A Review Of Popular House Flipping and Home Hunting Television Shows

By MoneyBlueBook

For a while now I've had an obsession with watching house flipping reality programs on TV. That is, until the real estate market collapsed. Since then, the hype and fascination seems to have subsided a bit with the feeling that perhaps many of these shows did the public a great disservice by over glamorizing the flipping experience. By oversimplifying the renovating process and featuring only the greatly successful flips, some of these housing shows perhaps gave many the misleading impression that flipping is so easy, even a caveman can do it - prompting many to foolishly dive in without proper real estate education.

These popular house flipping shows should be regarded as entertainment only and not seen as a step by step blueprint guide to flipping projects. If you are looking to get inspired and want to become more involved in the real estate investing business, watching these shows will certainly give you a good introduction into the realm of flipping. But they won't teach you how to properly finance your flip project or even address necessary aspects like how to obtain the appropriate construction loan or even how to properly budget for unexpected repairs. But entertaining they most certainly are.

Here Are A Few Of My Favorite Flipping and House Hunting Shows:

1) Flip This House (A&E Channel) - This show is probably the original house flipping program of recent years. Each episode tracks the purchase and renovation of a single home, listing the price of the home, renovation cost, and the

By MoneyBlueBook

I can't help it. I'm attracted to and fascinated by trashy reality television shows - the bigger the train wreck, the better. My newest reality fixation is Bravo TV's new millionaire dating show called The Millionaire Matchmaker. This show could easily be the next logical step up for those party girls from MTV's Super Sweet 16, which I previously wrote about.

The Millionaire Matchmaker features feisty Los Angeles matchmaker Patti Stanger who runs a modern and high end business of helping rich men fulfill their dreams of finding true love and potential wife, and helping gorgeous women marry into millions. On the show, her clientele of wealthy men pay a high fee to be introduced to an exclusive selection of beautiful and smart women, pre-chosen based on their compatibility factors. The men are given access to an array of high end staff of date coaches, personal shoppers, and interior designers to help them improve their personal self appearance and to spruce up the presentation of their millionaire dollar homes. Many of these men are workaholics who are usually too busy with their own careers to find time to date for themselves.

For women, joining the club is free so long as they can pass the high physical appearance requirements and aren't red flagged as possible gold diggers. From the start, Patti makes it clear that she is no Heidi Fleiss madam and that her agency is not an escort service as she strictly prohibits sex until both parties have

By MoneyBlueBook

Let's take a walk around the the personal finance blogosphere. Here are a few blog posts that I found interesting and worth reading during the last few weeks. Feel free to check them out:

• Frugal For Life shares a tragic story involving love and finance with gold diggers C.C. and Bill.
• Money Smart Life shares a few tips about finding deals during the shopping off season.
• Single Guy Money hands over the arduous task of ironing his shirt and pants to his female friend in a modern day example of bartering. Personally, I think he should stick with buying only wrinkle free clothing like I do.
• Mrs. Micah shares her thoughts on living in the ghetto. I can relate to her ghetto housing experiences as I used to live in Baltimore City a while back as a student. Drug dealers, trauma helicopters, and gang members were common sights.
• Mighty Bargain Hunter talks about the ramifications of when bargain hunting zeal treads into addiction territory. I knew I was personally pushing the envelope a bit when I would order things online to save a measly 50 cents.
• I'm a big fan of using reward credit cards to maximize purchasing power, but The Digerati Life reveals a list of common ways that people can get themselves into credit card trouble.
• Wise Bread is trying to promote their new personal finance forum and is literally giving away $20 Amazon gift certificates each day to those who participate in the new
  

By MoneyBlueBook

Waiting for any freebie post?Here we tell you the latest offers that you would like to have it for yourslef Read the full article »

By MoneyBlueBook

Well a year has passed since I started earning and accumulating Citi ThankYou Reward Points using my squadron of Citibank credit cards, and now it's time to redeem them for some well deserved purchase rewards. I own three of them myself, and here are the top Citibank cards when it comes to earning ThankYou reward points:

By MoneyBlueBook

I would like to wish my readers and my lovely girl a Happy Valentine's Day! For those of you who don't have a clue where to take your Valentine's date, I recommend The Melting Pot, a classy fondue restaurant. Fondue is basically a communal type of dinner meal shared around an earthenware pot cooked over a small burner at your table. The light fondue cheese mix inside the pot is usually cooked with traces of wine and kept warm while diners use specially pronged forks to dip bread and other bits of food into it. Although it's deliciously fun, the dining experience can be rather expensive.

Love May Be Cheap, But Fondue Isn't

The Melting Pot is definitely not a place for patrons who are financially squeamish about opening up their wallets wide for a rare romantic dinner. On special occasions like Valentine's Day, expect reservations to be in demand and planned dinner courses for two to cost upwards of $130.00. On other days, the price doesn't fare all that much better - at around $85 per couple. It's amazing how high prices soar for love-related events and merchandise during special holiday occasions like Valentine's Day (just look at the price of online Valentine's day flowers in my last post).

I'm not really a high end restaurant connoisseur (usually preferring to save my money by going elsewhere), but I've been there a few times and enjoyed the food and ambiance. Don't get me wrong - a dinner at the Melting Pot is incredibly expensive,