Daily Worth

It can feel like mortgage lenders and real estate agents speak a secret language. If you’re planning to buy your first home — or your first in a while — you’re bound to hear unfamiliar terms during the mortgage process

It provides a detailed chart of your income sources over time and indicates any potential gap, and allows you to make a variety of adjustments to see how you can help improve your odds of not outliving your money. Once you have eliminated high-interest debt, commit to saving at least 80 percent of any extra income like bonuses, tax refunds, inheritances or lottery money ( Some financial advisors recommend equating your age to the percentage of your investment portfolio that should be allocated to less risky investments, like bonds (so if you are 57, you would have 43 percent invested in stocks). At age 62 your monthly Social Security payments would only be 70-75 percent of your full retirement benefit, but if you postpone claiming until age 70, your payments would be 132 percent of your full benefit.

A cheap person might buy low-priced heels that don’t fit well, only to retire them unworn and buy another cut-rate pair expecting something different. It was a computer purchase that forced me to break out of my cheap rut. I took a moment to survey the choices I’d made over the past six months, and saw just how much I’d suffered from nickel-and-diming my own life: * I was wearing a pair of leggings that were past their prime, and my clothes were hung in multiples on pink plastic hangers acquired in haste because I didn’t feel like spending the extra $20 on the wooden hangers I like.

As my friend and financial author Beverly Harzog says, “You don’t want to wait until you’re madly in love and committed before finding out your future husband has a terrible credit score and $30,000 in credit card debt. Some red flags, according to Greutman: you can’t agree on the size and location of the home you want to live in; one of you advocates stay-at-home parenting while the other doesn’t support it; you’re at odds about how much to spend on your wedding. While your future spouse won’t likely be technically responsible for debt you incurred prior to tying the knot, it will be a collective hindrance once you’re married and attempting to accomplish financial goals together. If it’s your partner who has mounds of credit card debt and is still charging things, urge him or her to work on erasing those balances now, says Barbara Huson, author of “Sacred Success.