Borrowing Against Home Equity, Paying Off A Car Loan @ My Roundup

by Silicon Valley Blogger on 2007-12-169

We’re back with the latest on the financial blogosphere! Let’s check out what’s happened in the lives of some of our favorite bloggers…

  • Who’s pondering paying off their car loan using a credit card strategy?
  • Who just completed a home renovation project under $50,000?
  • Who’s not too happy with Target… and why?
  • Who lost their job contract?
  • Who has their 2008 Budget all planned out?

Find out in the roundup….

Personal Finance Reads

Announcements

Update: The information I wrote below is now outdated! I found out that SocialRank.com has morphed into a hosting company of sorts and some other sites mentioned below are now defunct! Well, fast forward a few years and we get a lot of sites that fall by the wayside.

I just stumbled upon a couple of blog ranking sites that I found intriguing.

The first one is called SocialRank, whose mission is “to monitor thousands of blogs in popular categories and identify the hottest stories and bloggers every day.” They claim to be able to do this “democratically by measuring what stories users link to, talk about and pay attention to.” Hmmm…. sounds like another Technorati. Also, there’s a personal finance arm to this ranking system called Personal Finance Wire, which is powered by SocialRank. We’ve got PFBlogs.org as it is, but sites continue to spring up to add just another twist to the idea of finance blog rankings and online communities.

Speaking of Technorati, the other site I’ve come across is called Wikio, which is “a personalized page of news, including a news search engine that searches media sites, blogs and member publications.” They also present rankings and I was surprised to make it as 8th in their Business Blogs section for the month. How I made it to this list, I don’t know, but it seems to be a category that mixes entrepreneurship blogs with investment, general finance and personal finance blogs. The lack of other PF blogs here makes the list a bit suspect (unless there’s another category for finance or personal finance). I was happy to see the Ask Mr. Credit Card Blog in there as well as Fat Pitch Financials but I find the coverage of personal finance limited. I assume things will evolve in time. Update: I recently found out that Wikio has been “killed off”, due to the content farm assignation that it’s received.

Both these sites look promising though it would be nice to see them expand their coverage of money sites further (to include investment, personal finance, business, entrepreneurship, real estate and so forth).

Copyright © 2007 The Digerati Life. All Rights Reserved.

{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }

Racer X December 16, 2007 at 12:14 pm

My two favorites where the articles on Home Equity and 2008 Budgeting.

I believe that the credit crunch (good cereal name btw!) is going to hit the sub-prime CC market hard this year. So many people were floating irresponcible lifestyles ith their credit cards, then paying it off with Equity loans.

As the house values lower, this just won’t be available. Some will have a very tough post-Christmas due to the overspending with no way to pay it off.

Which leads me to 2008 budgeting…I better get on it!

Thanks for the round-up I gave it a Digg!

Silicon Valley Blogger December 16, 2007 at 12:28 pm

Thanks for the Digg Racer X, I appreciate it! 🙂

I agree about the coming years — it won’t be pretty. A lot of people are quite convinced we’re headed for a recession given how bad they expect the credit, loan and real estate markets are going to look down the road. I agree that the worst is yet to come. But I’m still on the fence regarding the prospect of recession. We’ll see, I guess!

And yes, we really got some good posts this week, that ran the gamut of financial topics. I was also particularly fascinated with a few posts myself, including the idea of paying off your car loan with a credit card since I, of course, would never have thought of that! I’d prefer to pay in cash since I don’t trust myself with a credit card… 🙂 All in all, a great week in the blogosphere.

Dividends4Life December 16, 2007 at 6:28 pm

Thanks for linking my article “5 Lessons Learned About Investing”!

Best Wishes,
D4L

thewild1 December 17, 2007 at 3:30 pm

hey thanks for linking my post

Janni March 16, 2008 at 10:21 am

I hve to say that car loans are a dime a dozen, but which one should you go for? Especially if you are a prudent consumer with a balanced budget, getting the right auto finance can be quite a challenge, what with so many auto finance providers thrusting their offers in your face. Your dealer may even offer to do it for you. While this sounds really tempting, it may prove to be a costly affair. So do your own thing and check out the auto loans yourself.

Sara June 23, 2009 at 8:12 pm

I don’t know about dipping into your home equity to pay off a car loan….I mean, the whole thing with credit is setting people up to rob peter to pay paul. It’s ridiculous. It is craziness! I mean, how about give the car back and then pay for a cheap used car in full so you don’t have a car note. I think that would make more sense, ya know?

Florida Home Equity April 17, 2010 at 8:58 am

Refinancing is tricky sometimes you have to do what’s best for you individually. I always recommend a traditional second mortgage not a heloc.

eWallet June 18, 2010 at 4:51 pm

I’d have to agree with the second mortgage over a heloc.

Will July 15, 2010 at 11:54 am

Sometimes selling your home may be the best way to get out of financial issues.

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