Is Buying a House a Waste of Money? (plus a discussion with Jean Statler from Alliance for Lifetime Income)

Today our roundtable discussion focuses on one set of homeowners who successfully sold their house, but realized that they could've saved $60,000 if they had instead rented and never purchased the home in the first place. Is buying a home a waste of money? Did the couple make some big mistakes that we can all avoid? Did they use professionals wisely or make some bad decisions? Discussing this headline with us are three veterans of the financial blogging and podcasting community: Tom Drake from MapleMoney.com, Paula Pant from Afford Anything, and Len Penzo from LenPenzo.com

Halfway through the show, we'll take a break from our rent vs. homeownership discussion while Joe sits down with Jean Statler from the Alliance for Lifetime Income. The organization is working with MIT's AgeLab on an important issue: the risk that we might outlive our savings. Jean reviews the problems the public has had with annuities and dives into the discussion of what the industry is doing to clean up perceptions and simplify products. It's a very frank and enlightening conversation about an often maligned financial tool AND the issues surrounding living longer.

During our Magnify Money segment, we'll take a call from Kurt, who has a question about his workplace tuition reimbursement. If Kurt doesn't stay with his employer for three years he owes back all of the cash his company gave him for school expenses. Right now he has the amount sitting in a savings account, what should he do with it? Should he invest it? Pay down debt? Leave it in savings? Our team bounces around several possibilities.

Thanks to Grammarly for supporting Stacking Benjamins. Get 20% off a Grammarly premium account, go to Grammarly.com/sb.

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