Everybody Loves Your Money

I’m not a huge fan of Jim Cramer.  Every time I’ve tried to watch his show, I find myself feeling overwhelmed.  I don’t mean I feel overwhelmed with the information that he’s yelling about.  I think I’m mostly just overwhelmed by his on air persona.  Frankly, I think that his show highlights the problems with investing in this day and age.  There are so many people chasing investment advice.  Are you really going to get a hot tip from Cramer?  Statistically, yes you are.  I mean, everyone has to be right some times.

If you believe this site: http://www.yourmoneywatch.com/index.php?name=Stock… as of 4/13/07 his performace was 12.92% compared to the S&P return of 16.81 in the same period.  My take on this is that I’m going to continue to index in different sectors of the market including large cap, small cap, and international and just keep dollar cost averaging.  While I may buy an individual stock once in awhile, I don’t plan on chasing down leads from someone screaming at me on tv.

This is just crazy.  These people were each making $300 per week picking strawberries and they, along with another family that work as mushroom farmers making $500 per week, were able to qualify for a $720,000 house.  Because they didn’t speak english, they were completely reliant on their agent to help them through the process.

As it turns out, the loan they were given, and clearly didn’t understand, had a ONE MONTH teaser rate which put their payment at $4800 for the first month, and $5375 after that.  The agent assured them they would be able to refinance quickly and get the payment down to $3000.  Uhhh, on what planet?

Here are the ugly details:

Family 1: $600 per week (2X$300) (seasonal)

Family 2: $1000 per week (2X$500) (seasonal)

House Price: $720,000

Mortgage payment (first month): $4800

Mortgage payment (second month): $5375

House value estimate: $580,000

What is even more amazing about this story is that the mortgage was only put in one person’s name.  This person had an annual income of $13,000.  How does someone with an annual income of $13,000 qualify for a $720,000 loan?  It seems even more suspicious to read that the real estate agent was helping them with the payment for the first few months.  I’ll bet she didn’t help them long enough to burn up her commission!  I’m sure there are lots of stories like this out there.  It’s really amazing how bad some people get screwed.

I’m still not sure why I got a free salad from McDonalds today but I am happy to have received it.

I took my daughter to McDonalds today.  We went through the drive thru and after I ordered a Happy Meal for my daughter, the lady said, “Would you like a chicken salad for free?”.  My initial response was, “What was that?”.  She asked me again and I had to ask, “Did you say it is free?”, to which she replied, “Yes, it’s free”.  I said, “Sure, that sounds great”.  I finished ordering my food (I’m not much for their chicken salads) and, sure enough, they gave me the salad for free.  I’m guessing it was some kind of promotion to get people to try their new chicken salad.

I brought it home and stuck it in the fridge.  My wife will be thrilled that I “thought of her” when she sees the salad in there.