this conversation is mostly dead, but i wanted to sound my two bits. my credentials, i am a financial planner. first i hope you did not sink you money into the stock market. i have been in cash for almost a year now and i am no market genius (those who are still in have been shorting the market and making millions all year). it is shocking how many "planners" and brokers urged their clients to "invest for the long term" and hold in the market. if your planner or broker has been saying this this last year, you should fire them. the stock market is not a long term investment. in needs to be watched daily and adjusted daily. money is never lost in the market. it only changes hands. if you lose somebody else won. the winners are those who know what is going on and adjusting their strategy daily. if this is not something you can do, hire somebody who can, get out, or suffer the cost of ignorance as those who know (major investors and fund managers) take your money. Second, i hope you did not bury your cash in a coffee can in the back yard�"in other words, pay cash and hold no mortgage. paying cash is a very expensive way to own a house. the reason being you are burying you money. you will realize appreciation but that is pointless from the standpoint of cash flow and you have to sell to get it. this money could have easily generated more than the cost of holding the mortgage. there are also tax savings on the mortgage debt if you pay it off. this is know as a lost opportunity cost. it is as real of a figure to be calculated just as an fees or interest paid. example: if i pay no interest i loose nothing. right? wrong. i loose out on what i could have done. if i could have made 8% and it cost me 6% for the mortgage i made 2% plus tax savings. FYI i am a lazy investor with most my money managed by others and i make (yeild not average) 24% with no loss of principle risks. with effort you can do better. for me to have this money in my house would be a compounding loss of 18% plus the loss of my mortgage right off. cost of money is important, but is just part of the equation, not the answer to it. the spread or the margin in the number that matters, not the cost. paying off a mortgage can cost you your retirement. the most important part of any financial plan is time. if you spend the first half of you career paying down a mortgage rather than investing, you are shorting yourself. paying down your mortgage faster is almost as bad. mortgage interest is front loaded. you only get the promised rate if you go the term. pay it of faster and the percent paid is higher. what i would recommend people do in such a situation is pay it cash and forgo all the fees associated with financed closings. then immediately after, open a HELOC for the maximum amount possible and start looking for ways to reinvest and grow that capital all the while controlling the real estate. there is no cost to have the HELOC and usually no fee to open it. you can go in and out as much as you want and use it like a private bank. leave non working mey in the realestate, but have access to it to use for opportunities. you only pay interest on what is out and are only required an interest only payment. my house equity actually pays for the house debt and then some because it is working. right now would be a great time to have access to those funds. real estate and stock investment are all on fire sale. if you don't understand the market find someone who does. if you don't understand real estate, read some books and attend some seminars. if you are lazy, look into hard money lending or payday lending for 18-36% interest. buy some rental properties and cash flow them (rents are on the rise) and reap even more tax advantages. there are so many great places to earn money on your money rather than "burying" it. I would recommend the same with permanent life insurance and even investing some funds in it. just do something, actually do lots of different things. risky? i think keeping the money out of the banks control is the best way to minimize risk. give it up to the financial institutions and they will happily follow the the model i am recommending only they won't be sharing the profit with you. to most, this sounds like terrible advice. well most people in this country are not wealthy and have no idea how to become such. learn to act like a rich person, not by spending like one per se, but by understanding that money is not math, it is a commodity and needs to be treated as such. you cannot park it nor can you settle for small returns. personal financial models are worthless. you need to learn business finance principles and apply them to you personal finances. this is then main difference between the wealthy and the non. it is not the amount of money the have (net worth) it is about how much they have to spend (cashflow). many rich people are terribly poor on the books but have plenty to spend. why is that? they understand money and the laws that govern it. your first dollar should be spent on education. build a network of advisers and mentors and for goodness sake don't listen to the talking heads and radio "gurus". if they are so good at making money, why are they working for a radio station and who is paying the bills (banks and investment houses who want your money buying ads). all that said. this opinion is based on the person applying these principles being trustworthy with money. if you can't discipline yourself, pay off the house and invest in a 401k. if you are disciplined, stay away from both. books i would recommend, eye openers all of them: rich dad poor dad (kiosaki) who took my money (kiosaki) LEAP (castiglione) killing sacred cows (gunderson) sorry for the rant and the poor spelling. some of the philosophies presented, even by those with letters after their name were disturbing to me. such advice has cost millions of people billions of dollars this year. any wanting a larger book list or wanting to discuss any of this "crazy" advice further, feel free to contact me off forum or invite me into another discussion. i love this topic and love to offer my opinions. the fee i charge for personal planning advice is zero. one of my personal beliefs is that you don't pay for financial advice. i do what i do because somebody once taught me and i am paying it forward. so you can dismiss any hidden agendas. my opinions are what i personally believe and practice but by no means the only way to the goal. great discussion all-even those i disagree with. thanks for the thread and the interest in helping each other. kendal.liddle@gmail.com

FF - I talked to her last night and she said that her FP charges based on the amount of money she manages for her, not hourly or by commission, so she is confident that she's not ill advising for the FP's own gain. She also said that the FP said to consult a tax specialist, which made me breathe a sigh of relief. She made an offer on the condo and sent me the comps to look at after the fact. I don't know what she was thinking because she lowballed her offer when the comps were alot higher. She offered $380K on a $420K asking price, when the comps showed nothing went for less than $410K. I hope that the seller looks at it as a starting point for negotiations and doesn't flat out refuse. Here's something weird. When she told her realtor she wanted to put in an offer, the realtor didn't hightail it to get the paperwork done. She spoke to the realtor on Thursday and the papers are being faxed to her today (Saturday). I thought that was kind of odd. I always thought realtors jumped lickety split to get the offer in so the buyer doesn't become remorseful. Her realtor also didn't suggest an expiry time for the offer. I told her to call the realtor prior to the papers being faxed to put a time limit. The seller's realtor also said that another offer "may" be coming in, which I find strange since the condo has been on the market for over 4 months. We don't know if it's a bluff or they're holding out for the 2nd offer and that's why they delayed getting the contract to her. Her realtor and the seller's realtor are in the same office, which added to my suspicion. I told her to make sure that she gets a copy of the response from the seller, even if they flat out refuse it so she knows the offer was actually presented.

Paying interest next month on coffee one drinks today sounds pretty lame to me, in cases where the plastic one is using is credit not fully paid monthly, thus accruing interest. I think all of this plastic for unnecessary purchases (small, in person) is driving the cost up for about everything. Isn't the standard fee on V/MC transactions 3%? That's what it cost the last retail store I where worked, in 2009. So I guess everything is somewhere around 3% more expensive than it needs to be, for merchants to make the same profit over top of that fee. Different stores may have different arrangements with their credit processing companies, IDK... We recently went on a multi-state vacation by car and our cash only policy saved us $$ the last night. We were willing to pay what seemed a reasonable amount quoted at the handy (nationally recognized name brand) motel next to where we ate dinner, having decided we were too tired to continue driving. But they insisted on obtaining a credit card number. We refused and found a perfectly good room at a mom'n'pop a few doors down, for $35 less. The un-remodeled LARGE older room was actually a refreshing change, as was the nice lady who said to let her know if anything was wrong 'cuz she owns the place. She thought we and our cash were wonderful, and likewise. Supposedly they no longer allow banks to "fake people out" by not considering a check deposited until after a few debit card transactions happen, conveniently scooping money out of people's accounts each time. But they will find other ways to steal your money. The last straw for me was the "round up" program the teller encouraged me to sign up for. Every time I used my debit card, it would round up to an even amount, with the rounded-up amount being put in a savings' account. I wasn't using that (or any) debit card often or for many purchases, but it had accumulated to $14-something before I stopped working at that job and did not have cause to use that account - in another city, which I had setup for direct-deposit of pay checks from the former employer. After 3 months of inaction in the account I received a letter that the balance was now $0, explaining that the $7-something in the account and the $14-something in the savings' account had been stolen (I've used a slightly different word than they did) to recover an inactivity fee. Guess they require more entertainment from accounts. Mine had become unacceptably boring, and, of course not generating any fees for them. When I called to ask about it, I was told I should have read the fine print when signing up for the round-up thing, which activated the possibility of inactivity fees on existing accounts. The only way these folks will see more of my money is if I drive by the bank, holding some out of it out of the window. In the 90's I used a debit card much more, sometimes constantly for about anything, and had some additional expenses, time-consuming...

Snidely, I'm an accountant. I believe I have a pretty good grasp of debits vs. credits. In fact, I said in my post that there is no credit attached to the card, which should indicate that I do understand that it functions as a debit card instead of a credit. And if I didn't understand the difference, I think that the fact that I see the money coming out of my checking account vs. getting a monthly statement from the card company would have probably tipped me off. I well understand the difference between debit and credit cards. I realize that any card connected to your bank account is not truly a credit card regardless of how it is branded. The cards my bank issues are branded Visa cards. The money is coming directly out of the bank account, so it functions as a debit card. But because it is a Visa and not simply a bank issued debit card, our liability for unauthorized purchases is $0. Plus we can run it without a PIN, which you can't do with a card that functions only as a debit. At one point years ago, our bank had only bank-issued debit cards attached to accounts. This post was edited by kittiemom on Sun, Jul 20, 14 at 9:23