Another vote for the local Habitat for Humanity store!! In our area it's called Builder's Bargains. We scored nine (yes, nine!) older solid wood, clear fir interior doors, complete with hinges and doorknobs for $50 each! We couldn't touch these at our local lumber yard for under $300, and then we would still need to purchase the hardware. We have also gotten our shower fixtures there and some great tile. Our store constantly has contractors swinging by to drop off their excess supplies. I have seen brand new windows, sinks, some beautiful lighting fixtures, paint...you name it and they will eventually have it! Our particular store has a wish list that you can put your name on and if that particular item comes in they will give you a call and give you first "dibs" on it. That's how we landed the doors. We have also lucked into some great stuff through our local Freecycle group.....all free! A couple of the best things that we have found here were four full light, fir framed doors (new, never installed!) and a huge old oak fireplace surround (needs elbow grease, but beautiful!). I think that if you stay flexible and open-minded that you can find all sorts of great things for your build! You also need to love to shop.....alot! hee hee! Shopping like this has allowed us to flex our budget on others things, which has been great. Good luck to you!

Hi Saphire, Very easy for you to say without concrete examples. I can try to post case examples for you as available and permission is granted. I have a significant portfolio of such cases... but I do need to get permission, and then put them in a postable format. May take me a bit, but I *WILL* do it... had been on my list anyway. So assuming I am trading up in value and will be financing 80% (because no one will give me the house at 100% and I do not have enough cash to buy it outright) Do you mean no bank will LEND 100% on that house? Be aware, you ARE financing 100% of the purchase. Apparently you'll be taking 80% from the bank at the cost of their interest charges, and 20% from your family at the cost of the safe returns available. There's no free lunch... ALL of the money comes at a cost, including the money you take away from your family's safety reserves and growth investments. if I buy an expensive house (for me) you are right that this affects my portfolio as a whole so how do I get the least expensive rate or product that also is nbot subject to rate increases if the market changes Fortunately for you, right now the expense premium on longterm fixed loans is very small above the more timeframe realistic 5 and 7 year fixed intermediary programs. You can likely get the risks completely bank-carried at just 1/4% or so above the 5 year terms. I'd suggest being a little 'suspicious' of ol' Mr. Market, however... when Mr. Market makes longterm fixed loan costs extremely attractive relative to shorter term periods, the Market knows that the shorter term programs are more likely to become significantly cheaper as they adjust (thus the "market trickery" to entice the consumer into the more expensive programs permanently.) Without concrete examples or references, either as to stradegies that work or references to formulas or analysis it all sounds very ambigious, mysterious and a bit glib. It certainly takes an open mind for numbers, and the ability to visualize offsetting growth or cost curves. The bases of the entire conceptual issue are; Rates are relative; When costs of borrowing increase, yields on savings/investments increase, and vice versa. Cash Is King; The costs of being illiquid in emergency can be catastrophically worse than the costs of staying liquid (in carrying costs on the leverage to do so,) It is very easy to say a FMR is expensive but without providing either alternatives or examples or references as to why that is so, I have to question it Currently the immediate face costs on a 30 FRM versus (as example) a 5 yr ARM are minimal... very financially unusual, which DOES definitely call for suspicion. The more obscure costs on a Fixed are the ongoing higher carry costs incurred when rates shift to the downside on the loan, but you are stuck at the higher rates unless/until you incur another round of transaction costs to reset the financing. Eliminating uncertainty is more efficiently done by matching income yield instruments (savings & investments) to leverage instruments (mortgages.) Properly placed and managed the spread continually works in your favor, and you remain much safer as you are not locked away from your liquidity. CLEARLY explain how this works or various stragies that might work for a trade up house that is intended to be held indefinitely How long you intend to OWN is irrelevant, (what DOES matter is how long you intend to take to reach financial independence,) but I do have a few cases that reflect the same situation. I'll see if I can get them illustrated to present as soon as feasible. Cheers, Dave Donhoff Strategic Equity & Mortgage Planner

I just went through a website today called onetravel.com and got great prices. Round-trip tickets from DC to Boston, four seats, for 521.00 including all taxes. Then got a rental car for the weekend for $90 for three days from the same website. For the whole three-day weekend, airfare and car rental for the four of us came to $593! (there was a $20 discount if you booked right away). This website combines airlines, so we are flying out on JetBlu and returning on United. I also just called them on the phone to get seating assignments and got them right away. I was very happy with this - I'll have to visit my family in Mass more often with these prices.

My funniest experience in an aircraft happened while I was stationed in Germany. The Air Force used to use a Kaman HH43 helicopter for an emergency responce crash vehicle. They had a huge 6ft diameter round metal pressure sphere that was loaded with firefighting foam which they carried on a hook under the helicopter. Two firemen were inside the helicopter with the Asbestos firesuites on. When an aircraft crashed they would fly in quickly and set the firebottle down and the firemen would jump out and grab the foam line, then the helicopter would hover over the burning aircraft using the downdraft to blow the flames back while the firemen laid down a path of foam till they could get to the aircraft and pull the crew out. One day my buddy, who was a crewchief on the helicopter called me and said they were going up on a training flight and asked if I would like to ride along, so off I went. As I boarded the helicopter I saw the pilot & co-pilot up front, my buddy, the crew chief, two firemen and another guy who worked at the base chapel that was coming along for the ride. We were all seated in the back while the helicopter just flew around in circles close to the base when suddenly we heard a radio call on our headphones. They had a crippled F4 Phantom coming in with an engine fire, so the pilot told us he had to go back and hook up the firebottle and while they were hooking it up I and the guy from the chapel would have to jump off. The chopper landed and while we were jumping off one of the ground crew hooked the cable on the lifting hook and the chopper took off again, but when it was about 50ft off the ground one of the firemen jumped out, bouncing off the ground from 50ft and broke his leg. I didn't have a clue as to why he just mysteriously jumped out, but later that afternoon while sitting in the NCO club my buddy the crew chief came in and he told me. It seems that while we were flying around the guy from the chapel had got airsick, but not wanting to appear like a whimp to the other guys onboard he didn't ask for a burp bag, instead, he had barfed in the firemens boot and while we were jumping off the firemen was pulling his boots on. By the time he realized that the guy had barfed in his boot he tore off after the guy without even thinking and jumped out....LOL