Hi Christine, I know Dave is a well respected advisor on these boards, but I have to say I have always been told to steer clear of anything other than Term Life. Thanks... uhh, I think? Hopefully I'm not losing any respect from the lack of financial planning experience from whoever 'always' told you to steer clear of anything other than Term Life. Many people here have also "always" been told to pay off their mortgage as fast as possible, "period," regardless of the risks & harm it can create too. What many have "always" heard is not always so valid. Dave perhaps you could clarify why Universal Life is a good option in general and also specifically in this case? I have been on this site off and on for a very long time, however, I have not read that many posts on this particilar board to know your general philosophy on this. Sure. FIRST off, it is most likely the case that "everyone" who "always" advised you to avoid anything but "term" was specifically talking about buying life insurance for the purpose of the insurance DEATH benefits... not the financial planning features available within certain types of it. For the best death benefits "bang for the buck"... Term life premiums are state regulated, so for the most part you pay for the benefit coverage you get, and nothing more, regardless of the carrier (which is GOOD if what you want is a payoff at death.) Differences in term life premiums are generally quite small, and when one carrier appears to be "cheaper" per $1,000 of benefit than another (i.e. if you Google for 'cheapest term insurance' etc.) its generally because that carrier has less capital reserves to protect its policy-holders, thus less costs... and is thus more at risk of being illiquid... *OR* it fights harder NOT to pay all of the benefits expected when its policies mature, and thereby it has less costs of fulfillment. There are OTHER very important financial benefits to life insurance contracts, however, OTHER than the ultimate payoff of a death benefit at policy maturity. Congress has written legal "tax-shelter" features into the IRS code such that cash values sheltered within properly structured life insurance contracts grow and are harvestable UN-TAXED. Universal Life *IS* a term life policy (underwritten through age 100,) that offers a SEPERATE (un-comingled) cash accumulation account with the unique tax sheltered benefits only available inside cash-value life contracts. (NOTE that this is distictively different from old-fashioned "whole life" contracts that inseperably comingle insurance costs with their cash-values.) For FINANCIAL PLANNING purposes we want the maximum shelter benefits with the LEAST actual insurance coverage we can get away with (since, for this particular purpose, we don't care about death benefits.) The cash account within a Universal policy is allowed to grow tax free (no annual capital gains nor income taxes,) and is allowed to be accessed for spending tax free (via zero-interest policy "loans" which have no repayment requirement until the policy "matures"... aka when the insured dies.) Our OP is concerned about college tuition fund planning. The general strategy with college funding is to take advantage of *ALL* external funding resources (public assistance, grants, loans, and public/private scholarships) *BEFORE* dipping into the family-accumulated funds. THe catch-22 is that *MANY* external funding sources are "means tested." This means that they look at the student's fmaily's financial profile 1st... and if the family has funds in reserves, the external sources DEDUCT those from the support calculations (in essence saying "you guys drain your OWN accounts before we'll offer you any support!") Of course, this is completely contrary to the idea of rewarding those who are responsible... which is the whole point of using Universal Life insurance contracts to accumulate college tuition (and subsequently retirement funding for the parents.) Universal Life policies can also be "owned" by someone other than the person that the policy is insuring (the "insured.") The owner can be grandparents, uncles/aunts, god-parents, seperate trusts, or simply trusted friends. Because the ownership of this accumulation asset can be legally seperated from the student's family balance sheet, the student's family does NOT have to drain all of their own reserves before taking advantage of external educational support resources. PERSONALLY (and professionally,) in regards to actual death benefits... I would probably almost "always" harmonize with whoever else was "always" telling you to avoid anything other than term life. For death benefits (replacement of a parent's income for family support, most commonly,) term is generally the best way to go. For FINANCIAL PLANNING, however... age-100 term life coupled with cash values (in the form of Universal Life,) can be a very sharp strategy from both the tax-shelter perspective, and the avoidance of means-testing punishment of the more financially responsbile. Cheers, Dave Donhoff Leverage Planner

Exactly! I agree with everything you say. I don't want a bigger house than what we are paying now and that would include taxes and insurance. A huge down payment will get me the monthly payment (including the ins/tax) but maybe a 'bigger' house. Yes I want to have a home for my children. I have owned a home before and I think we were smart in our purchase then but we sold with the divorce. So I feel like I am literally starting over now. And that's ok.. It's never too late (well until I'm ready to retire). 10% sounds better. 5% could go in to savings for a down payment. It would take longer but would be worth it in the end. I think I got jumbled in my thoughts thinking if I'm constantly putting 15% I won't have room to put money into savings. I'll just keep putting all of my extra money into retirement BUT I was not calculating correctly, I can still 'save' for a house and be putting 10%. Now let me ask you this just to be clear: with the calculations that you have come up with, is that 10% of my income or 10% of our combined income? We should each be putting 10% of our pay into retirement correct? As far as purchasing items for the house, I am hearing you on that. We would end up putting ourselves back into debt to furnish a new house. That is absolutely not what I want to do and I've made my goals clear to my husband as far as not ever financing another piece of furniture or accessory again. My husband always used credit and would pay off at the end of the month because he was taught that having credit was important. That's all good until you are in an accident or become Ill, get laid off, have a baby or whatever may happen, and then you can only pay the minimum payment 'maybe'. I would hope that we would set aside 'spending' money for purchases like that -- I know there will be things we do have to purchase when we do buy a house like a fridge, lawn mower and other accessories, lol a water hose... You opened my eyes there, thanks again Bill.

I can only tell you what I did, and I don't know that it is worth much, except that I'm happy with my GC so far. We are only 1/2 way through though, so I suppose things could change. I got bids from 5 GCs. I eliminated one because they more or less told me that my job was small (it is $50,000+) but they would fit it in as they could. I eliminated another because I didn't feel as though they were listening to me. I eliminated the third because they weren't willing to come to my house for a meeting on the layout unless I put money down. They wanted to only meet in their offices, and work from the plan that I provided them. I think that a GC plays an important role in the design project, even if you go in with an architect's plan. For better or worse, I was looking for a GC who would look at my kitchen and tell me why, in their estimation, my dream would work or not. So, it came down to two. For both of them, I outlined what I wanted, I discussed time frame, I discussed who they used as subcontractors, and I talked about the particular challenges that I thought they would face in my kitchen. I had personal references from them both in advance. I saw their work. I checked BBB. I checked Angieslist. I googled them both. I checked bankruptcy filings. I ended up going with the more expensive of the two bids for two reasons. First, I wanted to extend my existing oak floors in the rest of the house into the kitchen. The GC that I chose indicated that this was not hard to do and gave me references so that I could see other spaces where they had done that. The contractor that I didn't pick seemed hesitant, and kept suggesting other alternatives. Second, the GC that I chose has a number of employees (26) who act as project managers and designers and supervisors. Much of the work that is subcontracted by other GCs is actually done by full-time employees working for the GC that I chose. The GC is a very well respected, established company. The other GC was really a one-man operation. His wife and son worked with him, and probably a few other folks as well, but I was worried that, if the relationship didn't work out well with him or if something happened to him or his business, I would be SOL. I would ask everything that occurs to you during your meeting, no matter how trivial it might seem, I asked the most inane of questions during my various meetings. I didn't care how minor my concern or issue was, I asked it. From my perspective, if they don't care to give you a considered answer when they are trying to get my business, they really won't care after you have signed their contract. I also read the contract before I signed. I didn't want to agree to an arbitration clause. I don't know if the non-selected contractor had one; the one that I chose did not. I would have had a struggle with myself if they had. As I said, I'm happy with my GC thus far.

I think quite bit depends upon the type of co-op and the covenants of the corporation. In the most traditional type of co-op here the unit is priced at significantly less than a comparable condo on the open market. It at one point was as little as about 15% of the price of a comparable open market apartment. With this came a lot of restrictions. You could paint, you could carpet or replace the tile with hardwood. You could not remodel the kitchens or bathrooms. You could only replace appliances with approved appliances. Of course it made no sense to remodel financially, because the price of identical floorplans was identical, and low. There was no return on that investment at all. Some had other restrictions. Only persons whose names were on the lease could stay in the apartment unless a leaseholder was present. So, if you spent 6 months in Florida and your sister came to town, she could not stay in the unit in your absence. (and the number of leaseholders was strictly limited by the size of the apartment). This actually seems to work, because there are rarely units available in these co-ops and there are waiting lists for certain types of apartments. One building that used to be like this went to open-market pricing and this led to it having all the disadvantages of condos without some of the other advantages of condos, and the combination of a higher initial cost and high monthly fees means that some units linger on the market.