Engineering a Fortune

New "Hardship Plans" In last quarter's update I reported that I've seen a marked increase in Lending Club borrowers that were defaulting on their loans. I've paused and thought about what the circumstances might be for this increase, if it is an anomaly or a trend. Apparently Lending Club has been thinking about defaults as well as it has recently introduced "Hardship Plans" for customers who are having trouble making their payments. Interest Only Payments Lending Club's Hardship Plans are designed to allow customer to pay only the interest portion of their loans for 3 months if the customer runs into a life altering event. Lending Club notes in their announcement that "Hardship plans are commonly offered to borrowers in the lending industry because they allow borrowers time to adjust to a life event (like a medical emergency, temporary job loss, unexpected car or home repairs, death in the ...

Fundrise: Crowd-Funded Real Estate

*Originally Posted 15 February 2017* The stock market is historically a great place to invest money and see a return. The vast majority of my investments are in stock. Even though that part of my portfolio performs well, I like to keep my eyes peeled for "alternative investments" or investments outside of the stock market. Though I enjoy owning tiny pieces of gargantuan companies on the market and I'm sure that stock will be the majority of my retirement income, alternative investments are more interesting to me and have the possibility of being more lucrative at the cost of higher risk. The newest alternative investment in my portfolio is crowd-funded real estate through a company called Fundrise. I'm excited for this investment as I have wanted to get into real estate with lower risk and a more passive role than directly owning and renting property. Fundrise appears to be giving me that opportunity. Crowd Funding Fundrise at its surfac...

The Importance of a Budget

There was a time early in my career when I didn't need a budget. I was 22, fresh out of the military and had landed a great IT job. I lived in a single bedroom apartment around 5 minutes from work and had no debt. Every month I could quite literally do whatever I wanted to and still put money away in a savings account on top of my 401K. Fast forward a few years and I own a house, I've taken out a personal loan, my fiancé has student loans, and I have a car loan. My monthly payments caught up to me so quickly that I accumulated over $10,000 in credit card debt before I realized that it was happening. I'd fallen into the hole that so many people do, selling my future to finance my present. I needed a plan to turn the tide of my finances. Big Picture I went about constructing a complete account of my finances, a big picture view of where money was coming in and where it was going out. My financia...