Money Management

Pet insurance can be costly. Read on to see what to do if you can no longer swing yours. 

Caring for an animal can be expensive. You need to cover the cost of food, supplies, and medical care. And while pet insurance might help with the latter, the reality is that some policies can be quite expensive.

Forbes says that the average cost of pet insurance is $56 per month for a dog and $47 per month for a cat for a policy with unlimited annual coverage, a $500 deductible, and a 90% reimbursement level. However, these are just averages. And depending on the health and age of your pet and where you live, your coverage may be costing you a lot more.

If you’ve reached the point where you can’t afford your pet insurance policy, you may be in a financial bind. But here are some options to consider.

1. Shop around for a more affordable policy

Maybe your pet insurance premiums have gone up and you can no longer swing them. That doesn’t mean another pet insurance company won’t be able to swoop in with a more competitive rate.

Do some research before dropping pet insurance altogether. You may find that you’re able to get a better deal elsewhere.

Also, it could be a good idea to rally some co-workers with pets and urge your employer to offer pet insurance as a workplace benefit. That way, you may be entitled to subsidized coverage that results in much lower premiums. Even if that coverage isn’t subsidized per se, you might at least get a group rate discount.

2. Downgrade your coverage

You may be paying for a pet insurance policy that offers a wide range of coverage, including wellness benefits for your pet. Policies like these might reimburse you for regular checkups, but they can also be very costly.

If you have a policy like that, contact your insurance company and talk through your options for downgrading. The most important thing is really to have coverage for a catastrophic event, like a major surgery. So if you’re willing to forgo some of the added benefits, you might save a bundle on premiums.

3. Bulk up your savings

You may end up coming to the conclusion that you can’t afford pet insurance at all — not your current policy and not another one. If that’s the case, and you need to drop your coverage on a short- or long-term basis, at least try your best to beef up your savings account so you have funds you can tap for a pet care emergency.

It may be that the cheapest policy your pet is eligible for is one that costs $50 a month. If you can’t swing that, but can manage to add $25 to your savings every month, that’s a good compromise.

Having pet insurance is really important when you have an animal you care about. So it’s important to see what options are available to you when your premiums stop being affordable. But if you really can’t swing pet insurance at all, having more savings is a reasonable way to compensate.

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We’re firm believers in the Golden Rule, which is why editorial opinions are ours alone and have not been previously reviewed, approved, or endorsed by included advertisers.
The Ascent does not cover all offers on the market. Editorial content from The Ascent is separate from The Motley Fool editorial content and is created by a different analyst team.Maurie Backman has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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To save money upfront, some home buyers opt for no-closing-cost mortgages. Before you go this route, here’s the truth about those loans. 

No matter how you slice it, buying a home can take a bite out of your bank account. In addition to a down payment, home buyers must pay closing costs — typically 3% to 6% of the loan amount. That means adding $9,000 to $18,000 to the cost of borrowing $300,000. It’s not always a chunk of change buyers have at their disposal, which is where no-closing-cost mortgages come in.

Understanding closing costs

As mentioned, closing costs vary, depending on many factors. The good news is that they don’t pop up from a dark corner, like an ax murderer in a horror movie. Instead, by law, your mortgage lender must give you an estimate at least three business days before you close on the mortgage (this information is known as a closing disclosure). Here’s some of what closing costs typically include:

Home appraisal feesTitle insuranceMortgage origination feesApplication feesProcessing feesProperty taxesHomeowners insurance

If you’re a home buyer, particularly a first-time home buyer, closing costs can seem overwhelming.

And that’s where no-closing-cost mortgages come in

Mortgage lenders sometimes advertise no-closing-cost mortgages to appeal to home buyers short on cash. However, buyers who apply for a no-closing-cost mortgage must meet the same loan criteria as any other home buyer. The entire appeal is avoiding closing costs.

The problem is there is no avoiding closing costs. A buyer may not have to pay them upfront, but they will end up covering the cost one way or another.

Here’s how it works:

A home buyer applies for a no-closing-cost mortgage.The application is approved, and a closing date is set.Rather than charge the home buyer closing costs upfront, the lender finds another way to recoup the funds.Some lenders roll closing costs into the loan. For example, if a buyer borrows $300,000, they may end up with a loan for $318,000 instead. The critical thing to remember is that the buyer will now spend the entire mortgage paying interest on the closing costs rolled into the loan.Another lender may cover the closing costs, but hike up the interest rate. Let’s say the going interest rate on the mortgage is 6%. The lender may raise the rate to 6.5%. So, instead of paying $1,799 (principal and interest) for 30 years, the home buyer now pays $1,896 monthly for 30 years. In total, the no-closing-cost mortgage costs the buyer $34,560.

A savvy buyer may take out a no-closing-cost mortgage with the intention of paying the house off early and getting out from under the original mortgage. The problem is lenders sometimes add a prepayment penalty to no-closing-cost mortgages, just in case a buyer tries to refinance. In other words, a lender sets up the contract in a way that ensures it will recoup its costs.

Your move

If you’re in the market for a home but are concerned about closing costs, take your time with the details of a no-closing-cost loan. Read the contract carefully, looking specifically for the following:

How does the lender plan to recoup its money? Is it proposing a higher interest rate, or will it roll the closing costs into the loan to be paid off over time?Has the lender written in a prepayment penalty to discourage you from paying off the original loan and refinancing the house?

Once you understand how the loan is set up, crunch the numbers. The extra cost spread across the years more than makes up for not having to pay closing costs today. Or, you may find that your best bet is to scrape together the closing costs now to save yourself money throughout the life of the loan.

Finally, consider one of these three options:

Negotiate with the lender. Closing costs are not engraved in stone. Let the lender know you need to get costs down and ask which fees can be reduced or waived. Usually, lender application and origination fees are the easiest to cut.Look at home buyer programs. If you’re a first-time buyer, you’ll find that cities and states frequently offer first-time home buyer programs. These programs may include grants and other financial assistance, including help with down payment and closing costs. If you need help figuring out where to look, begin by asking your real estate agent.Consider working with another lender. Some lenders offer “no-fee loans.” In this case, no-fee means that the lender reduces closing costs by cutting any expenses that would have gone directly to the lender. You’ll still need to pay closing costs, but the amount will be reduced. If you go this route, go over the contract with a fine-toothed comb to ensure the lender doesn’t try to recoup its cost by jacking up the cost of the loan in another way.

Buying a home is an exciting time in life. But it’s a good idea to postpone the celebration until you’ve taken steps to leave as much money as possible in your bank account.

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We’re firm believers in the Golden Rule, which is why editorial opinions are ours alone and have not been previously reviewed, approved, or endorsed by included advertisers.
The Ascent does not cover all offers on the market. Editorial content from The Ascent is separate from The Motley Fool editorial content and is created by a different analyst team.The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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Getting your house ready to show doesn’t have to be hard. Here’s how you can do it for almost nothing if you’re picky about the details. 

So you wanna get your home ready to show, but you don’t have much money to do fancy things like hiring a professional stager or renting a bunch of posh furniture that you’d never in a million years dare sit on? It’s OK, it’s not really that difficult to prep your home for showing with the things you already have — you just have to think like a buyer. Here are some tips to get you started.

1. Give your landscape a haircut

If you’re not a stylist, this might be a terrible suggestion, but improving your home’s curb appeal is the no. 1 thing you can do to attract buyers. Once they’re already in love with the outside of your home, they’re going to be far more likely to want to come inside. Tidying up your landscape not only improves your home’s overall enticement score, it can also be important for someone who’s trying to get a mortgage to buy the property.

Even though it’s not supposed to make a difference, the way your home presents itself can influence how an appraiser sees it, and may result in a lower appraisal. Simply cutting back bushes away from your house, trimming trees that are touching the roof, keeping the lawn mowed, and putting some extra mulch out for your plants can really refresh the whole look.

2. Declutter and enhance your living space

Everybody, everywhere, will tell you to declutter your home before listing it. But what does that mean?

I’ve been in a lot of homes as a real estate agent, and what I can tell you that works is to eliminate everything that’s not absolutely necessary this week, including decorative furniture you rarely use. Put it in storage, get it off the property, make your house look huge. Your house is probably bigger than it feels because you’ve been living in it so long and have managed to collect a lot of stuff — we all do that.

Once you’ve successfully decluttered, you can spend a few bucks on some nice coordinating pillows and throws that are very “Live, Laugh, Love” and some nice fake flowers to bring a little cheer back into your home, but in a vaguely generic way. People want to see your home as a home, but they don’t want to see you in it, if that makes sense.

It’s not about you, of course, it’s about them and their imaginations, but if you want to sell your house, you have to remember that you effectively don’t live there anymore, but every potential buyer does (or should be able to see themselves doing so).

3. Let in the light

No one ever believes me until they do this, but cleaning your windows and the glass shades on your overhead lighting and replacing the bulbs with brighter options can really make your home feel open and airy. It’s like magic, removing all those years of nearly transparent grime. Glass shades can go directly into the dishwasher to save you even more time.

This is so important for your house showing well because it makes it feel clean. Even if you know there’s a year of dog hair in the carpet pad, all that light and those sunbeams coming in from outside just feel…different. If your buyer is using a mortgage to buy your home, it’ll help them, too, as the illusion of space is something even people who look at houses constantly feel acutely. Plus, it can affect the more subjective parts of the appraisal by encouraging appraisers to grade your home’s condition slightly higher than they might if it was a dark pit.

Getting your house ready to show doesn’t have to be expensive

You can go all out, hire designers, change the carpet, paint all the walls, and rebuild the kitchen before your next showing, or you can do what most people expect you’ll do and make your house tidy and neat, and deceptively large. Everything you do from this moment on with your home will be with the sole purpose of luring in a buyer who will see it for what it has always been — a great place to call home — and set their sights (and their new mortgage lender) on it.

Our picks for the best credit cards

Our experts vetted the most popular offers to land on the select picks that are worthy of a spot in your wallet. These best-in-class cards pack in rich perks, such as big sign-up bonuses, long 0% intro APR offers, and robust rewards. Get started today with our recommended credit cards.

We’re firm believers in the Golden Rule, which is why editorial opinions are ours alone and have not been previously reviewed, approved, or endorsed by included advertisers.
The Ascent does not cover all offers on the market. Editorial content from The Ascent is separate from The Motley Fool editorial content and is created by a different analyst team.Kristi Waterworth has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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