Recently, two of my cousins came to visit. They just finished their first year of college, and they wanted to take a trip together. These two are not siblings, simply best friends who live in the middle of the country and wanted to spend time in Portland.

I was excited to have them, of course, and knew that I could show them a good time. And we had a great time. They were here for a week and we put miles on the car, filled our days with Northwest activities, spent time with family, enjoyed each others company, and ate great food.

On our way back to Portland from Seattle, we stopped in Olympia, WA to hang out with my parents. We went to dinner at a restaurant on the water, and sat outside. The girls knew that my parents would buy dinner (because that’s what parents do) and there was little discussion about what to order, except that I personally didn’t want to eat too much because my dad told me there was a new ice cream shop in town.

One of the girls ordered a club sandwich, and the other decided to be brave and try something she’d never tried before: king crab legs from Alaska.

I’d never had them before, either. But that’s because they are usually far too expensive. On this menu, they were listed at market pricewhich typically means that the dish will be as expensive as the most expensive item on the menu. Sometimes $10 above. And she’s young, and perhaps hadn’t seen “market price” on menus before.

My dad was in for a surprise when the bill came. Her crab legs were $50, when the expensive dinner items were around $22. She had no idea, and my dad didn’t want me to tell her, so I didn’t. She’s not the type to take advantage of someone else buying her dinner — in fact, she paid for my dinner at least once on the trip. She simply didn’t know. She would not have ordered them if the price were listed.

My mom told my sister, who couldn’t help but tell my cousin about her faux pas. She was so embarrassed, and couldn’t believe that she’d ordered something that was as expensive as everyone else’s meals, combined. This is a mistake she will never make again.

I feel like there were two problems here. One, she should not have ordered something without knowing the price. Two, and here’s the kicker, the waitress really should have said something. When your normal dinner prices are $22, market price should never be $50. In fact, market price as a general rule should only be five or ten dollars higher than the next-most expensive item.

Have you ever ordered anything market price?

Don’t Pay Market Price is a post from: When Life Gives You Lemons. Did you like the post? Follow me on Twitter, like me on Facebook, or hop on over to my blog and leave me your feedback.

I’ll bet you have problems.

Major money issues.

Sometimes it’s hard to sleep.

When your credit card gets denied do you smile and tell the clerk, “Oh, I gave you that card? The strip doesn’t work right.” Then do you hand over the next one, hoping that this one has a “good strip?” I’m sure the clerk never realizes that by “good strip” you mean “one with money available.”

Maybe you make a ton of cash, but you’re behind on your taxes. You haven’t paid them in three years and you know, deep down, that it’s only a matter of time until The Man catches up with you.

Worse yet, your problem might be that you just don’t understand all the terminology of investing. Like one of my favorite songs from the band Camera Obscura: “I should be suspended from class, ‘cause I don’t know my elbow from my ass.” Maybe you’re just hoping someone will take control for you.

But this class is your financial life. And it’s not graduate school…this is more like Personal Finance 101. Yet you still don’t know.

Do any of these sound familiar? Are any of these partly the reason why you thought you’d read Add Vodka? Maybe glean a little financial knowledge while Daisy entertains you?

It’s a Good Start.

First, Daisy’s very funny. Second, she owns a good head for money. She can teach without preach. I need to learn that lesson.

Here’s the thing: I was that guy. I didn’t know about money.

Let’s go stronger, Joe: I was clueless.

So, you know what I did about it.

I became your financial advisor.

My Story

…okay, maybe I wasn’t your advisor, but I was an advisor. I managed $60M dollars for clients. I worked with about 180 families at a time, helping them make financial decisions. I was a fee based guy. You paid good money to follow my lead.

–and I didn’t know much about money. I was the guy in the song: I should have been suspended from class. I didn’t know my elbow from my ass.

Then I made a ton of money, and because I was technically self employed, I owed a lot of tax. I was that guy who didn’t pay taxes for three years. That’s because I owed an astronomical sum and hadn’t really planned for that (again, see “I don’t know my elbow….”)

And, because I owed a bunch of money, my credit cards all were in jeopardy of going away. I had that “Oh, I gave you THAT card?” look down to a science. It isn’t polite to let the lady at Target know you’re praying when she swipes your credit card.

You Can Change

I wish you could have gone into client meetings with me. You would see something uncomfortable but also more than a little interesting: you would have seen people financially naked.

I didn’t meet a person who wasn’t a little self conscious in their financial birthday suit.

Everyone had problems.

1)  I worked with a man who had 2.4 million in savings and didn’t know how an IRA worked. He was pretty embarrassed when I showed him that he had an annuity inside his IRA and didn’t need the dual protection. He was wasting over $20k a year in unnecessary fees.

2)  One client had over 30 credit cards and $125k in credit card debt. Her husband had no idea (or so he wanted to believe…but I think in his gut he knew something was amiss). We cut up credit cards for nearly an hour before she stopped pulling more from her purse. They just kept coming and coming….

3)  One guy owned a business that had created a net worth in the range of $40M dollars.  He had to call someone to find out if he had a no fee checking account. He didn’t.

4)  A nice family had severe medical issues for two of their sons. They were busy keeping up with the Jones’ and had no savings. They’d been borrowing money from his retirement plan and now couldn’t pay it back because they had to cover the bills. They owed about $18k in taxes.

5)  MANY people didn’t understand their 401k plan or work benefits package. Disability insurance? “I’ll check what I’ve got at work.”

6)  MOST people didn’t know anything about investing. Zip, zero, nada. And insurance? They’d heard insurance was bad so they really didn’t want to talk about it. Understand it? No. Talk about it? Learn? No.

7)  EVERYONE had embarrassing situations to share. Often I felt like a priest in the confessional. I’d learn to listen and nod. If you think I’m judging the people in the above scenarios, I’m not. How could I?  I was right there with them.

It All Starts With You

We all start from somewhere. I remember waking up one day and deciding that instead of saying “this needs to change” I said “I have to change.” Just a couple words made a powerful difference. I was in control and it was time to take charge.

My situation was bad, sure, but so was everyone else’s! Further, it really didn’t matter if my client had credit card issues or couldn’t understand why an annuity was bad. It was about me.me.me.me.me. Normally I’d call that selfish. This time it was taking control.

Joe’s 5 Steps to Change

I became a change agent. I started working on ME and began thinking about how best to help you. Powerful change required a mindset shift, that, while not as easy as some finance gurus will have you believe, did require only five steps:

1)  Take control.Make a decision and stick to it. Example: I will call an accountant today and figure out my taxes.

2)  Write down everything.  I owned a 529 plan for my kids. I didn’t know how it was invested. I created filing systems for all of my investments. Started using Mint, a budgeting software. I needed a dashboard to quickly look in on my money.

3)  Talk about money. Enter the conversation. I’m amazed by how open the financial community is on Twitter and Facebook. Not the Wall Street crowd. They’re shrouded in technical jargon that (by and large) is irrelevant. I’m talking about the everyday community. Follow people like Daisy, Jeff Rose (Certified Financial Planner), Financial Samurai, or people openly stumbling through it and winning, like Andrea from SoOverDebt. These people are open about money and because they’ve felt the pain of real life before, won’t judge you.

4)  Get comfortable with your financial body. It’s your skin. Be comfortable in it. Own it. Then, just like you would if you were out of shape, begin developing muscle. Read Add Vodka. Stop by lesser blogs, like Average Joe’s Money Blog (shameless plug).

5)  Begin eating the elephant. Whenever I would get freaked out by all the change that needed to happen in my life, I would go back to the old joke: “How do you eat an elephant?” Answer: “One bite at a time.” By focusing on only the next step, I’d hold off my anxiety and

The meeting with my accountant led to an efile of back taxes. That led to a letter and visit from the IRS (Ever had an IRS visit? Even when you’re pretty sure it’s coming it’s still more than a little intimidating.) That opened a discussion on paying my taxes, which was the first step to catching up. One nerve-wracking bite at a time. To get there, I just had to take a first step.

Now it’s your turn. Take the first bite.

Do you have money problems?

Money Problems? Jump On Board is a post from: When Life Gives You Lemons. Did you like the post? Follow me on Twitter, like me on Facebook, or hop on over to my blog and leave me your feedback.

Fannie Mae is the name commonly associated with the Federal National Mortgage Association. It is a publicly traded company that is sponsored by the government with the purpose of expanding the secondary mortgage market by allowing lenders to reinvest their assets. Fannie Mae may have properties for sale because a homeowner was unable to avoid foreclosure on the home in which Fannie Mae was the investor

HomePath and Fannie Mae

HomePath.com by Fannie Mae provides a home buyer with the tools to search for a home that fits with his or her price, location, size and style preferences, as well as offering financing with a low down payment and flexible mortgage terms.

Related Article: How To Buy A Foreclosure

HomePath has one distinguishing feature when it comes to their home search, and that is that they only offer listings for foreclosed properties owned by Fannie Mae. The selection of properties includes single family homes, townhouses and condos. While sales prices vary, most are newer homes that require repair. HomePath financing is only available for properties owned by Fannie Mae by result of a default mortgage, and they claim to have special offers and incentives but also mention home buyers have their choice of lender.

Foreclosures and the Housing Market

While HomePath provides housing options on the real estate market, they are ruining the housing market by only providing financing for foreclosed homes owned by Fannie Mae. Foreclosed homes are homes that the previous owner could not pay the mortgage on, and therefore, they were turned over to its lender (the “bank”). Foreclosed homes are bad for the housing market because they typically sell for lower prices, and, as a result, they lowering the value on neighboring homes for sale.

Related Article: Why Harp 2.0 Will Not Work and How Banks Really Think

HomePath.com is doing potential home buyers an injustice by only offering listings on foreclosed properties and not allowing them to search for other homes that fit their price, location and size requirements.

Why purchasing a foreclosed home from Fannie Mae is bad for the housing market…

• The economy receives zero stimulation for the purchase of a foreclosed home because all of the funds go back to the lender to make up for the mortgage that was defaulted on by the previous owners. Whereas a person selling his or her home generally makes a profit and usually has money to spend, and/or the realtor makes a commission and also has money to spend.

With HomePath financing, Fannie Mae is the only company to see any of that money.

• The lower price of a foreclosed home reflects poorly on the value of neighboring homes and can result in a much lower selling price for the other houses on the street.

• Foreclosed properties are flooding the housing market, and other home sellers are having a hard time competing Fannie Mae, which is promoting this by only offering financing for foreclosed properties.

• A foreclosed home is sold “as-is” and many times, it is not properly inspected, which can lead to problems for the new owners. They might have a false sense of security when they acquire the home at a low price, but in reality, it is in need of costly repair.

Because HomePath by Fannie Mae only offers financing on foreclosed homes and foreclosed homes are bad for the housing market and economy, Fannie Mae is helping to bring down the real estate market.

While buying a foreclosed home is not necessarily a bad thing, you should make sure to do your research. You do not want to be tempted by the low price tags and end up buying something that is not worth the money.

Have you ever bought a foreclosed home? Did you flip it? Keep it? Have you used HomePath? Tell us your story!

How Fannie Mae HomePath Financing is Ruining the Housing Market! is a post from: When Life Gives You Lemons. Did you like the post? Follow me on Twitter, like me on Facebook, or hop on over to my blog and leave me your feedback.

This post comes courtesy of Eric J. Nisall, who writes about pretty much anything he feels like in the areas of personal finance, small business and entrepreneurship over at DollarVersity. So, if you don’t like it, BLAME HIM!

Money mistakes. Everybody makes them. Some people prefer to keep theirs hidden from the world so as to not have to admit to them. Me? I will openly share mine. I don’t worry about how someone will react at my tale of woe. I’ve made mistakes, plenty in fact, and the chances are great that I will do so again. Hey, I’m human so it’s bound to happen. You can’t go through life worrying about what happened last week, last year, or a decade ago; you need to use it as a learning experience and move forward.

If mistakes are supposed to be learning experiences, then I should be a freakin’ genius by now. Why do I say that? Well, to be honest my twenties were basically one giant money mistake. I pretty much committed every cardinal sin of financial management, and some multiple times. I’m not proud of what I did, or the situation it got me into, but at the same time, I’m not ashamed either. It helped me get to the point in my life I am currently at.

I’m not sure how it all started, but once it did, boy did it keep going. I was loose with my cash–very loose. Every other weekend myself and my friends would go to our favorite pool hall and simply go crazy. The waitresses loved me., and not in a good way, mind you. They loved me because I didn’t care about money. I tossed it around like I was some big shot, like the guys today who you hear about going to the strip clubs and “making it rain”. I wasn’t that out of my mind, but pretty close. I would buy entire trays of those test-tube shots. I’d order tons of food. I would buy the random people drinks (ok, it was only the attractive women). And, as for the reason the waitresses loved me–I would leave huge tips. It wasn’t the most economical way to have a good time, huh?

My home life wasn’t much different. I rented an apartment with a friend who was kind of homely. He was very quiet and unassuming, and pretty much kept to himself. I, on the other hand was the opposite: loud and very much out there. When I first moved in, the place was very sparsely furnished. I went out and purchased a 1,000 watt stereo receiver. Then I got a 400-disc DVD changer (like anyone needs to have access to that many movies at one time). I stocked the pantry with tons of snacks and junk. I basically tried to convert the apartment into a mini-club. When the lease was up, I didn’t brink that stuff with us to the new place. I put it up on eBay, and started fresh with updated versions of the things I had just sold off. After all, a new place was deserving of new toys (or so I figured).

That was all nothing compared to the last thing I did before I gained some common sense–not to mention some self-control. I wanted a flashy car! No, it’s not what you are thinking, I didn’t buy a high-end import with all the bells and whistles in it. I went with a Pontiac Gran-Am, but I just had to have the sun roof, spoiler, 17-inch chrome rims and leather. It didn’t end there, though. I had black-out tint on the rise and ripped out the stock stereo head unit just to replace it with a stylin’ Alpine multi-disc changer with motorized screen and text (back then this was the only model on the market). I dropped $800 just on the head unit. I have to say, that car was the most fun vehicle I have ever owned.

How did I manage to pay for all of that stuff? Was I a rich kid spending mommy and daddy’s hard-earned cash? Nope. Did I have some connection that got me a high-paying job that would afford me this life of luxury? Nope. I committed one of the biggest sins of smart money management: I put it all on plastic. Even worse, I didn’t pay more than the minimum each month so that I would have plenty of cash to spend on other things.

Was it worth it? At the time, I would say abso-freakin-lutely! Now, however, looking back at the trouble it got me into as far as credit card debt I would say no. But it teach me a valuable lesson and it’s certainly a mistake I never plan on making again.

What were your biggest money mistakes?

Money Mistakes Aplenty AKA Life In My 20s is a post from: When Life Gives You Lemons. Did you like the post? Follow me on Twitter, like me on Facebook, or hop on over to my blog and leave me your feedback.