Housing Dilemma

The tax credit for existing homeowners is great - you can get up to $6,500 if you are a homeowner who puts a contract in by April 30 on another home, provided you close by July 31. Sounds great! But many homeowners are finding that what they can sell their home for barely covers what they owe on their mortgage. So they can't take advantage of the tax credit. At best, it's a great time to be a landlord - a lot of consumers are turning to renting as an alternative.

Some folks have it worse - they can't even break even. Their home won't sell at a high enough price to cover the mortgage. If you aren't having a problem making the payments, that's not a problem. But in the case of a friend of mine who is facing divorce, they may let their home go into foreclosure. Neither of them can afford to keep the home, and they can't sell it. Such a predicament.

What to do? It depends on your situation. Here's an article from our friends at BALANCE that might give you some insight about preventing foreclosure. And Home and Family Finance offers an article on selling your home in a tough economy, if you do decide to sell.

It’s Tax Time Again!

Last week, right after putting away Christmas decorations, while going through the mail I got my yearly reminder ($10 coupon off Turbo Tax from Costco) that it is tax time again. I can’t believe another year has gone by.

Thankfully, at the beginning of last year I started downloading all of our financial activity into Quicken, so hopefully this year it will be easier to get our stuff organized. At Hawthorne you can download all of your account information from online banking into Quicken. This has really helped me stay organized.

It’s also time to make sure that we make our IRA contributions at Hawthorne. Hawthorne offers a guaranteed rate of return and federal deposit insurance of $250,000 or more per IRA owner. For more information about IRAs at Hawthorne go to our IRA section and check our rates.

To avoid the most common tax mistakes I would recommend reading 11 Common Tax Planning mistakes, on Kiplinger, “Tax planning mistakes can cost you money”. I found a some helpful information in this article. Good luck!

Saving More - My New Year resolution!

How are you doing keeping up with the New Year’s Resolution’s you made for 2010? I know that I have already given up on a few of mine. I read a great blog post on the blog "The Big Picture" called How to Keep Your New Year Resolutions. (I think that I might need to read this article again).


The only resolution I have been able to keep (this is day 12) is our family commitment to try and save a little bit more money every month. My only saving grace has been that I have an automatic savings plan (my 401K), but this year I want to try and cut more corners to try and save more. I found a great article on MSN that gives some great ways to cut back on things to help increase your savings. It is titled 9 sneaky tips for saving more and gives some great ways to help you build that “cash cushion” and keep the money saved.

You will notice that the article talks about Bank of America's “Keep the Change” and Capital One's “SmartCents” programs. They take money out of your checking account and automatically put it in your savings account. This is a great way to help you save money, but Hawthorne Credit Union has a much better program that actually gives you money back. We give you Cash Back with your Hawthorne Visa Check Card!


There's no catch! Free Checking that pays you Cash Back. It can be better than interest... It's like getting paid for shopping or paying bills. Every time you use your Hawthorne Visa Check Card with your Cash Back Checking account and sign/choose "credit", you'll get 5 cents back at the end of the month. It really adds up!

How Your Credit Score Impacts Your Mortgage Payment

Check out this chart that demonstrates an example of how your credit score impacts your monthly mortgage payment.

How can you improve your credit score? Here are some tips, from our friends at BALANCE:

1) Obtain copies of your credit report from all three major credit reporting agencies to check for and correct errors.

2) Pay down your debt. If you can't pay the total balance each month, pay more then the minimum required payment.

3) Pay on time, every time

4) Avoid aggressively transferring balances to new cards.

5) Keep your credit card balances well under the maximum available limit.

6) Only apply for the credit you need and close cards you don't use.

7) Repay collection accounts, judgments, and liens.

Read more about credit scores and how to improve your credit score.

TIP: I'm saving $864 this year at my Park District

I love my park district. I'm saving bundles of money ($864 this year!) and getting more classes. I've had an expensive Boot Camp habit for the past 2 years. I'm grateful for that class because it elevated my fitness level and I learned a lot about weight training. But at $120 per month for my twice-a-week 60-min class at the local health club, it's pretty pricey. I discovered some classes at my local Park District that will accomplish much of what I'm gaining from Boot Camp for a lot less money.

I'm signed up for 2 45-min Cardio Interval classes AND a 60 min Spinning class. The class started on Monday and runs through the end of March. All for the sweet price of $144.

So let's add it up....Boot Camp costs me $360 for 3 months (2xs/week at $15 per class or $1,440 per year). My Park District classes cost me $144 for 3 months (3xs/week at $4 per class or $576 per year).

Gotta love the Park District! Check out your Park District or YMCA today.

TIP: Use surcharge-free ATMs and save big this year

Use Surcharge-Free ATMs. Banks and other ATM owners charge surcharges to use their ATMs. Add to that your bank’s foreign fee and you could be dinged $5.00+ just to make an ATM withdrawal at an ATM outside of your bank’s network. This can add up to hundreds of dollars in fees a year! But you are in luck! We are a member of Allpoint, America’s largest surcharge-free ATM network AND the Co-Op and STARsf networks, too. This means you have surcharge-free access to over 57,000 ATMs worldwide. And finding one is easy - when you're on the go just point your phone's internet browser to m.ehawthorne.org or find a surcharge-free ATM here.

Better yet....open a Hawthorne Cash Back Checking account. You'll get 6 free PIN transactions each month so you can use almost any ATM plus have access to 57,000 surcharge-free ATMs!

Resolve to Declutter and Simplify in 2010

Does your New Year Resolution include de-cluttering and simplifying your life? Here are some great tools that we offer to help you do just that when it comes to managing your finances.

eStatements - It's the fastest, easiest way to get your monthly statement. You get your statement 3-4 days earlier by skipping the snail mail and you save a tree too.

Billpayer - Really, if you haven't tried paying your bills online you don't know what you're missing. It streamlines your bill paying process and you'll have more time for other things. Really, just try it. I love it.

Email Notices - This is our new gadget we introduced in 2009. It's a great way to keep up with what's happening with your account. You set up the notices you want to receive, such as when your balance drops to a certain level, or a certain check clears, or when you recieve a deposit (my favorite kind!). If you have email on your phone, you get your notices on the go. This one makes me feel more in control of my money.

Resolve to spend 30 minutes setting up these three tools and you'll be on your way to decluttering and destressing your life! Happy New Year.