Dollars And Nonsense

The apartment bazaar has acutely weakened. There are abounding subprime mortgage lenders who are activity out of business. To survive, some mortgage lenders lay off employees, cut bottomward on business expenses, and bankrupt bottomward several mortgage centers. unfortunately, abounding subprime lenders did not act fast enough.

Last year, the subprime mortgage loans accounted for twenty percent of the mortgage market. aback the home prices were high, the mortgage lenders attract the borrowers with alien mortgage like absorption alone mortgage, accessible mortgage adaptation application, low anterior absorption rate, piggyback additional mortgage, and Adjustable amount mortgage.

The subprime mortgage lenders had put the borrowers in a bigger abode than the borrowers can afford. absorption amount goes aerial abundant to account panic, because the mortgage payments get college as well. Suddenly, the borrowers were not Able to allow to pay off the mortgage. here are a few things to survive the mortgage meltdown.

Stay on top of the mortgage absorption rate

At the end of the anterior low absorption amount period, the absorption amount will increase. It is important to be astute on your banking status. in case of college absorption rate, the assets of the borrower charge be abundant to awning the mortgage payment. at the aforementioned time, the borrower will be accessible for the college mortgage payment.

Watch carefully on the trend of absorption rate

Especially, the borrower uses an alien mortgage like Adjustable amount mortgage. abounding borrowers do not absolutely accept how the Adjustable amount mortgage works. With the Adjustable amount mortgage, it is accessible for abrogating amortization. abrogating acquittal happens aback the mortgage acquittal does not awning the interest. Thereby, the mortgage acquittal does not pay off the mortgage.

Know the altered mortgage refinancing options

The mortgage refinancing is a way to about-face to addition mortgage. usually, the borrower switches on the bead of absorption amount or at the end of the mortgage term. There are abounding mortgage refinancing options. the mortgage brokers will be Able to absolute the borrower for the best option. a bead of absorption amount happens all the time. So, the borrower adeptness be Able to booty advantage of the bead of absorption rate.

Set abreast funds for the emergency fund

It is a acceptable abstraction for the borrower to set an emergency fund. the emergency armamentarium is a set of funds for active costs in case of accident of income. the accepted aphorism is three to six months of emergency fund. the abstraction is to buy time to get aback on the acceptable foot.

Consider to hire out for added antecedent of income

If there is an added room, the borrower can hire out the added allowance for added antecedent of income. the hire assets may be Able to awning the fasten on mortgage payment. for example, some homeowners catechumen the barn into an added accommodation. that would be absolute to hire out. Since the homeowners access the adeptness for the acreage to actualize income, the home amount appreciates as well.

Cover the accident of assets with mortgage insurance

The accident of assets is one of the affidavit to absence the mortgage payments. the accidents, illnesses, or deaths account accident of assets on the family. It may be a amplitude to accord the mortgage. the mortgage allowance will assure the ancestors in case of accidents, illnesses, or deaths.

Realistic claimed budget

The borrowers apperceive their claimed worth. Like anybody, the borrowers accept several banking obligations. Discipline is the key to get aback on the appropriate foot. the borrower may be Able to cut off accidental expenses. Then, the borrower will set a astute claimed account to amuse the banking obligations.

Related Posts

• Sub-Prime 2/28 Adjustable Rate Mortgages – White Knight or Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing?
• Subprime Mortgage Fallout!
• Think again if you Expect to Easily Qualify for a Subprime Mortgage
• Auto Title Loans – How to Protect Yourself against Predatory Lending
• Getting a new Car Loan from Your Bank
• The Lenders Are Financing the People in the Subprime Market to purchase their Own Vehicle
• FHA Reform
• Low Mortgage Rates gone With 10-Year Treasury Note Uptrending
• Getting Approved for a Car Loan – even With Poor Credit
• The Power of FHA Loans in a Tough Mortgage Market

Surviving the Mortgage Meltdown | Subprime Lenders

The time has come when most of the dealings come in the form of online interaction. for this reason credit cards and debit cards have become very popular and this dealing is really something very accepting to almost all the people. Through such proceedings various other activities have become much more acceptable and accessible like boosting sales, profitability and credibility and many more services. This is the reason for which card merchant services are really blooming and increasing day by day. Such terms like merchant card services or merchant services credit card or card merchant services credit card are becoming well known through the hands of such financial dealings through various card facilities. Online services are really very acceptable for many people in the recent times. People want to proceed through card payments due to the extreme accessibility and smoothness of such dealings. due to the huge use of such cards people face numerous problems in a regular way and just for this reason they demand the assistance of such firms who deal with such problems related with credit cards and many more. in that situation the demand of various service providers come into action.

Accepting credit cards is extremely important and valuable for any kind of small businesses while making any such choice about the right processor just for the successful factors. There is no doubt in the fact that the competition is very high various inexperienced providers are tempting numerous merchants as far as the payment processing sector are concerned. Such inexperienced providers offer various bargain basement payments options just hiding numerous expensive rates and deals like small print along with much reduced range and quality of various services as the worst kind of examples. It is also recommended that it would be good if you chase low prices just instead of very low prices while considering the numerous benefits of aligning your business. An established industry leader may also attach with such process and may understand in a better way that the online payment process is equally needed altogether even many small size service providers also emphasis on such issues.

People really want to work with an experienced provider as they can offer you the terms and condition of their business in a more flexible way by accepting payments through some dedicated point-of-sale terminals. sometimes they involve wireless terminals services along with various payment gateways and numerous mobile handsets. Each and every business must undergo various changes all the time and that is the reason for which you need a more flexible kind of a provider so that they can adjust with any kind of situation instantly. Such changes really hamper the business if the provider can not try to adjust with the numerous changing situation altogether. for this reason the flexible providers are really in a huge demand in the recent days.

It is recommended to research on various facts and after that you can find for your options and better to look and study a little more for the deals that look a little low in their offerings altogether. better to verify whether there are any other hidden fees or not otherwise you will be in a terrible danger if you do not verify all such conditions at the very initial level. you can never influence such hidden fess that will cost at your business in a long run. you need to consider the various sales volumes and simultaneously you need to be very careful about the traffic also. It is very important to gather all kind of information by a proper investigation.

Purpose preparing cash budget – Credit Cards is Extremely …

In these hard times, gambling and lottery revenues are up, with people putting their faith and a little bit of money toward these get-rich-quick schemes. while WalletPop in no way endorses gambling or playing the lottery, we were curious to find out what are the odds when putting some cash toward making money fast.

Anthony Curtis, the president of LasVegasAdvisor.com, the go-to site on the latest happenings and deals in Sin City, used to make a living as a card-counting genius, like the one dramatized in the movie 21. Curtis came to Las Vegas in 1979. He says that the competition today is immense, and he doesn’t recommend being a professional poker player as a career path. “Where my serious money got made was in publishing,” he says, citing the Las Vegas and gambling-interest books he regularly puts out.

So what odds does Curtis give for some of the world’s favorite get-rich-quick pastimes?

The lottery
“There’s a longer shot than being shot by lightning,” says Curtis on your odds of winning the lottery. So you’re saying there’s a chance? “If it was that easy, there would be a whole lot of millionaires walking around,” he says. the odds of winning Mega Millions, according to MSN, are 1 in 135,145,920. MSN also points out that buying two tickets keeps your odds the same.

Blackjack
In this card game, the player tries to get to 21 without the sum of his or her cards exceeding that number. “Blackjack is the game considered to be the best for the player,” says Curtis. “It has a varying degree of house advantage….Counting cards monitors the deck.” Card counting lets a player know when he or she has the advantage, to inform the size of the bet. it isn’t illegal, says Curtis, but the casino has every right to not serve you if you’re caught doing it. For the average person not counting cards, the odds in blackjack are as low as .5 to 1.5% in favor of the casino. this means, for every dollar you bet, you lose .5-1.5 cents, which adds up the more you play.

Slot machines
It may be enticing to sit in one place and just pull a lever for hours, watching the colorful slots spin. Curtis warns, “The unwritten rule is, the easier something is to do, the more it will cost you to do it.” He places the odds of winning at slots, 1.5-15% in favor of the house. That means, you could lose up to 15 cents per dollar, which really adds up, especially with a passive game like slots where it’s easy to get sucked in and play for hours.

NCAA basketball
March Madness is high betting season, creating pools among co-workers everywhere. as a little school called Butler taught us this year, don’t just go for powerhouse universities like Duke. (Even though Duke won, betting on underdog Butler at certain rounds would have meant favored odds). Curtis explains one way to win in NCAA, “You can make a futures bet. You look at those 64 teams and say, I think Butler is going to win [the tournament].” this would have given 60 to 1 odds, says Curtis, explaining, “If that last miracle shot had gone in at the end of the [final] game, [one] would have made $600 on a $10 bet.” the odds of turning a little into a lot with futures betting at NCAA basketball is 20-30%, depending on how big an underdog you pick.

The Super Bowl
“There are more ways to bet on the Super Bowl than any other sporting event,” says Curtis. You can bet on anything from who you think will win to specifics like how many yards, completions, or points players will have in the game and even compare those numbers to other sporting events. These are called proposition bets and Curtis says the options are limitless but the odds are hardly in your favor.

Keno
It’s everywhere in Las Vegas and easy to play — choose from 1 to 20 numbers on your Keno card and hope they’re drawn. Entry bets are $1, and the fact that Keno is commonly found in restaurants and bars in gambling towns, makes it an easy game to fall into. the odds are 30% in favor of the house, says Curtis.

Politics
While it’s illegal to bet on politics in the United States, except for on Web sites where anything goes, especially on the notorious Irish-based PaddyPower.com. the site favored President Obama in the 2008 election and even took bets on his chances for passing health care reform.

Celebrities
Just for fun, Curtis picked favorites in the Toyota Pro/Celebrity Race coming up in Long Beach on April 17. Oscar-winner Adrien Brody and Christian Slater have nothing on Adam Carrolla, says Curtis, who takes racing and cars seriously. “Here’s the thing about Adam: he’s got a racing background. It’s like a hobby.” Last year, Curtis picked Keanu Reeves as the favorite and “Neo” sweeped it. These bets are all for fun, but the mainstream betting site Bodog.com lets you bet on celebs. You could have put money on how long it would take Carrie Underwood to sing the national anthem at this year’s Super Bowl. “Anything that the public has an interest in, you can usually find a bet on it,” says Curtis. from American Idol to which celeb will get busted with drugs first at the start of a year. But these bets, he says, are “not a very good gamble.”

Nothing, it turns out, beats hard work. Get-rich-quick is simply entertainment — a fun idea — and not a money-maker.

Want to win the lottery? You're better off with blackjack

Diversified industry and relatively stable housing give residents in these metros a measure of economic security.

Though Omaha, Neb., seems second-rate to some, Warren Buffett may have been on to something when he chose it for the headquarters of his massive holding company, Berkshire Hathaway. According to our research, the city has hit upon a formula to weather the economic downturn better than any other in the country.

While no region has escaped the recession, in Omaha, three Texas metros, a handful of Northeastern manufacturing bases and select southern cities, diversified industry and relatively stable housing fundamentals have provided local residents with comparatively secure standards of living.

Full List: America’s Fastest-Recovering Cities

Omaha has had a healthy 1.3% gross metropolitan product (GMP) growth in the past year, and a low foreclosure rate (only one in every 3,246 housing units is in foreclosure), but it sails to the top spot on our list because of its unemployment rate: At 5%, the lowest of the metros we surveyed. Omaha’s economy is less dependent on manufacturing than other Midwestern cities, and is boosted by a strong agriculture sector and growing biofuels industry. And while the city has a big stake in the financial industry–a factor that nearly spelled ruin for metros like New York–it doesn’t specialize in the types of institutions that took big risks and chased exotic financial structures. instead, it’s home to roughly 30 insurance companies and regional banks like Mutual of Omaha.

Lone Star Luck

In no. 2 city San Antonio, home to four military bases, and Austin, our third-ranked city and the state seat of government, municipal jobs supplement Texas’ robust energy sector. in Dallas (No. 6), it’s a thriving tech industry that buffers it from energy highs and lows. although Houston (No. is invested mostly in oil, it has diversified its energy industry beyond oil rigs into refining and chemicals manufacturing.

What’s more, the state’s housing prices never ascended to the unsustainable levels the rest of the country hit at the peak of the housing bubble. thus, it didn’t crash as hard. these factors have toughened the local economy against a recession that is inextricably tied to real estate.

“Texas didn’t have as big of a boom,” says James P. Gaines, research economist at the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University. “So we’re not having anywhere near the kind of bust.”

Behind the Numbers

To form our list, we ranked the 100 largest Metropolitan Statistical Areas–geographic entities that the U.S. Office of Management and Budget defines and uses in collecting statistics–in five categories: unemployment rate, GMP (a measure of the size of a city’s economy), foreclosures, home prices and sales rates.

We ranked September unemployment rates (the most recent available by metro) using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics; the percentage of a metro’s homes in foreclosure with September data provided by RealtyTrac; and the change in GMP between the first and second quarter of 2009 from the Brookings Institution’s MetroMonitor. We also included the second-quarter 2009 year-over-year change in Freddie Mac’s Conventional Mortgage Home Price Index–a measure of housing price inflation–and the average days on the market for properties currently on sale (to measure sales rates), using data from Zillow.com. We then averaged the scores for each measure to arrive at an overall ranking.

While there is no foolproof method for resisting recession, a common thread in thriving cities is an economy fed by multiple industries. former Northeastern industrial hubs like Pittsburgh, and Rochester, N.Y., while they may not seem the likeliest models of economic health, have been able to supplement industrial sector decline with a boost from public-sector jobs that have pumped up the economy even as the private sector declined. they land in the fourth and seventh spot on our list, respectively.

But Rolf Pendall, associate professor of city and regional planning at Cornell University, warns that for upstate new York, this promising news may be temporary.

“We’ve had government spending plugging the gap,” he says. “But it’s hard to say what’s going to happen in the next two years if government spending has to get withdrawn a lot, as it might.”

Pittsburgh’s GMP grew .8% between the second quarter of 2008 and 2009, consistent with the .8% national average. Home prices there remained relatively stable while those in other cities plummeted because the area’s prospects still seemed dim during the housing bubble and speculators looked elsewhere.

“These metros have been so troubled for so long,” says Pendall, “that people didn’t develop irrational exuberance about the prospects in their housing markets.”

Cities where home prices that don’t fluctuate wildly are particularly well-positioned to ride out this recession, because they were spared the domino effect of foreclosures, lost jobs and lost productivity. in San Antonio and Austin, quick sales rates (homes in these cities spend 54 and 73 days on the market respectively compared to a 100-day national median) and home prices that fall above the national average–Austin’s median home price in September, for example, is a healthy $240,000, 7% higher than the average for the top 100 metros, according to data from Zillow.com–indicate that they escaped the perilous zeal for building, and lending, that swept the rest of the country between 2001 and 2007.

There’s a lesson to be learned from these cities, some of which aren’t economically thriving, but all of which are well-equipped to emerge from the recession in a similar position to where they started. Rather than chasing rising home prices or apparently plentiful jobs in one-industry towns, families looking for long-term economic stability should seek spots where industry is diverse and housing price shifts are benign.

Top 5 Fastest Recovering Cities

1. Omaha-Council Bluffs, NE-IA Metro Area

2. San Antonio, TX Metro Area

3. Austin-Round Rock, TX Metro Area

4. Pittsburgh, PA Metro Area

5. Harrisburg-Carlisle, PA Metro Area

Click here for the full list of America’s Fastest Recovering Cities

America's Fastest-Recovering Cities

I’ve been dispatched by our cigar-chomping editors to midtown NYC to check out the 14 new personal finance software apps getting demoed at Finovate 2008. I’ll be reporting here and letting you know about the latest tools from the frontlines of the personal finance revolution.

Some of you may remember that I am being laid off in four days, and may wonder why I, of all people, have been assigned to do this extra bout of work on behalf of Consumerist. I know, right? But Ben has asked me to watch the presentations and report their new features for you, the readers, so I have agreed. I have ulterior motives: I have also brought along a pile of business cards to pass out, and I figure I can pocket a bunch of these croissants and freeze them, then live off of them through Thanksgiving.

Here’s the first group of customer-facing service being discussed this morning:

QuickenOnline
Intuit’s fully free (as of yesterday) online money tracking service has been intentionally simplified—their presenter kept emphasizing that this is not supposed to be as dense or complicated as their desktop software. Features include a “What’s Left” summary of your dwindling account balance, as well as a cool-looking and potentially very useful “Spending Money Outlook”—a fancy chart that graphs your budget over a timeline and pegs scheduled payments to your balance, so you can visually take in your budget in the weeks to come in a purely graphical representation. They’ll also text you daily balance updates and let you know whether or not you’re on track to making your payments.

WeSeed
If you’re a bit afraid of the stock market—and we don’t mean just this past month, because that doesn’t count—then you might really appreciate WeSeed, which is basically a giant sandbox where you can play with investments using fake money with real data.

The site pulls you into investing as soon as you hit the site, by asking you what you like—pizza, dogs, survivalism—and then throwing specific companies at you that you might want to investigate. From there you can read about the company, check out its financial history, or see what other users are saying about it in the comments section. We’re not sure what value the comments section will have in real life, but the social aspect will probably be a welcome safety net for beginners who want to talk about investing as they learn.

We’re impressed with the concept. it will look too simple for knowledgeable investors, but if you’ve been putting off investing because you don’t know what you’re doing, it looks like a great immersion-based way to learn. (We have a feeling it will be good for teens and tweens, too.)

Wesabe
Personal finance site Wesabe now has Twitter functionality—you can tweet data into your wesabe account as you’re running around buying those dreaded budget-killing lattes financial advisors are always warning you about.

Another new feature Wesabe is rolling out: graphs you can use to see how you spend in particular categories, then compare to how other Wesabe members (they want you to call them “Wesabeans”) spend compared to you. Wesabe says over time the community data will build into a library of spending graphs that you can pull up and map your own data against.

Wesabe also lets you rate your relationship to merchants: fan, user, or captive, although I’m not sure yet how this helps your spending.

ZoneAlarm ForceField by Checkpoint Software
Cybercrime is coming after you! Arrrggh!!! “Hooking into your web browser” is a “new thing this year” that’s threatening your way of life. Bleyarg, ZoneAlarm’s presentation is kind of vague.

ZoneAlarm ForceField has heuristics, which I think are what causes allergic reactions in your nose, that they use to identify phishing sites as soon as they’re created–sort of a SpamSieve for phishing sites. FF also watches out for things like keylogging software.

Basically, ForceField looks like an antivirus program specifically for your web browser, which means it will likely be just as intrusive (“We’ve just stopped 66 MB of data from being spied upon!”) and annoying. until we look more closely at it, we’d suggest your best defense against phishing and scams is to continue being as careful as we hope you’re already being.

FiLife
FiLife says their goal is to help find the best products available to you. to do that, they’ve amassed a vast directory of “product types,” and then huge amounts of supporting content to explain the product types and provide reviews and recommendations.

New navigation tool, a “product picker.” Their launch product picker is for credit cards: you enter data on your credit card usage patterns and desires, and FiLife filters out the noise and

FiLife also uses proprietary algorithms to come up with a “Personal Value” of the selected product—for instance, credit card a has a personal value to you of $84. we don’t fully get it how that translates into real money for you, but it definitely works as a sort of score you can use to quickly compare choices.

Another fun toy is the Stacker, a graphical representation of your personal data. in the example given, you can enter your salary and your age range, and the Stacker reveals a pyramid of little animated people and shows where you stand among your peers or the nation. it looks like a fun way to explore your own personal data and gain a different perspective on things.

And that’s the first batch. Off to grab some more croissants, and then we’ll hear from the next batch of presenters.

The Latest Personal Finance Tools

Managing your financial situation today is not as simple as it was a few years ago. a simple calculator and an account book will not help you as the financial world of today is extremely advanced and needs a lot of work on it. however, you can only get so far in planning without seeking some serious help, if you have the proper personal finance software. in case you are interested to become debt free, then this tool is a must to have.

What are the top #2 benefits of such an idea?

Benefit #1: Time saving.

One of the most significant advantages is the time saving capabilities. All you have to do with your personal finance software would be to input your personal data including your income and any purchases. then, it will take care of the rest for you. then, everything is sorted out for your future planning on your computer.

Benefit #2: Automated bill payments.

Another feature that you will have is the ability to well organize your automated bill payment. Any well chosen tool does the very simple job of using the internet for this purpose. it will link your checking account with your bills. you can also specify which day of the month a payment should go out.

Doing this, you will avoid paying extra money because of any delay in paying your bills. Indeed, living debt free is an option that this tool can really achieve.

Does this concept always work on all PCs?

There are programs written to work on all kinds of systems. For example, in the market today, you can get personal finance software for MAC that includes the excellent liquid ledger.

Avoid this #1 top rated common mistake!

Most of the people hurry to accept expensive offers without devoting reasonable time and energy to look for free options. Indeed, you can also find top rated products for free for a certain amount of time. in this context, I would advise you to ask first for a 30-days free trial before you buy anything.

Well, but how to choose the best personal finance software?

The following is 4 killer tips to help you in choosing the right offer for planning your financial situation easily and quickly.

1. Automation- Try and find a program with the maximum amount of automation. the more work it does, the less you will have to.

2. Pre-Made Forms- Try and find tools with more number of pre-made forms. All you will have to do is enter information on these forms.

3. Loan calculators- these are handy programs that help you compare different loans and help you choose the best option.

4. Internet Connectivity- choose a program that is able to connect to the internet. This will help a lot especially in payment of bills.

Top 4 Tips to choose Your Personal Finance Software

When Porsche Walker looks at her new Habitat for Humanity house not far from the Forest Avenue library in Des Moines, she sees it as something special. It’s a home the 21-year-old single mother can use to create a comfortable atmosphere to raise her two daughters.

But when environmental advocates look at Walker’s new house – which could become the third house in the state with Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, certification – they see it as special for a different reason: it shows “going green” is possible, even for those with a lower income.

“When you look at it, you can’t really tell,” Walker said. “But when I was at the house dedication, some people who were totally about the environment were there. I was like, ‘I guess I’m going green, too.’ “

LEED certification is a process that gives a green stamp of approval on a building project. The first such certification program used nationwide, LEED provides an independent review of building projects, ensuring they are environmentally responsible, profitable, and a healthy place for people who are both building the structure and then living or working in it.

Walker moved in last month. her boxes aren’t all unpacked yet. She has started noticing the little things that make her house environmentally special: the fact that she doesn’t have to blast her furnace to stay warm in the winter, that the light bulbs are all compact fluorescent, that there’s an extra 6 inches of insulation to keep the house airtight.

“You can do this whole green thing in an affordable way,” said Lynnae Hentzen, executive director of the nonprofit environmental organization Iowa Center on Sustainable Communities. “The biggest lesson is that it’s certainly attainable for anyone. if an organization like Habitat can integrate this into its building practices, it’s replicable. Any contractor should be able to embrace these practices for their clients.”

LEED certification is an intensive checklist-based program in which all the contractors building a home collaborate to make sure the house is built with a certain number of environmentally friendly, sustainable techniques. LEED certifications come with certain levels. Silver is the lowest, then gold, then platinum. Walker’s house got the silver certification.

It’s a practice that’s gained a foothold among commercial buildings, but is only now becoming popular for homes.

“There’s just so much they take into consideration,” said Erin Wiggins, a rater for Cenergy, a company that does energy efficiency consulting for new construction and existing homes, including Walker’s house. “It’s not just the house. It’s the land development, the direction it faces, what type of seeding, did you pour concrete or use open pavers, all sorts of stuff.”

For Walker’s house, a number of sustainable techniques were used to score points for the LEED certification checklist:

- all appliances are Energy Star, meaning they meet efficiency standards.

- Products that go into the house, from the caulk to the glue to the sealants, are low-emissions, which helps with indoor air quality.

- The house was aired out 48 hours after construction was completed in order to disperse odors related to construction.

- during construction, contractors had to reduce the amount of waste. all the material that left the construction site and headed to a landfill, a recycling center or for reuse had to be weighed and tallied.

- Deeper-than-normal, two-by-six framing in the house means there is more room for insulation to cover the walls of the home.

- The insulation used is all low-formaldehyde.

“Lots of people look at the face of the house and that’s what’s important,” Wiggins said. “They don’t look under the walls. As soon as we cover the walls, we’ve covered up just about every energy-efficient element of the home.”

Habitat officials didn’t have a dollar figure for how much more the LEED construction cost, but they said it wasn’t much. Energy savings should make up the difference.

“They did not spend money on granite counter tops,” Wiggins said. “That money went into making this house more sustainable.”

For Porsche Walker, she’s just excited to raise 2-year-old Justyce and 1-year-old Davinity in a house of her own.

Walker was raised by her grandmother since she was 2 weeks old, as her mother was in and out of prison. it hasn’t been easy for her to get ahead. She works two jobs – in the annuities department at Principal Financial Group, and on weekend nights as a receptionist at Elsie Mason Manor downtown – while studying for her master’s degree at William Penn University.

The best part of her new Habitat for Humanity home is that it’s only two blocks from her grandmother’s home. And it will save her money going forward on energy bills. “When you think about it, everything is going to be cheaper with my bills, too,” Walker said. “That’s important. if you’re struggling already, why would I want to get into something that’ll give me new debt?”

Color this family’s home ’green’