Tuesday, February 9

Weekly round-up

As I went tripping 'round the blogosphere, catching up on some much needed reading, there were some pieces that caught my eye:


My Two Dollars has changed his mind about walking away from your mortgage. I'm still not sure I am completely comfortable with it. But this article nearly swayed me!

J over at Budgets Are Sexy asks if you'd sell your virginity -- and if so, for how much?

Amanda over at My Dollar Plan wants to know if you have a plan for the worst case scenario. It's really something that everyone should ask.

Mrs. Micah explains the difference between identity theft and credit card fraud. I think we all tend to use the two interchangeably.

Money Mate Kate has discovered the Couponing for Food Banks Club. I'd never heard of a club like this, so it was really interesting!

Jill at Moolanomy explains how to have a no-spend weekend. We hear a lot about them, but she had some excellent points about the actual mechanics of it all.

3 Comments:

Blogger Money Beagle said...

My Two Dollars' article didn't sway me at all and in fact made me unsubscribe to his blog feed. If everybody that had a justifiable reason for walking away from their mortgage did so, it would set off a never ending cycle of new people walking away every time the property values declined from the previous batch walking away, until the entire real estate market is decimated. It's a zero sum game, and if you walk away thinking you 'won', in reality someone else loses, and don't be naive enough to think it's just the big, bad faceless bank. Your neighbors lose as property values fall, the municipality you reside in and everybody that lives there loses as property tax revenues fall and services, and even local children lose since property tax revenue funds schools.

If it were up to me, nobody would waste their time reading this article, but then again, what do I know? After all I'm in the minority since I'm living in a house that I owe more on but have never questioned whether or not to make the payments.

February 9, 2010 at 11:10 AM

 
Blogger Abigail said...

Money Beagle,

Perhaps I was a little glib in my comment. I apologize. I think he simply tapped into the frustration so many of us feel toward banks right now. I might have gotten a tad carried away.

I do think that people need to live up to their commitments. I get sick of the argument that they owe more than the house is worth. So long as you can make your payments, you have a roof over your head. So what's the big deal?

And even if you can't make the payments and leave/arrange for a short sale, I'm of the firm belief that you still owe the money. You signed for it. Short of out-and-out fraud on the bank's part, you took on a responsibility and there's no good excuse for letting go of that just because things didn't work out. I've argued this in past posts, in fact.

I think there are more people like you than it might seem, Money Beagle. I know of at least a couple bloggers off the top of my head who are in your situation. Funny About Money for one. And one blogger MSN Money talks about, something along the lines of "Where's my ocean view?"

February 9, 2010 at 11:29 AM

 
Blogger Money Beagle said...

No apologies necessary. I didn't mean to come across as attacking you for posting the link. I agree the banks are frustrating to deal with and I appreciate that aspect of the article, but I get frustrated because the original article doesn't consider all of the 'real' people affected by this other than the person walking away and not having to look back. It seems to advocate a continuation of the 'me-first' attitude that got us into the mess in the first place. I think and hope that you're right and that we've hit the crest of people walking away, and that we'll see people that love and respect their home and neighbors and who aren't willing to walk away from an obligation that they agreed to take on, even if it hurts.

I was actually going to mention Funny in my original comment, because hers is one of my absolute favorite blogs!

Thanks for the response and again, my apologies if I inadvertently directed my frustration your way.

February 9, 2010 at 11:39 AM

 

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