Fabulous Bargains!: Great Deals You Can Get for (Almost) Wholesale

by Stephanie Gallagher

Overview

We all want to save money and to own the best merchandise, but few of us want to stick to a complicated, time-consuming budget. In Fabulous Bargains!, Stephanie Gallagher proves that everyone can spend less, save more, and still live better. You'll get ideas for buying products cheaply for:

*Your home: kitchenware, furniture, mortgages, linens
*Your family: clothes, toys, babysitters and nannies, college educations
*Your health: exercise equipment, health insurance, sporting goods, vitamins
*Your money: debt reduction strategies, CDs, credit cards, investments
*Fun stuff: wine, vacations, entertainment tickets, books and magazines

Packed with more than 500 sources for discounts, including websites and catalogs, Fabulous Bargains! shows readers how to save money without sacrificing convenience, quality, or comfort.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781466865501
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	03/04/2014
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	240
File size:	475 KB

About the Author

Stephanie Gallagher is a columnist for Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine and manages Microsoft's Success with Your Money on-line forum. She is the author of Money Secrets the Pros Don't Want You to Know. She lives in Maryland.

Stephanie Gallagher is a columnist for Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine and manages Microsoft's Success with Your Money on-line forum. She is the author of Fabulous Bargains! and Money Secrets the Pros Don't Want You to Know. She lives in Maryland.

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

YOUR HOME

I love the idea of moving. It's all about hope and promise and, if you're lucky, more closet space. Unfortunately, it's also about hiring a mover, packing boxes, changing your address with every organization known to man, and, oh yeah, selling your old home if you have one. Not to worry. In this chapter, I'll not only give you tips that will save you money at every turn, but I'll share ideas that will make the whole process easier.

Not moving? Don't worry. There's plenty in this chapter for you, too. The most important thing for you to know is that your main goal in life right now should be to avoid all friends and relatives who are likely to move within the next six months. That's because all of their old, worn, crusty, not-even-good-enough-for-Goodwill stuff will end up in your basement if you aren't careful. Since you aren't the one getting more closet space, it hardly seems fair, but it's like one of those laws of physics: Static bodies within a fifty-square-mile range of moving bodies take on all the old junk of the moving bodies. Or something like that. Anyway, read on because the rest of this chapter is jam-packed with oodles of ways to save money on everything from furniture to kitchen utensils, carpeting, interior decorating, gardening, and more.

BUYING THE HOME OF YOUR DREAMS — AND SELLING THE OLD ONE

Let's get one thing straight right up front: I'm not a big fan of real estate agents. It's not that they aren't perfectly lovely people. In fact, some of my best friends are — well, you get the idea. The fact of the matter is the system just isn't set up in a way that truly benefits the buyer or the seller. Traditionally, the seller pays the real estate agent 6 percent of the selling price of the home (in some parts of the country, even 7 percent!). That's the agent's commission for doing the work of listing the home in the Multiple Listing Service, marketing it through flyers, open houses, and so on, and writing the contract. The problem is that when negotiations get tough, most real estate agents push sellers to compromise on price. They do this because a few thousand dollars less on the price of your home makes little difference in their pockets. Unfortunately, it makes a big difference in yours.

Let me give you an example. Say your home is listed for $200,000. The buyers offer $185,000. You want to go no lower than $195,000. The agent suggests you compromise at $190,000. After all, to the agent, the difference is merely $300. Had your home sold at $195,000, the agent would get a commission of $11,700; if it sells at $190,000, the agent's commission is $11,400. As far as the agent is concerned, it's hardly a difference worth quibbling over. You, on the other hand, are out $5,000. You can kiss that new dining-room set goodbye. And don't even think about that trip to Hawaii.

And that's just on the seller's side. What about when you're the buyer? Most real estate agents spend more time shuttling buyers around from house to house than they spend with the sellers whose homes they're representing. They listen patiently to the buyers' gripes and demands, all the while subtly steering them to the houses they want to sell. When a real estate agent says this home "is an absolute steal at this price" or that home "is in an up-and-coming neighborhood," should you listen? Absolutely not! Ask yourself: Who is paying this agent? If it isn't you — and in most cases it isn't — take what she says with a grain of salt.

Even so-called buyer's brokers, who purportedly represent buyers, still by and large really represent sellers, because it is the sellers who pay their commissions. The only exception are those buyer's brokers who are paid by the buyers. These agents, sometimes called exclusive buyer's brokers, have no reason to be interested in price and therefore are much more likely to have only your best interests at heart. To find an exclusive buyer's broker in your area, contact the National Association of Exclusive Buyer Agents (NAEBA) at 800986-2322 or visit their web site at www.naeba.org.

WHERE TO START YOUR SEARCH FOR THE PERFECT HOME

An excellent place to start your new-home search is on the Internet. You can search the following sites from the privacy of your home and collect a lot of detailed information without ever coming in contact with a real estate agent. Check out: HomeScout (www.homescout.com), Owners.com (www.owners.com), Realtor.com (www.realtor.com) Cyberhomes (www.cyberhomes.com), and Microsoft HomeAdvisor (www.homeadvisor.com).

Of course, lazy people like me don't even look at resales. Truly lazy people only buy newly built homes because they don't want to be bothered painting, replacing carpeting, or removing wallpaper that's older than they are. You know you fall into this category if you would sooner have a root canal than face having to modernize a thirty-year-old bathroom. I know, I know. New homes don't have character. You know what I say to that? Character, shmaracter. It's overrated.

Not that new homes don't come with drawbacks. Just looking at builders' models can make a person feel guilty. You never see jelly stains on the furniture or mismatched window treatments or dirty socks on the bedroom floors. You never see anything that looks like a real home (or, to be more precise, a home that I've lived in) because the builder wants you to feel relaxed, and who can feel relaxed when there's laundry piling up on the kids' floors?

Consequently, the average builder's model has spacious rooms, minimal furniture, and windows, floors, and trims that have been coifed to perfection like a supermodel on a Paris fashion shoot. The builder's model also has really, really big bathrooms. Now, I'm all for space, but I ask you, does a bathroom need to be big enough to accommodate your son's entire cub scout troop on an indoor camping trip? What do builders think people are doing in there anyway? As far as I'm concerned, bathrooms should be small and cozy so the mirrors can fog up when you take a shower and the whole room stays warm and toasty while you dry off.

And what's with the big tubs? Is it just me, or do those tubs end up as enormous dust-gathering, ceramic-tiled planters? I mean, how many people take a quick bath before work every day? You could read the entire Sunday New York Times in the time it takes to fill up one of those monstrosities. I know, I know, you're supposed to take a bath at night when you can turn on the jets, light a few candles, and let an aromatherapy bubble bath ease the stress of your day. Yeah, right. Show me a working mom who slips into a bubble bath every night and I'll show you a woman with a live-in nanny, full-time housekeeper, and all the local takeout places on speed dial.

And don't even get me started on the living rooms. As bathrooms have gotten larger, living rooms have gotten smaller. It seems like the builders are taking all the extra square feet they're putting into the bathrooms from the living room. Seriously, I visited a model home recently where the bathroom was the size of my living room and the living room was the size of my kitchen, which is about the size of your average walk-in closet.

Okay, so I'll complain about anything. Whether you're like me and have a pet peeve about big bathrooms and tiny living rooms or you actually want a bathroom large enough to accommodate a small dinner party, you'll find what you're looking for at the New Home Search (www.newhomesearch.com) web site, which lists over 100,000 builders and new homes under construction. You can search by community or builder and get detailed information on a particular model, including square footage and number of bedrooms and bathrooms; you can even see floor plans right online.

Or you could take the insanity of home buying a step further and try to build your own custom home. One thing's for sure: people won't call you lazy, as custom-building can be a dreadfully time-intensive process. Then again, it's probably the only way you'll be able to get exactly what you want. Before you hire an architect, though, you'll want to visit the B4UBUILD web site (www.b4ubuild.com), which has everything you need to know, including a sample construction schedule, information about contracts, and photo albums of houses and architectural styles. You can even buy books from this site on topics such as estimating costs, plumbing, landscaping, and painting and decorating.

Regardless of whether you end up with a custom home designed to your exact specifications, a new home complete with oversized bathroom and tiny living room, or an older home decorated with Harvest Gold wallpaper and Antique Olive kitchen appliances, you still have to pay for it, which for most of us means shopping for a mortgage.

FINDING A GREAT MORTGAGE DEAL

The Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) has a terrific web site — HomePath (www.homepath.com) — that gives great basic information about what to look for in a mortgage and how to compare mortgages from different lenders. Once you know what you're looking for, you can zap right over to one of the following web sites to conduct detailed searches online for mortages with the lowest interest rates, lowest closing costs, fewest points, and so on:

• iOwn, www.iown.com. To search the iOwn database, you'll have to answer a series of questions about the type of loan you're interested in (e.g., 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, one-year ARM, etc.), value of the property, where it's located, how much you plan to borrow, and whether or not the home will be your primary residence. Then you can search for loans by lowest interest rate, lowest closing costs, lowest points, or lowest annual percentage rate (the effective interest rate of the loan including points over the life of the loan).

• E-Loan, www.eloan.com. Like iOwn, this site asks questions about the type of loan, the property, how much you want to borrow, etc. One of the nice features of this site is that you can look at projected annual payments and interest costs of two different loans side by side, so you can see, for example, how your interest payments will differ with an adjustable-rate loan versus a fixed-rate loan.

• Quicken, mortgage.quicken.com. Like HomeShark and E-Loan, Quicken asks a series of questions to determine the best loan for you, but the questions are more detailed and personal, focusing on things like your income and debts in an attempt to prequalify you for the quoted mortgages. If it were me, I'd prefer to remain anonymous when searching for rates, but if giving out this information doesn't bother you, this site is a good one, especially for the beginning home buyer. It explains each step of the process in detail as you go along.

• Mortgage Loan Page, www.loanpage.com. You enter information about the property, type of loan, loan program, what kind of points you're willing to pay, term you want to lock in your loan, the maximum you're willing to pay as an application fee, what the adjustable-rate index (if applicable) should be based on, and what the adjustable-rate margin (if applicable) should be. Then you get a lender name, number of points, interest rate, APR, number of days to lock in your loan, application fee, and what your "ratios" have to be to qualify for the loan. Ratios are the mortgage payment as a percentage of your total monthly debt and your total monthly income.

• MortgageQuotes, www.mortgage quotes.com. You start by selecting your state and the type of loan program you're interested in (i.e., fixed-rate conforming mortgage, adjustable-rate jumbo mortgage, etc.). Then MortgageQuotes searches its database of over 1,000 lenders throughout the U.S. for the best deals. There's even a payment calculator to help you figure out what your monthly payment would be based on an interest rate and loan amount you select.

SELLING YOUR OLD HOME

Of course, before you can settle on a new home, you have to sell the old one (assuming you have an old home) unless you want to carry two mortgages or you plan to rent out the old place. Again, I recommend trying to do it without a real estate agent. If it doesn't work out, you can always hire an agent later.

Now, there is work involved. I won't kid you about that. You'll have to paint and re-carpet and tidy up the place, but you'd have to do that even if you used a real estate agent. You'll also have to furnish information about the square footage of your home, cost of utilities, and proximity to schools, neighborhood amenities, and the like. It's a good idea to put this information on a flyer with a picture of your house that prospective buyers can take home with them.

It's also a good idea to use those tried-and-true cosmetic tricks to show your home in the best possible light. Put away all the clutter — stuff it in your drawers, under the bed, or in the basement if you have to, just not in the closets where buyers will see it. Turn on all the lights, open all the window shades, and keep fresh flowers in the dining room. You can also buy scented oils that sit on a ring over the light bulb in a lamp and emit pleasant homey scents. Just make sure the scents are subtle, not overpowering. Alternatively, you can bake cookies or bread, or make popcorn when you know you'll have prospective buyers coming through. Yes, these are cheap tricks. No, they are not unethical. They are no different from putting a fresh coat of paint on the walls or taking down that ugly painting that offends everyone who walks in the door.

More important than having a nice-smelling home, though, is getting people in the door to see it. A real estate agent's best weapon is his ability to get your home listed in the Multiple Listing Service, the database all realtors use to search for homes for their clients. Yet there are many firms around the country that for a nominal flat fee, can list your home in the Multiple Listing Service, or alternatively, advertise it in directories of homes that are for sale by owners. Some of these discount broker firms provide lawn signs and even help you with the contract and settlement.

One such national firm is Help-USell (www.helpusell.net), which has been in business since 1976. Help-U-Sell will help you set a price for your home, put your home in their exclusive marketing system and on the Internet, loan you yard, open-house, and directional signs, teach you how to hold an open house, prequalify buyers, and even show your home for you.

You can find other discount broker firms in your local yellow pages. You can also list your home on the Owners.com web site (www.owners.com).

If you decide to advertise in your local newspaper or real estate magazine, be sure to use words in your ad that indicate a sense of urgency, like "seller motivated" or "just reduced." It's also a good idea to offer to help with closing costs and/or financing if you can. And you definitely should put up a sign in front of your house with your phone number so that people just passing by can see your house is for sale and contact you if they're interested.

Another critical factor is pricing your home correctly. Price it too low and buyers will wonder what's wrong with it. Price it too high and it'll sit on the market too long, putting off buyers with a tight budget. Thankfully, there are some great, low-cost resources available to help you price your home accurately:

• Home Price Check, www.homepricecheck.com. Type in your address and Home Price Check will give you all the homes that have sold on your street since 1988, with the date of each sale and the price. When I conducted a search of my own home, I found plenty of sales in my neighborhood. Unfortunately, they weren't as recent as I would have liked.

• iOwn Comparable Reports, www.iown.com/buyerscenter. iOwn employs neural networks to predict an accurate selling price for your home. For $14.95, iOwn gives you a high predicted selling price, a low predicted selling price, and a predicted selling price. It also gives you details on six recent sales in your neighborhood and shows how your home compares to others in the neighborhood (in terms of square footage, number of bedrooms, etc.).

• DataQuick, products.dataquick.co m/consumer. This service costs $9.95 and gives you detailed specs on your home and comparable homes in the neighborhood, including square footage, number of rooms, assessed value, etc.

*
Another option is to hire an appraiser yourself before you put your home on the market. It'll cost you between $150 and $350, but it may be worth it, especially if you have a unique home that isn't really comparable in size, features, or style to other homes in your neighborhood. Contact the Appraisal Institute for a list of appraisers in your area at 202-298-6449.

(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "Fabulous Bargains!"
by .
Copyright © 2000 Stephanie Gallagher.
Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Title Page,
Copyright Notice,
Dedication,
Acknowledgments,
Introduction,
1. YOUR HOME,
2. YOUR FAMILY,
3. YOUR HEALTH,
4. YOUR MONEY,
5. YOUR BUSINESS,
6. YOUR STYLE,
7. YOUR LEISURE,
Index,
Also by Stephanie Gallagher,
Praise for Fabulous Bargains!,
Copyright,

What People are Saying About This

Roger Dawson

Roger Dawson, author of Secrets of Power Negotiation

A rare find! Shred, clever, and highly readable. The best money-management advice since Sylvia Porter came on the scene more than twenty years ago. I'd put my money on Stephanie Gallagher anytime.