2 November 2007 1137 views 2 Comments Print This Post  Email This Post

This week I’ve been making plans for some big changes here on Money Socket. For one, we’re going to be changing to a new theme and the format of the site will be more of an online magazine with articles on personal finance, entrepreneurship and life topics rather than purely a blog style format. I call it Money Socket version 2.0. In addition, I’m proud to introduce you all to a new personal finance author that will be writing for Money Socket. Her name is Thursday Bram and she is a phenomenal writer with a passion for personal finance topics. Her exciting articles have been published in numerous publications such as Why Magazine, Growfolio, and Triangle CATALYST. She will start writing articles for your enjoyment next week.

Stay tuned for exciting new things here at Money Socket. If you haven’t, please subscribe Money Socket by adding us to your RSS reader. If you prefer to receive new articles by email, please subscribe using the email form in your upper right corner.

Thank you all for reading, and here are some great articles for this week from other websites:

Did you rent or buy? Glad you did? Jim asks a very interesting question here. Those who bought their homes in the last two years would have been better off renting, myself included. This led me to bring up the topic of renting or buying in the long term. My opinion for the bay area will always be to rent. In my situation, if I chose to live in CA forever, I would rent and invest my would-be down payment. According to my personal numbers, if I buy I would tie up my money and have to pay about $1300 in expenses, including mortgage, property taxes and maintenance. If I rent and invested my would-be down payment, I would be able to pay my rent with rental income and have about $1000 left over. Hmm…Buy and shell out $1300/mo or rent a similar place and earn $1000 a month? No brainer. As for appreciation in CA? Theres not much room left for much, and even if there is, it’s not worth it. You end up losing. Rent if you live in a high priced area.

8 Steps to a 6 figure salary. Here is a great article from a man with a lot of experience. There is lots of great advice here, I especially agree with #1. Most people my age go into a major not knowing what career opportunities it offers. This is the first step to a six figure salary. Although #5 is true, a big city gives you more opportunity to earn 6 figures, he knows how I feel about moving to a big city. I don’t think the bigger salary is worth all the added expense, especially when you’re young and you need to jump start your investments so your returns can snowball. So I would say yes, big city offers big salary, but it may not be the best financially in the long run. Although a big city offers you many intrinsic benefits.

Owning a home isn’t all its cracked up to be.  While we’re on the topic of home ownership, here is a good one from Jeremy. Although not all of us get snow, we do run into things that break down. Thats one of those expenses that we just don’t notice but it can add up. If the water heater goes out, the furnace, etc. Thats one thing most renters don’t have to worry about. The big one, which is sort of a silent stinger is property taxes. That goes on forever and in expensive areas it can cost you $500 or more each month. Factor in all your expenses and opportunity costs before you purchase a house to live in.

New features make lending on Prosper better than ever. I have yet to really look into Prosper as a means of diversifying my investments further, but this article introduces us to new tools that can help your make an informed decision if you decide to become a money lender. With the stock market becoming so volatile as of late, I’ll definitely be looking into Prosper.com.