I got a mention at the Carnival of Personal Finance hosted by Frugal Life.

Check out all the great tips!

Did you guys hear about the tenant who left behind 70,000 beer cans?

Bet that put a lot of you newbie real estate investors off. Actually the story has a few positive points. For one, the tenant stayed for 8 years. Thats a really long time. There are always costs associated with cleaning up and readvertising the house. After 8 years you’d have to change the carpets and paint the walls. Maybe do some yard work. The longer a tenant stays, the less cost you have. And the $800 that the cans sold for definitely helped defray that cost. Plus he probably lost his deposit, so I think the landlord actually was happpy! I know I would be.

Q. What’s the difference between Tax Evasion and Tax Avoidance?
A. About 4 years!

BBC reports that the original Survivor winner was sentenced to 4 years for not paying tax on his $1 million winnings and some other earnings.

Richard Hatch claimed financial ignorance. Yeah, not paying taxes on money coz you didn’t think you had to or you forgot you earned it is a great excuse. Right behind that is the excuse that taxes are unconstitutional. Unfortunately, both of them land you in jail. Do not pass go, do not collect $200 and go straight to jail!

If he had taken the initiative to talk to a financial planner,he could’ve saved him some money by intelligent tax planning. Atleast he would’ve told him that he needed to pay tax on the money he made and saved him jail time!

Lawrence Salberg has a great post on saving money when buying a new car. Its only the first in a series, but its quite a good read. Considering that Lawrence used to be a car salesman, its the inside scoop!

Skype has announced that until the rest of this year it’s customers will be able make free calls within the US. You have to download its client and you can then make PC-to-Phone calls for free. Its a marketing campaign to boost their client base. Since they have deep pockets [thanks to Ebay.com] its our chance to take advantage of this free offer.

Its especially useful for friends and family outside the US. They can now call us on our land-lines or cellphones at no cost to them.

Everyone always wants the highest return on their savings. Currently with interest rates being on the rise, the rate the banks offer are on the rise. INGDirect offers just over 4% for their regular savings.

For better returns, people invest in notes, both secured and unsecured. Places like Prosper.com let you lend money to people you’ve never met via the internet. Current rates are between 5.25% and 22% depending on the borrowers credit.

There’s also another company cpsnotes.com that will lend money from you to buy repossed cars and resell them. The company is listed on NASDAQ and offers 1 year terms of 8%. This is also unsecured.

Then there are the secured variety, backed by real estate. These notes offer between 6% and 18%. You can either become a hard money lender yourself and charge various points, but you’re stuck with doing the research and if something goes wrong, you need to know how to recoup your investment. You can also lend money to hard money lenders at around 10-12%. They relend to investors and make a decent spread on the money.

I’ve currently lent out some money to an investor who’s doing a condo conversion at 24%. Its been 8-9 months and so far he’s paying out regularly. I also lent a very small amount to another investor in Texas on a commercial property at 18%. He’s having a tough time making the payments. I’d go and file a case on the property, but the amount is so small, its just not worth the effort. It is secured by the real estate, so if it ever gets sold or refinanced, I’ll get my cash-back. I’d say there’s probably a 50% chance of getting my money back.

I’ve also lent some money to a developer/builder. This too is backed by real estate but the payments are on the backend. Because they’re are no payments due monthly, its structured like a partnership with me getting 75% return after 20 months.[As some of the properties are sold after 15 months, I start getting some money back]. So far its been around 10 months. Lets see how this works out.

If any of you have invested in notes or prosper.com, let me know how its worked out for you.

Apparently most online affliate programs $49.95. If you see an ad for ebooks or courses about affiliate marketing, email blasting, making money online, starting a business, adsense, adwords, spam marketeering, they all cost this same price. Some of them were originally listed for $97 but are now discounted to $49.95.

Who comes up with this number? Is there an institute of consumer psychology that comes up with a specific pricing at which point its really attractive? How come they all chose the same exact price?

Anyone know the answer to this? Maybe one of these courses will actually reveal this answer!

Creative mortgages have been mushrooming over the past few years. I think they become popular whenever property values become too high and the affordability drops. After a crash in prices, the lenders tighten their lending standards and they disappear. [From what I heard about the last crash]

The Option ARM loans have been pretty popular among investors. You have an option to pay you monthly payment as a

• Fully amortized 30 year loan
• Fully amortized 15 year loan
• Interest-only payment
• Negatively amortized interest-only payment thats probably 1/4 or 1/2 of the Interest-only payment

I’m not a big fan of these loans or the negatively-amortized loans because the APR is usually 0.5% higher than the interest-only loans[IO loans] and you end up payment compound interest on the money you borrow. I’ve been getting IO loans where the interest rate is fixed for the first 5 years.

However a new loan that I may opt for is the fixed 30 year loan which is interest-only for the first 10. After that its amortized over the remaining 20 years. The interest rate if fixed over the life of the loan. I may end up gettting these loans since the interest rate is only 0.25-0.5% higher than the 5 year IO loans and it gives you the security that you’ll be able to afford the payments in the event you actually keep the property for a long period of time. I think a 40 year option is also available.

I would consider getting this on my personal residence over the regular 30 year amortized as it lets you pay less for the first 10 years.[whenever i buy my personal residence that is. I’m currently renting!]

Here’s another shot at the new look. Thanks to BostonGal for her help.

Let me know if this doesn’t work for you. Mention your OS and browser version.

The Wall Street Journal had an article about a person who quit her high paying job after 15 years and is starting a new career from scratch.

Other Bloggers have mentioned that pursuing a given occupation because it affords a better lifestyle is better than doing what you truly love.

Well if you dislike what you’re doing and you want to try your hand at something new, Vocation Vacations will set you up with a vacation at your new job. Unlike most jobs however, you pay for the experience just like a vacation. Here’s a good article about test driving your new job.

However if you can’t figure out what you want to do with your life, I recommend picking up Life’s a Bitch and Then You Change Careers : 9 Steps to Get Out of Your Funk and On to Your Future . Like the title suggests, for those of us who are dis-satisfied with our lives and occupations, it’ll give you some ideas on changing your career and putting you in touch with something more fulfilling.