Current UpDown performance +3.3%

Total performance is +3.3% which is 7.4% better than S&P 500. I gained 2.5% in August but so far in September its down -1%

I just bought a couple REITs with high yields.

Glimcher Realty Trust (GRT) and HRPT Properties (HRP) GRT was $10.69 market and 12% yield and HRP was $7.62 and 11% yield.

Right now I think REITs are poised for a comeback. The real estate market in general has taken a lot of loses in the past couple years and I think its at a low point. If you buy a REIT today with a low price and relatively high divident yield then you're poised for growth plus good cash flow. Its hard to beat a 10% yield even if the stock price doesn't do so well.


(edit: I tried posting a widget here but it didn't work.)

Are bi-weekly mortgage payment plans a good deal?

Many mortgage companies offer a bi-weekly payment plan. With a bi-weekly payment plan you make a payment ever 2 weeks that is equal to half of the normal monthly payment. Since there are 52 weeks in the year this means you're making 26 payments. Its equivalent to making 13 monthly payments. So it ends up making 1 month extra payment per year.

Citimortgage says on their website that : "A homeowner with a $100,000 balance, on a 30 year loan at 6% could save $24,138.65 in interest and pay off 5 years; 5 months sooner."

This sounds like a pretty good deal. If you are paid every 2 weeks then you can easily budget to have your mortgage payment coincide with your paychecks. Plus the bi-weekly plan causes you to pay extra which pays off your mortgage faster and save interest.

But theres a catch: The Citimortage site says: " There is a one-time non-refundable enrollment fee of $375 and a transaction fee of $1.50 for each draft." So you're paying fees for the program. In my opinion there's really NO reason at all that this kind of payment plan should cost extra fees.

The extra fees associated with a bi-weekly payment plan aren't worth it and you can get the same benefit by simply making extra principal payments.

Instead of using a bi-weekly plan like this with a fee you can simply just add an additional amount to your normal monthly payment. The bi-weekly plan adds 1 more payment per year. So if you add 1/12th of a payment to each monthly payment then that would equate to the same thing. If you take a $100,000 fixed 30 year loan at 6% then the payments are $600. If you add 1/12th of a payment then thats $50 extra. Paying $50 extra on your payments each month will pay off your loan 5 years and 5 months sooner. So its the exact same benefit of a bi-weekly plan but without fees.

Citimortage even allows you to setup automatic payments and specify an additional principal payment. So they allow you to setup an extra monthly payment without fees. If your mortgage has such an option then use that feature and save yourself the fees. If your mortgage doesn't have such an option then you can get almost the same savings by simply making additional principal payments on your own when you're able to. (send in an extra check once in a while).
Either way if you simply make extra principal payments then you'll save just as much money on interest and you'll avoid the bank fees that they charge for the bi-weekly payments.

Rebates and Tax credits on Energy Star improvements

The other day I discussed the financial return of buying an Energy Star refrigerator. At the time I decided that spending an extra $350 to save $7 a year wasn't worth it. However I forgot to figure in the rebates and tax credits I'd be eligible to get for buying the energy star fridge.

If I bought that energy star fridge I'd be able to get a $50 rebate from my electric company and a $50 tax credit for my state. That's a $100 total incentive to buy a $700 fridge. In this case it still wouldn't be worth it in my opinion. You're still spending $250 extra and a $7 annual savings doesn't justify it.

But depending on what you're buying and the incentives available the difference might make it worth a purchase. I'd recommend checking for rebates and tax incentives when evaluating an energy saving improvement such as the purchase of an energy star appliance.

Here's a few places to look for information on rebates and tax incentives:

1. Check your electric or gas utility website to see if they have any rebate offers.
2. Look for your state tax information to see if they have any tax credits or deductions
3. Search the Energy Star site to search for rebates and incentives based on ZIP code.
4. Federal tax incentives information for energy savings also from Energy Star.
5. You can also look at the manufacturer or reseller for any special rebates or promotions they may be running.

Made nearly $500 by holding a yard sale

My wife and I recently had a yard sale. After getting married we had a lot of extra 'stuff' that we didn't need. Between our two households we had duplicates of many items. And when merging our houses we had more stuff than we had room for. So we've been gradually working on getting rid of stuff.

My wife did almost all the work preparing. She had to sort items and put prices on them. I don't know exactly how much time she put into preparation but I'm going to guess it was around 25 hours. Then the two of us spent most of the day on Saturday and Sunday holding the sale.

Overall we made close to $500 for the weekend. I think that is a pretty good return for the effort.

What sold well:
Tools - we sold a variety of tools for $1 each and they sold very well.
Bags - $1-5 for bags sold pretty well
Books - good books sold well at 50¢ each
Assorted Houseshold items
Kitchen items
Electronic items - we sold 2-3 stereos and radios, a karaoke machine and a relatively new DVD player. We priced them for around 10-33% of new prices
Computers and parts that were in good condition and recent. I sold two computers that were around 2 years old for about 1/3 of the cost of new.
Videos - videos sold ok at 50¢
Decorative items


What sold poorly:
Clothing - people barely even looked at the clothing and we only sold a couple items.
Poor quality items - Nobody wanted stuff that was broken or missing parts


I think the keys for success at a yardsale are: 1) Sell items at a low/reasonable price. Most of the stuff we sold was at a fraction of new prices. People go to yard / garage/ estate sales looking for bargains. 2) Sell items that were useful and someone would reasonably want to buy. The 'useful' stuff sold well.

Does it always make sense to hold a yard sale? Not always. I would only hold a yard sale if you have enough stuff to make it worth the effort. If you only have a few high ticket items then sell them on ebay or Craigslist. If you have a bunch of small low cost/quality items then consider donating them to charity for a tax deduction.

Here's a couple questions to ask yourself before holding a yard sale:

1) If I sell all this stuff how much will I make? If the amount isn't worth spending a Saturday waiting around your yards talking to strangers then its not worth holding a yard sale.

2) Could you make more by donating it all to charity? If you itemize then you can deduct the 'fair market value' of household goods you donate to charity. If your marginal tax rate is high enough then its going to be better for you financially to donate items to charity instead of selling them. For example consider a pair of jeans: If you bought the jeans for $25 then you could reasonably donate them and deduct $5 value for them. If your marginal tax rate is 40% then thats a $2 net gain in tax avoidance. If you sold them at a yard sale for anything less than $2 you'd be coming out behind.

3) Could you just sell it on eBay or Craiglist? If you have a few high ticket / high demand items then it might be easier just to sell them on eBay or Craigslist or some other venue. For certain items you can find a better market online. If I had a used Nintendo Wii game or two that I wanted to sell then I'd certainly go to eBay or Craiglist.

For us we had a LOT of stuff and much of it was useful and sellable. We also had a wide mixture of higher ticket and misc. items. So for us it made sense.


Photo source daquellamanera on Flickr