Alternate viewer and Mobile versions of FreeBy50

There are now two new ways to view FreeBy50.

Alternate article viewer
There is now a viewer for the blog that just shows the articles.   If you want to read the posts without all the clutter in the right and left columns and without advertisements (as far as I see) then you can use this viewer.   
The alternate viewer is at FreeBy50.com/view  The viewer has a few different ways to look at articles with flipcard,  sidebar and others.

Mobile version

The mobile version of Freeby50.com is available at Freeby50.com/?m=1
This is a stripped down version of the site that looks a lot better on many smart phones.

Best of Blog Posts for week of June 10th

Doughroller discusses  How a Late Mortgage Payment Affects Your Credit Score

and they answer What is a Flexible Spending Account?

In an older post MyMoneyBlog wrote Double Taxation and the Real Reasons 401(k) Loans Are Bad

How Much of Your Income Does Social Security Replace?

Social Security is a large part of retirement income for most Americans.   If you're planning for your retirement then it is useful to have an idea of how much your Social Security income will be.   I wrote before about exactly how your Social Security monthly benefit is figured.  It is pretty complicated.   Today I'll just give a rough figure for how much of your pre-retirement working wages Social Security typically replaces.

The Social Security site has a 'quick calculator' that will give a rough estimate of what your SocialSecurity benefit will be.  Using the calculator I found the Social Security monthly amounts for various income levels.   Then I figured how much of your working income that would equate to.   I just used the default of someone who is currently 61 years old and then got the standard SS rate for retirement at age 66.

Here's a table with the results:

Wages	SS / Wages
$10,000	67%
$20,000	50%
$30,000	41%
$40,000	37%
$50,000	34%
$60,000	32%
$70,000	31%
$80,000	29%
$90,000	27%
$100,000	26%

And graphically:

As you can see the more you make the less of your income that Social Security replaces.  Of course your actual payments are bigger.   If your wages were $20,000 then the monthly check is $830 which is 50% of your income, but if you made $100,000 then you'd get $2130 from SS which is 26% of your wages.

Keep in mind that this is just a rough estimate.  Your individual situation will differ depending on how many years you worked and your exact income per year.   The quick estimator just makes blanket assumptions about the wage history to give its rough estimate.

Over 4 Million home owners in Foreclosure Limbo

The article Foreclosure limbo: Staying without paying. from CNN Money says:

Some 4.2 million mortgage borrowers are either seriously delinquent or have had their cases referred to lawyers to pursue foreclosure auctions, according to LPS Applied Analytics. Of those, two-thirds have made no payments at all for at least a year, and nearly one-third have gone more than two years.

Nationwide, it takes an average of 565 days to foreclose on borrowers in default from their first missed payments to the final auction. In New York, the average is 800 days and in Florida, where the "robo-signing" issue is particularly combative, it's 807.

Thats a lot of people in foreclosure proceedings.  

Over 2.5 million people have lived rent free for a year and over 1.3 M have done so for 2 years.

Average foreclosure process takes 1.5 years and over 2 years in some areas.

I wonder if all of these are primary residences or if they are also including rental properties in the totals?   I'm guessing rentals may be mixed in there so the owner could even be getting paid rent while making no mortgage for 1-2 years at a stretch.

I don't see too much harm in a mortgage holder in default living rent free in the home during foreclosure.  The alternative is leaving the home and letting it sit vacant.   If I were the bank I'd prefer the property to be occupied rather than an invitation for vandals and crackhead squatters.