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HUD Refund
The other day I received a letter in the mail saying I was owed a refund on my HUD loan, and for a small fee they could process it for me. At first I thought it was junk mail, but the following day I received another letter from a different person saying the same thing.
I decided to look around online and see what I could find out. After a short Google search I found the HUD/FHA website and used the quick form to search for my name.
Sure enough, I was there and a substantial refund was listed. A short phone call later and a nice lady on the phone told me they would send me the forms in the mail.
Here’s what I learned doing this.
1. You do not need to pay someone to process the loan for you. The hud.gov website is very easy to use and the customer service representative on the line is very helpful. There is no reason to pay a 3rd party to do this for you.
2. See number 1. Honestly, it took me 10 minutes to find out I had a refund and place the call. There was no wait time to talk with someone from the HUD office and it is extremely simple to start the process.
Why not see if you have a refund waiting for you?
http://www.hud.gov/offices/hsg/comp/refunds/
Save money drying clothes
Living in AZ, I really don’t have an excuse for not drying my clothes outside. We have an average of 300+ sunny days a year. For the most part, I don’t take advantage of this. I usually stick with the ease and convenience of my electric dryer. I was doing laundry this weekend and it occrued to me that I could save allot of energy using a simple trick to make my clothes dry faster. My secret? A dry towel.
I’ve used the dry towel plus wet clothes trick for awhile when Im in a rush to get out the door. Until now I didn’t think of applying it everytime to reduce my drying time. Heres a quick list of my new method
1. Only run the washer and dryer at night during offpeak electricity times
2. Use the minimum amount of water necessary for clothes
3. Let the clothes sit in the washer for 30 minutes to an hour to dry out a little. Anything longer then an hour and they start to mildew.
4. Place a large dry towel in the dryer with my clothes.
5. Check the clothes halfway through the drying cycle. I’ve noticed that my clothes are usually dry even though my dryer shows 20 minutes left in the drying process.
$30 in August goal
Im $5 closer to my goal of making $30 online this month. I sent out some emails earlier this week to friends letting them know I can host their websites for a low cost. So far Ive had one response. I’ll be hosting his site for $5 per month and he paid for a year in advance.
$5 down, $25 to go
August income goal - make $30 online
I decided to set a new challenge for myself. I want to earn $30 online next month. Heres my plan, earn $30 online in August, then $60 in September, then $120 in October then $240 in November
If I can find a way to earn $30 online then I can keep repeating that process indefinitely. The only thing I need now is a way to do it.
I was thinking of selling things on eBay or Craigslits. Ive also thought of opening an online store selling vitamins. I know some people have good luck with affiliate marketing as well.
When you look at it $30 in income doesn’t seem that hard to do. Have you ever earned money online? Any ideas on what I should do?
The ugly fixer upper and foreclosure properties
Yesterday we talked about buying foreclosed and REO properties. I mentined that allot of times the potential property will be in bad shape and in need of repairs.
If youre set on buying distressed foreclosure homes here are some things you might want to look for
How to buy foreclosed real estate and bargain properties
Here in AZ approximately 1 out of 150 homes is facing foreclosure. Realtytrac has over 9,500 homes listed in Maricopa County as bank owned. That’s allot of properties!
Im sure most of us have heard the golden rule for investing, buy low, sell high. It would seem like know is the time to apply that rule to real estate too!
Before we get into the benefits of buying a foreclosure lets look at a few of the drawbacks
You may have to evict the current residents.
- If the property is occupied, the successful bidder is typically responsible for removing the occupants, who may not be the previous owners. They could be relatives or friends of the owners, renters or squatters.
The property might be in bad shape
- Owners may have stripped the home of all appliances, cabinets and flooring
- Home may have been vandalized while it was vacant
- Home may require major repairs to roofing, AC and walls
- Homes almost always needs new paint and flooring
Now that the caveats our out of the way lets look at where to find foreclosures
Major banks
Government agencies
Auction Houses
- Real Estate Disposition Corporation
- J.P King
- United Country Auction Services
- Williams and Williams
- Bid4Assets
There also a number of programs online that help you with the foreclosure process
Update on adsense and affiliate earnings
You may remember that about 2 months ago I started a wordpress theme site called Themes That Don’t Suck
The site has been averaging about 100 visitors a day and around 3,000 each month. Revenue has been kind of slow, but I guess that is to be expected with the number of visitors. Adsense only brought in a few dollars while the affiliate sites I have listed brought in $11. Im using E-Junkie to advertise other WordPress themes. I was skeptical that someone would actually click on them and purchase a theme, but it looks like I was wrong.
Im a little over break even on themes that dont suck now. The domain cost $9.99 to register for the year and the site is hosted free by a friend. Anything I make for the rest of the year will be profit.
This site isnt earning much of anything. Im averaging about 40 cents a month with adsense. Nothing to get excited about. Im in the process of creating a few more sites that offer free articles for websites.
I’ll keep you updated on how things progress
Free sample and coupon Roundup #6
Its been awhile!
$10 OFF Printable Toys R Us Coupon
Highlights from Dealhack
Highlights from SavingFreak
5 ways to save money
Want to save money but don’t know how? Feel like depriving yourself when it comes to saving money? Don’t be disheartened. Try these five money saving ideas, without breaking up a sweat!
I have a Magic Dryer
The other night I had a strange dream. Not as strange as the man made out of hot sauce, but strange none the less.
I wandered into the laundry room and found that the dryer was running. I thought to myself, that there must be clothes in it that need to be taken out.
I opened the dryer, but to my surprise the dryer did not turn off when the door was opened. “Strange!” - I said to myself.
After leaning over farther I peered into the dryer and saw that there were no clothes in it at all. I watched for a moment as the dryer turned round and round making that odd dryer sound.
I thought to myself, “Of course! It must be a magic dryer. You have to stop it with your hands for the clothes to appear!”
Reaching into the dryer I grabbed the top and bottom of the tumblers and stopped it. The dryer turned off and my clothes suddenly appeared nice and warm.
I woke up that morning, thinking to myself about my dream. Just for fun, I went to the laundry room to see if I really did have a magic dryer.
I entered the room and saw the dryer was already off. “Rats! This wasn’t how my dream was” I thought.
I carefully opened the dryer door, hoping that somehow my dream was true and I had the worlds only Magic Dryer.
To my surprise, lying there on top of a sock that had no match, was two, green, crisp one hundred dollar bills!
While having a dryer that makes my clothes magically appear is cool, I think Ill settle for one that pays me $200 every time I open the door.
