Bloggers can foul up finances too

Don’t true stories like these just about make your hair fall out?

• Brad Chaffee, now the Enemy of Debt, paid $45,547 on his mortgage over 37 months and not one dime of that went to principal. It was one of those subprime interest-only loans.
• Matt Jabs of Debt Free Adventure and his wife, after a whirlwind courtship, bought a house with no money down, and 2½ years later sold it and purchased a much nicer home for a much bigger price -- again with no down payment -- near Lansing, Mich. That home is now underwater.

You can find these and other financial foul-ups -- housing and otherwise -- in a series of guest posts compiled by Brian, the 20-something blogger at My Next Buck. Being smart people, these bloggers learned from their blunders and often offer possible solutions.

• Bing: Mortgage horror stories 

 “The problem lies in the simple fact that we believed we needed things before we could actually afford those things,” Matt wrote. He added that “since we cannot get out from under the home, we are focused on rapid elimination of non-mortgage debt. Once that is gone, we will move on to the second mortgage, then the first mortgage.”

Maybe we can all learn from these bloggers’ mistakes. Here are some other samples from Brian’s Financial Foul-Ups series:

• Too much student loan debt. Stephanie at Poorer Than You applied early decision to film school without finding out first how much financial aid she would qualify for. The result: $42,546 in student loans. “Student loans are debt, and no, they’re not ‘just a part of life,’” she wrote. “Thanks, 17-year-old me, you’ve got me paying off student loans until I’m 48! You little brat!”
• Too much car. Jason of Redeeming Riches bought a new car when he worked part time during college -- financed at $254 a month with a huge balloon payment after four years. “Thankfully GM was struggling at the time (the four years were up) and they came out with an incentive program: Trade in your car for a brand new one and we’ll wipe out your Smart Buy!” he said. Kelly at The Centsible Life also wrote about wasting thousands of dollars because of poor car planning.
• Too much spending. Jeff Kosola took a part-time job delivering pizzas -- his blog is called Deliver Away Debt -- to pay down $101,000 of debt, but a lifestyle his family couldn’t really afford ate up the $1,200 a month in extra income. They adopted a budget and have paid off $13,000 in four months. Plus, he wrote, “Never deliver pizzas in a leased H3 Hummer. The gas will KILL your best efforts.”
• Too much rent. David Weliver of Money Under 30 moved back in with Mom and Dad after he racked up $15,000 in credit card debt during college and one year working in New York. He couldn’t handle living at home again, so he got an apartment with friends. Too cramped, he found a place of his own. The $1,000 a month allocated for debt reduction thus dwindled to $300, and he’s only now close to paying it off. “Had I been willing to live at home for an additional two years, I probably could’ve gotten debt-free and saved up a modest down payment to buy a home,” he said.
• Bad credit. Brian, the host of this series, contributed several posts, including one about how an unpaid $81 late fee for library books kept him from renting an apartment after a landlord spotted it on his credit report. “Now I know to check my credit report annually -- to make sure everything is kosher -- on AnnualCreditReport.com,” he wrote.  

Brian, a serious comic book fan, also compiled The Spectrum of Personal Finance, a one-day project inspired by the Green Lantern. Eight PF bloggers contributed to that event.

Related reading:

• Learn from celebrities’ financial blunders
• 8 costly mistakes investors make
• 5 stupid ‘fixes’ for money woes
• The 3 worst money moves you can make