Sawyers-Specialties Blog

A co-worker and I were talking a few weeks ago about mortgage payments when we discovered that we had the same mortgage company. Several years ago, I had made the jump over to weekly payments. I’ve been doing this for many years now. She has a young family and like many of us, lives paycheck to paycheck. This topic came up again when she told me she had to call the mortgage company to work out a plan when she couldn’t pay her mortgage at all this month (her husband’s work hours were cut recently).

When I paid a monthly mortage payment, we felt broke constantly. Half the month we had no money because the mortgage payment was due. Depending on what day of the week the first fell, we didn’t always have the money in the bank and paid it a week late, sometimes more (using most of the 16 day grace period we were allowed). In order to change over to weekly payments, our mortage had to be current (this was a struggle since we were often paying on the 5th, which techically was past due). We also needed to have about half our mortgage payment on hand, because the weekly payments would start coming out immediately. This again was a struggle. It seems the easiest time to do this is after a nice tax refund or sale of a large item.

The beneifts of weekly payments: My husband and I both work and each of our payments is enough to cover the weekly payment, this means that one check (or about 2/3 of one) goes to the mortgage, the other check goes to other expenses. Budgeting is so much easier when the bills are staggered out. Our vehicle insurance is due the first week of the month, vehicle payment the second week, (another vehicle recently paid off was due the third week), and health insurance and fuel oil budget payments are paid from the fourth. This has allowed us to control the flow of our expenses much better and their is no longer a two week span of being completely broke.

Depending on your mortgage company, you may also pay down your mortgage faster. Some weekly payment plans apply the payment immediately upon receipt (ours unfortunately does not, holding the partial payments until the first of the month when they’re applied as a full payment). The later will not give you the early payment like the first. Some plans are also a 48 week plan where there are no additional payments, mine is a 52 week plan where we make the equivalent of one full payment to paydown principal. We refinanced our loan in November 2006. According to our mortgage company, we’ve already reduced our 15 year mortgage by 4 months by participating in the weekly payment plan. We hope to have it paid off several years early.

For us, the real benefit was paying the mortgage without feeling the constant struggle to balance everything. We pay many of our bills by automatic draft (I only recommend this if you know you’ll have a consistent amount of money in your account every week or you’ll face a lot of high bank fees .. ours are $40 per overdraft). I highly recommend contacting your mortgage company to see if they offer a weekly plan if you feel you could benefit like we did.

Since Memorial Day, we’ve been to quite a few picnics and it’s always a challenge to take something along that’s unique. For the 4th of July, as we arrived at a picnic, my friend’s teenage daughter looked at what I had in my hands and said “Thank goodness you didn’t bring watermelon” (apparently that was a common take-along that year, along with at least 3 trays of brownies). I discovered an awesome recipe for Boston Cream Pie Minis in the Kraft Foods magazine (this is a free quarterly print magazine that I highly recommend, signup at the KraftFoods website)

The cupcakes may look complicated, but they’re actually quite easy, a simple box mix to make the cupcakes, a couple of ingredients whipped together, these are a great cooking project for parents and older children. The cupcakes can be cut with a simple butter knife so there’s no risk to fingers. My only tip is to cut the cupcake, place the bottom half on the tray where you’re going to want it for chilling (I can put all 24 on a large cookie sheet in rows of 4). Put your filling on the bottom, then top it, this reduces the need to move the cupcake before it’s fully set and keeps them looking fluffy and nice.

These cupcakes have been a big hit everywhere they’ve gone (my own teenage son finds them irresistable).

http://www.kraftfoods.com/kf/recipes/boston-cream-pie-minis-105206.aspx

Hopefully you’ve at least heard of the Nigerian Scams. You receive an unsolicted email asking you to help move some funds from a dead diplomat and for your assistance, you’ll receive a nice sum of money for your trouble. Oh, but you’ll need to pay some fees (few hundred to thousands, but not to worry, you’ll be made over $1million so what’s a few thousand)… you’ll never see that money… the money promised or the money spent. Now, you’d never fall for that would you? Or the fake lottery winnings (you just need to pay some money to release your prize or get it through customs or whatever).

http://www.snopes.com/crime/fraud/nigeria.asp

But, these scams can sometimes be a little harder to spot. There’s something in the back of your mind that says “Hey, this doesn’t sound quite right.”. Well, if you don’t listen to that voice, you could be out a lot of money.

So, here’s what happened to us this week. My husband has been trying to help his brother sell a large number of fish tanks that had belonged to our late nephew. They’ve been listed on Aquabid a few times, with no reasonable offers. Finally, a bidder steps up. Unlike ebay, there’s not a pay now button on this site. Payment is handled off-site by the bidder/seller. The first email sounds fine, interested in the tanks, can I pay by Cashiers Cheque (notice the spelling Cheque, not Check, not as common a spelling in the US, but not unheard of). I mention to my husband to be very careful, as there’s a good bit of fraud with Cashier’s Checks and that it could take 2 weeks to clear. Of course, he always thinks I’m quite paranoid about everything. But, something is nagging him just a bit or he wouldn’t have brought it up. So, he responds back to the seller that he’d take a Cashier’s Check. The next email is the one that causes the full red alert. The buyer now wants to send an extra $1000, have us send $900 of it to his shipper via Western Union as soon as we RECEIVE the check (he does actually capitalize the word receive). OK, this is a HUGE red flag. All auction sites and many banks will tell you that if the buyer wants to send you more than what you’ve asked for and send money elsewhere, end the transaction IMMEDIATELY. This will always be fraud. My husband tells me the new twist and I take a look at the email from our “friend” with a very english sounding name sending from a yahoo account with a very definite African IP address (if you don’t know how to check an IP address, contact your favorite geek and send the email as an attachment so the headers will be intact). My husband decides he wants to play with the scammer now and says that he’s fine with the arrangement but he’ll need to wait 2 weeks for the funds to clear. Of course our scammer is irritated and reminds him that the funds will clear in 3 days or less. DO NOT BELIEVE THIS. We contacted our local bank and they suggested 2 weeks, although some fraud prevention sites will tell you it can take even longer.

Answers to questions that we asked our bank:
If I deposit a cashier’s check, how long do I need to wait before I can be sure it’s good (we gave them the details of the “transaction”)?
They did say that the funds would be released into our account within a few days, but it could take 2 weeks for the check to be officially cleared by the issuing bank. They said that the cashier’s check would list security features on the back of the check, look at these features carefully and check to be sure they’re all there (if there are no security features listed, it’s a fake).

Would it be better to do a wire transfer?
NO, never allow a wire transfer from someone you don’t want to have your bank account numbers. (I had always been concerned about this myself and I was glad to hear the bank back me up on this).

Federal Trade Commission website: Check Overpayment Scams: Seller Beware
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/alerts/overpayalrt.shtm

This scam has been going on for some time. In fact, you can see a similar story that dates back to 2002 here.
http://www.scamvictimsunited.com/our_story.htm

Remember, while you would never cheat anyone, there may be someone out there looking to take advantage of you. If you fall victim to a scam similar to this, and don’t have the funds to cover the amount of the loss (the amount sent back or sent to a shipper via Western Union), you could not only be out the funds, but spin into a devasting whirlpool of bank fees, bounced check fees, and bad credit. The scammers are smart, but we can outsmart them by being vigilante. If the tiny voice inside you says something is wrong, trust it. As the saying goes, if it sounds to good to be true, it probably is.