I'm currently college student on a full scholarship, living at home. For fear of risking my scholarship, I don't work most of the year except for teaching high school bands in the fall and writing their music in the spring (I don't work for many schools so it's far from a full time job). Luckily, I make pretty good money when I am working, and I'm suuuuuuper cheap so whatever money I make doesn't really go anywhere besides paying for car insurance/ maintenance.
All that being said, I've accumulated roughly $5,000 as of right now. Because my scholarship is actually too much money (since I live at home), the university pays me a refund check for about $800 every semester. My grandmother has a small college fund for all of her grandchildren. Since mine has gone untouched, I have a $2000 "education" fund that has to be spent on education or the bank takes 10% (but I've already found the loop hole for that so just call it $2000). The other portion of her college fund was originally invested in a mutual fund for each of us, but mine has since been taken out and put in a CD. The amount in the CD is roughly $4800. So that's a total of $6800 from granny.
I've been looking into investing my money recently anyway, and it was brought to my attention that foreclosed houses often sell extremely cheap and I might be able to afford to buy one with a friend...sort of. (Finish reading before losing your mind.) It just so happens that I looked around for houses on sale in the area and one of them actually seems like a very good deal.
The plan is as follows: I go to school for Electrical & Computer Engineering, so if all goes well, a summer internship should be a net profit of around $5000-6000. That should put me at about $10-11000. The house I'm looking at is $49,900, so $10,000 should cover the down payment. A 10 year mortgage (I try to assume the highest expenses) would be about $400/month. Taxes on the house have been $3800 at most, so budgeting for $4000 makes another $300/month. I've yet to look into home owners insurance rates, electricity rates for the area, or Internet services, so I can't give an estimate on those. Around my school, rent is about $500-800/month plus utilities anyway. It's a 3 bedroom house with a basement, and my friends are talking about moving out soon anyway. Ideally, over the next 4 semesters I could rent a room to 2-3 friends (depending on if the basement is liveable enough for me) for $400-500/month, I think I could more or less live for free or at most on a part time job which would be easy to find in that area, AND I'd be on my way to paying off a house. The house is in an area I wouldn't mind living for a few years too, since there are engineering jobs nearby, so I wouldn't be screwed once we all graduate and they leave. Now FINALLY we get back to my very brief mention of investing that you already forgot about. After I'm done paying off the house in a few years, I could A.) Stay there as long as I have work OR B.) Move out and rent it to the next college kid that comes along since it's right next to a rapidly growing university.
So, now that you've read my plan, I'd love to hear some thoughts. Any advice is greatly appreciated. I need to hear what I need to hear; not what I want to believe. It just really seems like a good deal to me the more I think about it.
Submitted January 23, 2017 at 01:06AM by LLCoolSouder http://ift.tt/2kitCLQ
