Featured

If you are ready to buy your first home, congratulations! Investing in your primary residence can be one of the smartest decisions you will ever make. However, buying a home can seem like one of the most difficult and daunting tasks of your lifetime. Especially when it comes to deciding how much house you can afford. No worries, though: buying your first home can be an excellent (but still nerve-wracking!) experience once you decide on a price point. Let's look at the best ways to accomplish this.

Figuring Out the Basics

When I first began researching finance and investments, the many finance websites I encountered beckoned me to "Buy Stocks Now!" through flashy advertisements. These banner, flash media and pop up advertisements sure were pretty, but they didn't explain what I was getting into. I needed a crash course in investments, not a pretty banner ad. So I took the time to figure it out on my own, and I would like to share what I found.

The Five Main Investment Options

If you ever bought something cheap that turned out to be junk, I bet you were sorely disappointed in the quality. That great deal on scrap roofing material may have landed you, literally, in the doghouse, or the reason behind that excellent price on a used car may have become apparent when you broke down on the freeway.

Whatever the case, when you find an unbelievable deal on anything, it is often too good to be true. Broker junk bonds are no exception. Let's take a look at this trick in the bond world.

What is a Junk Bond?

Welcome to another Round-up here at MomVesting. As always, you all added many quality posts to the blogosphere over this last week.

We at MomVesting are very grateful to have each of you as a part of our community. Thanks for stopping by and commenting. It's fun to map out our route to a wealthy future with each of you.

Here are some of your great posts from this week:

Money, Marketing, and Social Media

When I was in my teens, I had an unbelievable opportunity to go to France with my class. My classmates and I were able to experience a new world and a new culture at the bright young ages of 17- and 18-years old. This wonderous overseas adventure helped each of us become well-rounded and understanding individuals.

A little while back, we here at MomVesting took a basic overview look at college savings plans. Now we're revisiting the subject and delving a bit deeper into the vast array of 529 plans out there in an effort to help readers be informed and make informed choices.

Recently in our Relationships and Finances series, we discussed Learning About Finance Together. This post touched on how you and your spouse can develop a great financial relationship based on self-education and learning together. However, we only touched on what you can do personally if you have not yet developed your financial muscles, not on how to encourage your spouse to become financially fit.

Before joining the forces of the self-employed, I previously worked as a paralegal. The firm I worked for dealt with Life Care Planning (aka estate planning). When we asked clients to bring their financial documents with them to the next meeting, they came in with literally boxes upon boxes of paperwork, some of it relevant, most of it not. One of my jobs was to wade through the piles and pick out those choice items that were actually relevant, make copies, and then create a Life Care Binder for them.

As we discussed in our Mutual Funds post, when you invest in a standard mutual fund, the stocks are diversified in a nice, safe manner. Hopefully, you can ride them out and gain lots of money along the way. Retirement will be sunny and warm, and your heartbeat won’t flutter out the window every time the market shifts.

I don't know about everyone else, but I must say that I have definitely been keeping up with the news about the potential government shut down. Yet, in the midst of everything, there comes a point when we have to remember that life does go on. Over the last week, I spent some time reading your blogs, planting some roses, and just enjoying the beautiful days we have been having.

Before I plant, I always check radar to see what kind of weather to expect. While the forecasts are not always accurate, they do at least give me some idea what to plan for.