Danell Merren

I recently read a couple of great articles about about flying during the holiday season in Real Simple and Money magazines. The information was so useful that I thought I'd share:

1) To get the best prices, use travel sites like Travelocity, Expedia, etc., but then call the airline directly or visit the airline website to search for best prices. My husband and I did this recently for our flights to NYC for New Years, and we saved 4%- not that this was a huge savings, but it was still a savings.

2) According to Real Simple, book 90 days prior to your destination. It's probably a little late for others to do that for Christmas and New Years this season, but we did so and found two round trip tickets from Detroit to NYC, direct for $179 each.

3) Per Money magazine, fly out from big HUBs. We did this! Rather than flying from Grand Rapids, we are driving to Detroit and leaving from there. We are saving more than the cost to drive to Detroit, and we're leaving our car at a friends so there are no parking costs to worry about.

4) According to Money magazine, fly out early to avoid getting bumped. For us, it's too early to tell if we'll get bumped, but with our 8 a.m. flight we are hopeful we won't get bumped.

5) Per Money, fly on off peak dates and times, and you could save 20-35%! We booked our flights from Wednesday, December 31st right on the holiday to Tuesday, January 6th two days past the peak return date. By doing this, we were able to prolong our fun in the big city by at least two days, but we also saved close to 30%. To us, this was a win/win!

Here are a couple of other ways to try to minimize your costs and stress at the airport:

• Make sure your bag weighs less than 50 pounds! Otherwise, you'll pay more for the heavy bag than you would have paid in fees to check a second bag!
• Check in 24 hours before your scheduled flight to avoid being bumped!
• If your flight is delayed between 1 and 2 hours, you should get a voucher for a one way pass up to $400.
• If your flight is delayed more than 2 hours you should get a voucher that is worth twice the cost of your one way fare.
• Worst case- if your flight is canceled, call your airline's 1-800 number to get re-booked- this will be faster than going to the counter where an airline employee is being mobbed by disgruntled fliers. You may even be able to get your airline to endorse your ticket to another carrier.

Most of all, remember that you have options, and remember that these folks are just the messengers! With the dramatic increase in fuel costs earlier this fall, the airlines made decisions to schedule less flights this holiday season and to have flights be more crowded. While this might be a slight inconvenience for us as travelers, it is the way to keep costs down.

I work in a unique mortgage company, Providence Home Mortgage, that is owned by a non-profit housing developer, ICCF (Inner City Christian Federation). I have many co-workers here who are huge Dave Ramsey fans- this is an understatement really!

So, many of my co-workers have gone to a cash only system, destroyed their credit cards, and have taken the approach- if I don't have the money right now, then I won't/can't buy it. For a long time I have struggled with this concept. I have thought- "this sounds logical", but I'm frugal, I don't spend much anyway, I tend to make purchases with a credit card for many reasons- the convenience, the perks, etc. and then pay them off in full most of the time. That's the part that kept sticking with me- most of the time. Over the past few years my husband and I were becoming more comfortable with some non-mortgage debt. It was like when the 5% fixed interest credit cards started coming out, the carrot that was dangled became too sweet, and we bit.

Well, earlier this summer we met with a financial planner who strongly recommended that we do two things:

A) Get that long overdue emergency fund established and

B) Go to a cash or debit system only

I am proud to say that we are well on our way with the emergency fund. After about four short months, we are about 25% to our goal. He made it really easy for us by having it come out of our paychecks directly and through pre-authorized payments from our bank account. The money that comes right out of our checks is really hard to miss because we don't even see it!

The cash and debit system was a bigger struggle. I had to laugh when my husband said, "With using credit cards and giving you the receipts once a month, you only get mad once a month; if I give you receipts daily or weekly you're going to be mad at me all the time." So, we hmmed and hawed for a few months asking ourselves that question, "Will we really spend less by going to cash or debit?". I believe Dave Ramsey suggests going to a true cash system. This was the first concern we really had to weigh out. For us, we decided that cash was not the answer- there are a couple of reasons one of which is that we both work in the inner city and are simply not comfortable having that much cash on our persons. The other factor being that we both feel like if it is in our hand, we may blow it more easily. But we did go to the debit system about one month ago, and I am absolutely floored to report that we have been spending on average 40% less than we had been when we were swiping those cards with deferred billing!

For anyone who has their doubts, I challenge you to give it a try yourself. I can't speak for you, but I can say that business is down for us at least a little bit with all the dramatic changes in the mortgage industry. As you know, we are in a very volatile market. During lean times, it's nice to realize that we can live on less!

I recently participated in a committee called F.L.O.W.- Friends Landscaping Our World. This was a landscaping committee through the Women's Council of Realtors in our local Grand Rapids WCR Chapter, and it was an awesome collaboration with ICCF (Inner City Christian Federation), my mortgage company's parent company, a non-profit housing developer here in GR. You can learn more about ICCF at: www.iccf.org.

The F.L.O.W. project was the brain child of Michelle Gordon of Keller Williams in Grand Rapids. It was a way to give back to moderate income families. The idea is a win/win where low to moderate income families get their yards professionally landscaped for free in the fall (when landscapers are not at peak season), with a little sweat equity, and curb appeal is enhanced, thus, helping real estate values in our area as well.

I'd like to share a wonderful testimonial from one of this year's recipients:

"Dear F.L.O.W. Members and Volunteers,

THANK YOU for the wonderful garden! Every day when I return home from work I walk up to my beautiful garden and smile. Everything in the process of buying our new home has been wonderful, but having the garden professionally landscaped is the icing on the cake.

When I bought our home, I was thrilled to be in a situation where my daughter and I had safety and stability. I knew the garden needed a LOT of work in the home we chose, but it was affordable, and the inside was in good condition. I tried my best to get the garden looking better, but I lacked the knowledge and physical strength to do what needed to be done. When I received the invitation to participate in the contest, I was thrilled and went to bed each night praying that we would win.

After a year of battling Cancer and four years of working hard to get back on my feet financially, I was beyond thrilled when I received the call from Danell saying we had won. When all of the volunteers showed up I felt incredibly supported on my journey as a single Mom and Cancer survivor. For me, the F.L.O.W. garden we received, is a symbol of Life and Love.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart. You all have truly made a difference in our life.

Love and Peace,

Michelle and Simone"

Our goal is that this project will become a national part of WCR. To find out more about F.L.O.W. or to nominate a homebuyer for next year's project, visit our website at: www.flowgr.com. Once on the F.L.O.W. website, on the left is a Forms link. A family can click on this link and then the application link will be on the right. You can also visit our blog at: http://friendslandscapingourworld.blogspot.com.

While we are hearing a lot in the news media as of late about the fate of our economy, the dramatic changes in the mortgage industry, the dive in stocks, I'd like to suggest that we get back to the basics. I am not a financial planner, and I do agree that right now is not the time to pull money from the stock market- like the housing market, we are buying stocks on sale, but I do think this is a good time to remind homeowners that one way to secure a good financial future is to pay extra principal!

I've had colleagues and customers over the years tell me that this is a bad idea, that if they had extra money they should put it in the stock market where they can average an 11% return. Well, my challenge is this, you can't guarantee an 11% return, but if you pay extra principal on your mortgage, you will guarantee yourself at least that much savings- if your current rate is 6%, every extra dollar you pay is a dollar the bank cannot charge you 6% on, so you've saved that money!

To see how effective paying extra could be, I've attached a useful X-tra Principal Calculator:

http://www.mortgage-calc.com/mortgage/prepay.php

Financial planners often assume that in order to retire, you'll need to live on 70% of your pre-retirement income- well, that's hard to do with a house payment.

Also, if you have your house paid off before or shortly after your children go to college, one may just be able to afford to send them.

I've also heard other lenders say, maximize your mortgage debt, that by doing so, you're in a better position with your lender in case you ever need to negotiate, that the more you owe, the more you can control the lender-here's my response- the less you owe, you could get your loan re-amortized if you need to do reduce your payments in a crunch. And I think to myself, does this other broker really think the borrower can control the lender? Has he dealt with loss mitigation on behalf of clients? Who is really at whose mercy- I don't think the lender is at the mercy of the client!

I'm not suggesting that people pay aggressively on their mortgages without first having an emergency fund, but I do think more of us should get back to the basics- it's sort of like that adage- don't have your eggs all in one basket. If more clients were paying extra principal and they had to sell, they just might be able to do so without having a short sale and ruining their credit or worse yet a foreclosure.

If you asked me six months ago what a blog was, I probably would have asked you to repeat yourself, having no clue what you were talking about! I would have been more likely to think you were saying fog and talking about the weather! But I'm starting to feel like those days were long gone.

I started to clue in that being high tech is not only convenient for colleagues and customers, but it is a must in today's market! Let's face it, most business going on right now is with first time home buyers. Those are the folks who can buy quickly, don't have contingencies in their contracts, and are buying their first homes at prices that are way on sale! But these same customers are often younger than me (I'm starting to age myself!), and they come with a whole other skill set- the tech age! I finally had the epiphany that I needed to re-think my business and become more high tech!

A few years ago I saw that short film, "Who Moved my Cheese", and I sat around the room with my fellow co-workers who were grumbling about the slow down of the market. I, too, used to joke around that being the MSHDA Queen was my curse, but now I say thank God I have my niche, and it is my purse! I use these loans for approximately 70% of my business! But with this market often comes the tech savvy buyer!

The borrowers I attract are quick to use email, and one gal in a post-close survey wrote, "You guys were very efficient and responded promptly! I loved that you guys were so email friendly!".

I am so thankful every day for close Realtor colleagues who responded honestly to my questions. Within the past few months, while on sales calls, I asked Michelle Gordon of Keller Williams and Dana Iler, also of Keller Williams, "What do you feel the competition is doing that I should know about?" Both of these trusted referral partners gave me candid, open and honest constructive feedback. Dana told me, "Danell, you need to get an on-line presence." So, my processor, Stacey Hovanec, and I moved quickly to work with our tech support to create a unique website that links borrowers both to MSHDA http://www.michigan.gov/mshda as well as many other non-profit partners in our Grand Rapids area. And Michelle Gordon said, "You've got to get an application link Online Application on your website. You've got to be high tech or you are going to get left behind." Thank you, girlies, for your honesty! Since that time, we have had numerous people apply on line from all over the state. Michelle taught me to blog, and now I'm being introduced to Realtors with whom I otherwise would have had no introduction!

There are many ways to attract buyers, but let's face it, blogging is one of the best ways to have buyers find us!

To visit my website or to apply on line, please go to www.phmgr.com.