country those on government healthcare fare much worse than those with private insurance, food for thought. It seems that poorer people everywhere fare worse than those with more. This article is very recent and informative for comparing life expectancy and treatments between countries. You may be surprised but if you take away accidental deaths(cars, violence, overdoses) guess which country has the highest life expectancy, yes the USA does. The new OECD ten year study has not been published yet and the chart in the link is the most recent data available so this might change but probally not that much. Here is a link that might be useful: wealth begets health

Having been a personal financial advisor for over 20 years, I've called a number of tax preparers to ask whether, when they've finished doing a client's return, whether there are many who ask how they may rearrange their affairs slightly next year in order to reduce their tax load. Almost all have said that very few ever ask such a question. I say that they've got to be kidding - that when I have someone prepare my tax return, when they've finished they know quite a bit about my financial affairs. Seems to me that if I don't ask for some suggestions as to how to reduce, defer, etc. my tax load, I'm being *very* *stupid*. At very least - letting a golden opportunity go by unused. I hope that those of you who read this and have professional tax preparers do your tax return will take advantage of that opportunity. I can't believe how many Canadians - even some bank employees - don't know that when a Canadian taxpayer who owns stocks in a Canadian corporation that pays dividends prepares his/her tax return, they pay a much lower rate of tax on those dividends than on employment income, the resulting pension (apart from a small deductible) or interest income. All of the latter (the kind of income that most people earn, by the way) are taxed at (guess what?) top rate! So much for our Federal would-be Prime Ministers in their debate last night vying with one another as to who wants to make the most tax cuts. Our neighbours to the south have been making large tax cuts - while running huge annual deficits. What kind of sense that makes I have yet to understand. Good wishes for a wonderful New Year. ole joyful

Hi Topkicker, There are still piggyback 2nd loans up to 95% (but if you blink they might change this afternoon.... seriously... really, I'm not kidding ;~) On the other hand, if you have a household income at/below $100,000 AGI, any mortgage insurance you would otherwise avoid with a piggyback is fully deductible, same as the higher interest you'd have paid on the piggyback 2nd. LASTLY, in most cases you may still qualify for financing with down payments as low as Zero Down to 3.5% down with one of several of the government subsidized financing programs. Sounds like you could probably benefit from someone with more resources in their toolbelt than the GMAC salesclerk, yeah? Cheers, Dave Donhoff Leverage Planner