What? You want me to VOTE AGAIN? WHY?

What? You want me to VOTE AGAIN? WHY?

SO there's been all this talk about the MID Term ELECTIONS. And some of you are scratching your heads like "huh? Why do I have to vote again-I just voted for President 2 years ago." Well yes-you did.-and because of the huge outpouring of voters inspired by Barack Obama-we elected the first African American President in a HUGE victory over Republican John McCain and his sidekick Sarah "I can see Russia from my house" Palin. It was an amazing moment in time. Voter registration was through the roof and 3 million more Democrats registered. It was amazing.

Within his first couple weeks in office Mr Obama signed several executive orders and got to work on fixing this mess of a nation that the previous 8 years got us into. Under the Bush administration Big Business, Banks and Oil were living the life. Deregulation allowed these businesses to do pretty much what the hell they wanted. Banks weren't checked or regulated and predatory lending took place. Don't know what that means? Well let me break it down for you right quick-basically banks were finding ways to make HUGE loans to people making small money. By any means necessary. Most times they knew that this loan would be detrimental to the borrowers and it was only a matter of time before it would all come crumbling down. Here's an example-and I will admit that I was a victim at one point before I caught on. Banks would give you an interest only loan for the first 2 years so your payment would be super low-but then after 2 years it would "Adjust" to a much higher interest rate and you would be STUCK. But the banks had already made their money. And let me break one more thing down on JUST how much these banks are making. I took out a loan for $500,000 and I looked at the amount of money I will have paid them once the 30 year mortgage was paid-and it ended up being 3 times more than the original amount! That's right a $500,000 house would cost me $1.2 million dollars! That's how much banks make with interest!! So of COURSE it is in their best intrest to sign as many people up as they can no matter if it will break you or not! SO that is just ONE of the things that have led us to where we are FINANCIALLY. It is NOT OBAMAS FAULT. He is trying to get more regulations and reform the banks. OK?

OK cool...now....let's move on-sorry I got a little off track... why do you need to vote on NOVEMBER 2nd? Well Yes Obama is in office but we have the House of Representatives and the Senate. Right now the majority in office are Democrats who for the most part support the President-but the Republicans have been chipping away at our President blaming him for all that was happening before he even got into office. So we need to vote to keep the Congress working with the President and not against him. Also there are tons of issues on your state ballot that will affect YOU. For example in California they are voting on wether to make marijuana legal. I am voting FOR this-although I am NOT a smoker I think it's a lot less dangerous than alcohol and it's something that can bring lots of tax dollars the bankrupt state of California. I think that is issue #19 or 20. Look into it.

Of course I am a Democrat and I am supporting OUR President. And this may run some of you the wrong way-but it's how I feel. I have never been for BIG BUSINESS> I am for the little guy, the underdog the vanishing middle class. That's why I vote Democrat. I also believe that we need to let our President do his job. And after 2 years all this criticism he has received seems just so unjustified to me. We give COLLEGE Football coaches 2 years time to turn around a football team before we start trashing him. But for some reason-a huge amount of people found it FAIR to start the criticism BEFORE his first day of work-so to me that screams Ignorance and fear-but fear of what? Well..Im not even going to say it. But NEVER in our history have we had a president win an election and have teachers BAN students from CELEBRATING or talking about it the next day in school (Georgia). Never had we had a President win the election and Newspapers REFUSE to put him on the cover of the paper (Terell, texas). It's amazing what he has had to deal with. SO with this said---get out to the polls on November 2nd and help out. Let this man do his thing. He cares, he's genuine and he took on the nation at a time when NO ONE WOULD WANT TO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND. But he stepped up to the plate and took on the job and the least we can do is help support him and make sure he has a congress that is not working against him. OK stepping off my soap box-now go vote!

Just a few things he's done off the top of my head

Reversed the Ban on Stem Cell research

Signed the Fair Pay act for women (so women would get equal pay for equal jobs)

signed health care reform into law (they been trying to do this for 50+ years)

Cash for Clunkers (helped stimulate the automobile industry)

stock market was at 6,000 now its at 11,000 points

appointed the FIRST Latina to the Supreme Court

Signed Hate Crime Bill

signed a law supporting increased financial aid to severely injured war veterans, and their caretakers

Ordering the closing of Guantanamo Bay military detention facility and abolishing "enhanced interrogation techniques."

OK there are many more things---but I can't keep writing all morning===but you get the gist. Hopefully you get out there and vote on November 2nd. For your governors, your senators, your representatives and for the issues on your state ballot. Get involved... it's your right and your duty as an American Citizen.

DO IT! People died fighting for your right to be involved in the process!

Claudia J

What? You want me to VOTE AGAIN? WHY?

SO there's been all this talk about the MID Term ELECTIONS. And some of you are scratching your heads like "huh? Why do I have to vote again-I just voted for President 2 years ago." Well yes-you did.-and because of the huge outpouring of voters inspired by Barack Obama-we elected the first African American President in a HUGE victory over Republican John McCain and his sidekick Sarah "I can see Russia from my house" Palin. It was an amazing moment in time. Voter registration was through the roof and 3 million more Democrats registered. It was amazing.

Within his first couple weeks in office Mr Obama signed several executive orders and got to work on fixing this mess of a nation that the previous 8 years got us into. Under the Bush administration Big Business, Banks and Oil were living the life. Deregulation allowed these businesses to do pretty much what the hell they wanted. Banks weren't checked or regulated and predatory lending took place. Don't know what that means? Well let me break it down for you right quick-basically banks were finding ways to make HUGE loans to people making small money. By any means necessary. Most times they knew that this loan would be detrimental to the borrowers and it was only a matter of time before it would all come crumbling down. Here's an example-and I will admit that I was a victim at one point before I caught on. Banks would give you an interest only loan for the first 2 years so your payment would be super low-but then after 2 years it would "Adjust" to a much higher interest rate and you would be STUCK. But the banks had already made their money. And let me break one more thing down on JUST how much these banks are making. I took out a loan for $500,000 and I looked at the amount of money I will have paid them once the 30 year mortgage was paid-and it ended up being 3 times more than the original amount! That's right a $500,000 house would cost me $1.2 million dollars! That's how much banks make with interest!! So of COURSE it is in their best intrest to sign as many people up as they can no matter if it will break you or not! SO that is just ONE of the things that have led us to where we are FINANCIALLY. It is NOT OBAMAS FAULT. He is trying to get more regulations and reform the banks. OK?

OK cool...now....let's move on-sorry I got a little off track... why do you need to vote on NOVEMBER 2nd? Well Yes Obama is in office but we have the House of Representatives and the Senate. Right now the majority in office are Democrats who for the most part support the President-but the Republicans have been chipping away at our President blaming him for all that was happening before he even got into office. So we need to vote to keep the Congress working with the President and not against him. Also there are tons of issues on your state ballot that will affect YOU. For example in California they are voting on wether to make marijuana legal. I am voting FOR this-although I am NOT a smoker I think it's a lot less dangerous than alcohol and it's something that can bring lots of tax dollars the bankrupt state of California. I think that is issue #19 or 20. Look into it.

Of course I am a Democrat and I am supporting OUR President. And this may run some of you the wrong way-but it's how I feel. I have never been for BIG BUSINESS> I am for the little guy, the underdog the vanishing middle class. That's why I vote Democrat. I also believe that we need to let our President do his job. And after 2 years all this criticism he has received seems just so unjustified to me. We give COLLEGE Football coaches 2 years time to turn around a football team before we start trashing him. But for some reason-a huge amount of people found it FAIR to start the criticism BEFORE his first day of work-so to me that screams Ignorance and fear-but fear of what? Well..Im not even going to say it. But NEVER in our history have we had a president win an election and have teachers BAN students from CELEBRATING or talking about it the next day in school (Georgia). Never had we had a President win the election and Newspapers REFUSE to put him on the cover of the paper (Terell, texas). It's amazing what he has had to deal with. SO with this said---get out to the polls on November 2nd and help out. Let this man do his thing. He cares, he's genuine and he took on the nation at a time when NO ONE WOULD WANT TO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND. But he stepped up to the plate and took on the job and the least we can do is help support him and make sure he has a congress that is not working against him. OK stepping off my soap box-now go vote!

Just a few things he's done off the top of my head

Reversed the Ban on Stem Cell research

Signed the Fair Pay act for women (so women would get equal pay for equal jobs)

signed health care reform into law (they been trying to do this for 50+ years)

Cash for Clunkers (helped stimulate the automobile industry)

stock market was at 6,000 now its at 11,000 points

appointed the FIRST Latina to the Supreme Court

Signed Hate Crime Bill

signed a law supporting increased financial aid to severely injured war veterans, and their caretakers

Ordering the closing of Guantanamo Bay military detention facility and abolishing "enhanced interrogation techniques."

OK there are many more things---but I can't keep writing all morning===but you get the gist. Hopefully you get out there and vote on November 2nd. For your governors, your senators, your representatives and for the issues on your state ballot. Get involved... it's your right and your duty as an American Citizen.

DO IT! People died fighting for your right to be involved in the process!

Claudia J

Getting in the Game-of Home Ownership

So I have often been asked how I got to be a home owner a couple times over. People assume you have to start off with a big lump of cash to get into the real estate game. I must admit that I once thought the same thing. While I rented apartment after apartment I could see no light at the end of the tunnel and thought I'd have to wait until I married some rich guy before I would ever be a homeowner. Well---I am NOT married and I have become a homeowner 3 times. How did I do it? Did I hit the lottery? Did someone help me? Did I come into a huge some of money? No, No and No. What I did was take baby steps. And here's what I did. I am sharing this with you guys not to brag (well may be just a little-just kidding) but to help you see that if I can do it...then so can you if someone else shows you the way. OK so first I had to see what kind of credit score I was working with. So I checked it out...and of course it was bad. I had all kinds of late payments and student credit card bills on my report. It was bad. My Fico score was under 600! So first I had to start cleaning it up. Paid off the lower balances. Started really paying attention to paying my bills on time, closed open accounts one small account at a time. Then I got most of my bills on automated withdraw from my account so they would never be late again. This helped sooooo much! Even the most responsible person can forget a bill and be late. 

Ok so in the meantime I had to start saving money. I wasn't making THAT much money at the time. This was just before I started working on the Price is Right. I was just modeling here and there, doing music videos and commercials. I opened another bank account-for savings and everytime I got a check I would automatically take 20-30% of it and out it in this account that I didn't even get an atm card for (so it wouldn't be easy to take it out). So if I got a check for $1000-$200-$300 would go in the account NO MATTER WHAT. 

On top of that I made major cuts in my spending. I bought a flat iron and for a year I cut out going to the salon to get my hair done. This saved me a couple hundred dollars a month. I never got my nails done and cut out going out to dinner. You would not believe the money we waste everyday.  Ladies-how many times do you go to the beauty supply store and get a bunch of make up that you may never use? Or fellas-imagine how much money you would save if you didn't hit the cubs as much? This extra $10 here and $20 there added up. And before I knew it I had accumulated about $17,000 in savings. Like I said-I wasn't making a ton of money then BUT I just really really watched my spending. Also when I got to about $10,000 I out the money in a 90 day CD which gave me a little bit of interest but more than anything-I forced myself to not touch it because there are penalties applied if you try to use it before it's due. I basically had to force myself to develop some self control. Ok so now while my money was sitting there... I didn't turn down any jobs. I know I may have gotten critcized for NOT wearing designer duds, or for my hair looking crazy at times or for doing music videos (which were NEVER TRASHY) but at the end of the day-my goal was what was most important to me NOT what others opinions were. I hustled. I didn't take vacations. I wore cheap clothes. I didn't eat steak and lobsters. I cooked and I have had my share of Top Ramen. But I will tell you there weren't many more proud moments in my life when I went to the bank and withdrew that $17,000 and brought it on over to the escrow company and signed the loan docks and got the keys to my first condo that I bought in Northridge, CA. 

I got a pretty good deal. It was $169,000 and it was a 3 bed, 2 and a half bathroom 1400 square foot condo. The price was pretty low because there had been an earthquake in that city years back and it was still pretty low. Within 2 years the price skyrocketed to over $300,000. I wanted to keep it and get the next spot. I took out a line of credit against my place and by this time I was making descent money... I found my next place-a house in Stevenson Ranch, CA which was further out...and WAY more money. I honestly didn't think I could afford it. Right at this time I stopped working on the Price is right and things got tight again. This next place was over a half million dollars and I was just a single gal doing it all by myself.  I was NERVOUS. BUT here is something I can tell you-for every $200,000 the property costs you are looking at about $1000 in your monthly payment. So for example a $1 million dollar house will run you ABOUT $5,000/month. (With a descent interest rate) Anyways.... I moved on from my condo to my house-put a huge down payment down (because my job situation had changed and my credit still wasn't as high as they would like for a "jumbo loan" (amount over $450,000). So I got a cashiers check for just a lil over $100,000 and got my house. In the meantime-real estate market was still booming in California. It was insane. You could literally buy a house and turn around and sell it within a month or two and make a nice profit-I wish those days would come back! Within 2 years my house went up in value an additional $200,000- So I refinanced it-got some money out and used that money towards house number 3 in phoenix. I chose phoenix because at the time it was projected to be the next booming city. You look at trends. Where new businesses are starting up, new shopping centers and schools are being built. It all looked good for us. So I went in-looked at the lot and put $25,000 down and they started to build my new house. I had to pick EVERY SINGLE THING OUT of a book! I mean door nobs, tiles, carpet, everthing! It was annoying at times... but the day my house was done and I turned the key and walked in.... I cannot tell you the pride I felt. Especially knowing not too long ago I was in a ragedy one bedroom apartment wondering if I would ever be a home owner. I will tell you this... the hardest part is getting in the game. Once you are in and build equity you have a little more leverage to get your next place. And real estate is all about timing. BUT when times are tough like right now----this is how people become rich. If you are prepared and know what to do... you can take advantage of  a bad economy like right now. You can get what was a $700,000 home 3 years ago-for $400,000 TRUST ME I KNOW. And also NOW if you do have any extra cash and can get a loan-interest rates are low and they are giving homes away (as far as the prices are concerned). Now I am NO real estate agent. I am just an individual that wanted to share how I did it. And how you too can do it. I hope this helps someone out there looking to realize their dream of becoming a home owner. It's the thing that I am most proud of in my life... so far. Next goal----multiple unit building! Good luck friends! 

Claudia 

From-video girl>model>game show model>Home owner>Multiple Home owner :-)  You can do it too!