How to know if you're ready to buy a home

Savings Angel

Are you considering buying a new home or selling yours this spring? Before you start house hunting, it’s critical to assess your finances to determine what you can really afford.

Here are some steps to help you decide from Josh Elledge at SavingsAngel.com:

Calculate your household take-home pay
Don’t calculate what you can afford based on your gross income. Be sure the payment estimate includes taxes and insurances, in addition to the principle and interest.

Use a mortgage calculator to make some estimates
The maximum you should borrow should not go over 25 percent of your take-home pay. Even if you qualify to borrow more, it doesn’t mean you should borrow more.

Check your credit score
Typically anything above a 620 score will get you qualified for a mortgage. The lower your score, the higher your mortgage interest rate will be.

Assess your down payment ability
A conventional mortgage requires between 5-20 percent of the purchase price, depending on the underwriting requirements. An FHA mortgage - a minimum of 3.5 percent. The more you can put down, the lower the interest rate you’ll be offered.

Make sure you can cover closing costs
These include funding your escrow account (for property taxes and insurance), bank or mortgage lender fees, title company fees, recording fees, and more.

Do you or the home qualify for a different type of mortgage?
Military veteran? -- you could qualify for a VA loan. Is the home in a “rural development” area? You might be able to get a specialized loan with a zero-down payment and lower mortgage insurance costs.

Meet with a mortgage professional
A good loan officer will explain how mortgages and interest rates are calculated, what you qualify for, and the maximum you should borrow. If the loan officer isn’t willing to spend time answering all your questions and thoroughly explaining, find someone else.

5 mistakes you're probably making at the grocery store

Shopping with kids can be fun

New trends hope to simplify kids' birthday parties

Ways to save money on back-to-school

What to do with those extra pantry items

The best couponers save hundreds of dollars every month at the grocery store. However, extreme couponers can end up living very extreme lifestyles to get those savings. For over five years, SavingsAngel.com has equalized the playing field – giving extreme savings to busy families who don’t have the time or ability to be an extreme couponer. Each week, SavingsAngel.com’s over 70 angels combine over 2,000 products on sale at local grocery and drug stores with an enormous database of over 2000 different manufacturer coupons. These combinations result in our members getting access to over 300 products each week for 50% off or better. Simply log in, choose the deals you want, print or clip only the coupons you need, and save hundreds of dollars a month at regional and national stores. Our angels will personally work with you to craft a plan that will help you buy healthier food at lower prices – helping you keep $200 to $400 in savings each month.

Josh Elledge is chief executive "Angel" of SavingsAngel.com, a website that teaches consumers how to save money through a free money savings video eCourse and podcast. SavingsAngel also provides hundreds of 50% off or better deals each week to members by matching local grocery and drug store sales with its free database of over 5,000 accessible coupons. A husband and father of three, he now appears each week on television, in eight newspapers, and a number of radio stations across the country teaching families how to cut their grocery bill in half using the Internet. Elledge created the technology found on SavingsAngel.com through the need to save his own family’s money. Successfully able to cut his own grocery bill from $600 a month to less than $300 a month, his message has reached hundreds of thousands of families. SavingsAngel.com is now growing rapidly throughout the country. You can watch a short video at SavingsAngel.com that will explain more information about how to cut your own grocery bill in half with the help of SavingsAngel.com!