- Watching Gamers:Dorkness Rising #
- Charisma? Weee! #
- Tweeting a dork movie? I'm a bit of a geek. #
- We just met and the first thing you do, after boinking a stranger in the presence of the king, is to murder a peasant? #
- Every movie needs a PvN interlude. #
- Everything's better with pirates. #
- Waffles? Recognize. #
- The Spatula of Purity shall scramble the eggs of your malfeasance. #
- Checkout clerks licking their fingers to separate bags or count change is gross. #
- Watching Sparkles the Vampire, Part 2: Bella's Moodswing. #twilight #
- @penfed was a waste of money. $20 down the drain to join, wouldn't give a worthwhile limit, so I can't transfer a balance. #
- @JAlanGrey It's pretty lame. The first one was ok. This one didn't improve on the original. in reply to JAlanGrey #
- RT @tferriss: Are you taking snake oil? Beautiful data visualization of scientific evidence for popular supplements: http://ping.fm/pqaDi #
- Don't need more shelves, more storage, more organization. Just need less stuff. #
- @BeatingBroke is hosting the Festival of Frugality #226 http://su.pr/80Osvn #
- RT @tferriss: Cool. RT @cjbruce link directly to a time in a YouTube video by adding #t 2m50s to end of the URL (change the time). #
- RT @tferriss: From learning shorthand to fast mental math – The Mentat Wiki: http://ping.fm/fFbhJ #
- RT @wisebread: How rich are you? Check out this list (It may shock you!!!) http://www.globalrichlist.com/ #
- RT @tferriss: RT @aysegul_c free alternative to RosettS: livemocha.com for classes, forvo.com for pronunc., lang8.com for writing correction #
- Childish isn't an insult. http://su.pr/ABUziY #
- Canceled the Dish tonight. #
Selling Your Home: The Real Estate Agent
If you are not able or willing to sell your home yourself, you’ll need to find a real estate agent. A realtor is someone who deals with all of the hassles involved in selling your home in exchange for a fee of up to 7% of the selling price.
The hassles include marketing, an objective price analysis, advertising on the internet and in newspapers, providing a yard sign, negotiating the sale price, reviewing and filling out the contracts, and navigating the entire process for you. The aren’t meaningless duties, so make sure you are getting what you pay for. You need to find the right realtor for you.
The key to to ask questions, particularly the right questions. You can ask the wrong ones if you’d like, but they tend not to help much.
Helpful questions include:
- “Can I call your previous clients?” If the answer is no, run away! If the answer is yes, get the list and call them.
- “Have you sold any homes near here recently?” Get the names and numbers of the customers and call them. Find out how it went and what they wish would have happened differently. If the realtor hasn’t sold nearby homes recently, keep looking.
- “Will you put your sales strategy in writing?” If it’s not in writing, you may be left paying the full commission, without getting the full promised service.
- “What will you tell a potential buyer that wants to negotiate?” Make sure you and your realtor are on the same page.
Now for some secrets that realtors will not volunteer.
- The selling fee is negotiable. If you live in a popular development, or if nearby homes have sold quickly, you should be able to get your fee reduced a couple of points.
- You don’t have to sign an exclusive listing agreement. With an exclusive agreement, you will pay the realtor a fee if the house sells. Period. With a non-exclusive agreement, you can list with several agents and only pay the one who actually sells your house. If you find the buyer, you won’t pay a selling commission at all.
Selling your house can be intimidating and realtors are there to make the task easier for you. Have you had any problems with real estate agents?
You’re not alone: Help with Bankruptcy & Debt
Frequently regarded as an indication of personal failure, bankruptcy is still today widely considered a highly sensitive topic. Many will even feel uneasy speaking about their debt problems with close relatives and friends. If you, too, are facing serious debt issues and are in need of help, rest assured you are not the only one afraid of sliding into bankruptcy. In fact, thousands of households in the UK are threateningly close to insolvency and most are experiencing the exact same feelings of shame and despair. This perfectly understandable reaction has, meanwhile, unfortunately overshadowed the fact that there are hands-on practical steps especially designed to help you resolve your debt situation.
There is a good reason why addressing the issue of bankruptcy has an urgent ring to it. Recent statistics indicate a steady rise of individual company insolvencies in the UK, particularly since the 1990s. According to the British Insolvency Service, the rate of bankruptcy on an individual level has risen from a total of 24,441 in 1997 to staggering 106,645 in 2007 in England and Wales. Alarmingly, the peak doesn’t seem to have been reached yet. As respected online-service ‘This is Money’ reports, ‘record numbers of people were declared insolvent in England and Wales’ in 2010, further noting that ‘an all-time high of 135,089 people were declared insolvent in 2010—0.7% up on the total for 2009.’ As you can gather from these numbers, you are certainly not alone with your debt problems: Around 140,000 adults are facing bankruptcy as a direct consequence of mishandling their debt issues, which translates to 385 new cases per day. It has already been pointed out that ‘the number of victims will be enough to fill both the London 2012 Olympic stadium and the Emirates Stadium.’
So, if you’re facing bankruptcy, there’s no need to feel ashamed. By taking an active stance and addressing your debt issues, you may even be able to avert insolvency altogether. With years of experience and several distinctions to our credit, the Debt Advisory Line have established themselves as leading experts in the field of debt management. We’ve already helped thousands of individuals and households who thought bankruptcy was their only option. Settling debt issues is our forte – and you shouldn’t settle with anything less.
This post brought to you by Debt Advisory Line.
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-06-19
- RT @bargainr: Life in North Korea is absolutely dreadful http://nyti.ms/dAcL26 #
- RT @bitfs: Weekly Favorites and Gratitude!: My Favorite Posts this Week Jeff at Deliver Away Debt threw together the .. http://bit.ly/9J0gGo #
- @LiveRealNow is giving away a copy of Delivering Happiness(@dhbook). Follow and RT to enter. http://bit.ly/czd31X # #
- Baseless claims, biased assumptions, poor understanding of history. Don't bother. #AnimalSpirits #KeynesianCult #
- RT @zappos: Super exciting! "Delivering Happiness" hit #1 on NY Times Bestseller list! Thanks everyone! Details: http://bit.ly/96vEfF #
- @ericabiz Funny, we found a kitten in a box last week. Unfortunately, it was abandoned there, not playing. Now, we have a 5th cat. in reply to ericabiz #
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-07-10
- Happy Independence Day! Be thankful for what you've been given by those who have gone before! #
- Waiting for fireworks with the brats. Excitement is high. #
- @PhilVillarreal Amazing. I'm really Cringer. That makes me feel creepy. in reply to PhilVillarreal #
- Built a public life-maintenance calendar in GCal. https://liverealnow.net/y7ph #
- @ericabiz makes webinars fun! Even if her house didn't collapse in the middle of it. #
- BOFH + idiot = bad combination #
The Luxury of Vacation
This was a guest post I wrote last year to answer the question posed by the Yakezie blog swap, “Name a time you splurged and were glad you did.”
There are so many things that I’ve wanted to spend my money on, and quite a few that I have. Just this week, we went a little nuts when we found out that the owner of the game store near us was retiring and had his entire stock 40% off. Another time, we splurged long-term and bought smartphones, more than doubling our monthly cell phone bill.
This isn’t about those extravagances. This is about a time I splurged and was glad I did. Sure, I enjoy using my cell phone and I will definitely get a lot of use out of our new games, but they aren’t enough to make me really happy.
The splurge that makes me happiest is the vacation we took last year.
Vacations are clearly a luxury. Nonessential. Unnecessary. A splurge.
When we were just a year into our debt repayment, we realized that, not only is debt burnout a problem, but our kids’ childhoods weren’t conveniently pausing themselves while we cut every possible extra expense to get out of debt. No matter how we begged, they insisted on continuing to grow.
Nothing we will do will ever bring back their childhoods once they grow up or—more importantly—their childhood memories. They’ll only be children for eighteen years. That sounds like a long time, but that time flies by so quickly.
We decided it was necessary to reduce our debt repayment and start saving for family vacations.
Last summer, we spent a week in a city a few hours away. This was a week with no internet access, no playdates, no work, and no chores. We hit a number of museums, which went surprisingly well for our small children. Our kids got to climb high over a waterfall and hike miles through the forest. We spent time every day teaching them to swim and play games. Six months later, my two year old still talks about the scenic train ride and my eleven year old still plays poker with us.
We spent a week together, with no distractions and nothing to do but enjoy each other’s company. And we did. The week cost us several extra months of remaining in debt, but it was worth every cent. Memories like we made can’t be bought or faked and can, in fact, be treasured forever.