Here are some homemade cleaning recipes that may save you money.

All Purpose/Window Cleaner

1/2 cup ammonia
2 cups rubbing alcohol
water
1 tsp. dishwashing liquid

In a one-gallon container, mix ammonia and rubbing alcohol. Fill almost to the top with water. Add dishwashing liquid and mix.  Top off with water. This cleaner was rated by Consumer Reports Magazine to work better (and much cheaper) than most commercial window and kitchen sprays.

Alcohol is the secret ingredient; it's what commercial window washers use. This is safe for most, but not all, household surfaces. I have used this in the bathroom and on windows.

Ready Mop Cleaner Refill

1 gallon water
1 cup ammonia
1/2 cup vinegar

Mix ingredients and use instead of buying commercial cleaner.  Use a piece of scrap sweatshirt, flannel or micro-fiber towels to replace your Swiffer(tm) or Clorox Ready Mop(tm) disposable pads. Just cut a few to size to have on hand. When they get dirty, throw them in the wash and launder as usual. Note: Don't use ammonia on wood floors. Just use vinegar and water or water and Murphy's Oil soap.

Daily Shower Cleaner

1/4 cup concentrated cleaner (Lysol is a good brand)
1/2 cup isopropyl alcohol
water

Pour cleaner and alcohol into quart spray bottle. Add enough water to fill. Thoroughly clean shower before using. Spray on shower daily. Use daily to prevent water deposits and soap scum.

Those are a few household cleaners that I use in my house.  I've always been pleased with the results.

New rule changes adopted by the FTC will protect consumers who work with debt settlement firms.

If you are struggling to keep up with your credit card payments and are worried that you may have to file for bankruptcy, settling those debts is an option you may want to consider. Settlement involves negotiating agreements with your creditors that allow you to pay off your cards for less than their outstanding balances. You can settle your own debts, or you can hire a settlement firm to do the negotiating for you.

Recently, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) amended the Telemarketing Sales Rule to protect consumers who work with debt settlement firms that market their services by phone. The changes were necessary because too many of these firms were making unrealistic promises to consumers about the results they could achieve for them and were charging consumers such large up-front fees that the consumers were left with little or no money to fund the settlement offers the firms negotiated for them. Most of the FTC's changes go into effect on September 27, 2010. The Commission's ban on advance fees begins one month later, on October 27th.

Here is what you should know about the Rule changes:

- Settlement firms are prohibited from giving you misleading or inaccurate information about their services. For example, they must be honest about their success rates.

- If you hire a debt settlement firm, it must provide you with the following information before it performs any work for you:

    > The cost of its services

    > The potential downsides of settling your debts

    > When you can expect to see results from the firm's efforts on your behalf

- If a settlement firm requires that you put into a dedicated account the money you'll owe for its services and the money you'll use to fund any debt settlements the firm negotiates for you, the account must be located at an insured financial institution. The firm cannot own, control or have any affiliation with that institution, nor can it exchange a referral fee with the institution. Also, any interest earned by the money in the dedicated account must go to you.

- In addition to being barred from charging you an up-front fee for its services, a settlement firm cannot collect any money from you until all of the following has happened:

    > It's provided you with a settlement agreement and you've agreed to the terms outlined in the agreement.

    > The firm has settled at least one of your debts.

    > You've made at least one payment on the settlement.

- The fee a settlement firm charges you to settle one of your debts must be in proportion to the total fee the firm would charge if it settled all of your debts. However, if the fee is based on the percentage of what you save through settlement, then the percentage must be the same for each settled debt.

Michael Bovee is the founder and president of Consumer Recovery Network (CRN)

I was very surprised to hear this tip and had to share!  It is very cool!

This story came to me from Jackie in New York State who shared:

I was disappointed in the white film left on my black handled silverware and on clear glasses after being washed in my dishwasher, so I called the place where I bought my new dishwasher. They told me to check on the sides of my dishwasher for a gritty film, and it was there.

So they told me to run Tang (the orange powdered drink) in my dishwasher while it was empty to clean my dishwasher. I was to fill each soap dispenser with the Tang and run it on a very hot cycle. It worked!

I priced the special dishwasher cleaner that only has enough for one cleaning in the package. I bought the powdered drink mix for the same price, and it has enough to clean my dishwasher several times. It pays to call for help.

I guess Tang isn't just for astronauts!!

Another tip from Pamela Parks came after she lost power in the winter.  She has vowed ever since to be more prepared.  She wrote:

The first thing to think about is food. I cook everything from scratch, but that is hard to do when you have no power. So I keep an "emergency box" in the pantry filled with all the convenience junk foods I wouldn't normally buy like cereal, toaster pastries, and crackers. A few things we can heat on the woodstove, such as canned pasta, canned soup, instant oatmeal, and ramen. The junk food is a treat to my kids, who never get to eat it otherwise, so there is less complaining about the power outage and more celebrating. The junk food is, of course, only purchased on sale and never eaten unless the power is out. "I'm too tired to cook" days don't count!

The worst thing you can do to your food is to open your upright refrigerator. All the cold air spills out.
Fortunately, I have a chest-style deep freeze. I went through my "Once-a-Month Cooking" cookbook and selected things that would be easy to reheat on the outdoor barbecue grill. I have those dishes in a wire pull-box in the freezer. I yank the entire basket out and slam the door, hoping the least bit of cold air leaks out. Then the basket gets transferred to a camping cooler. If the power returns before I cook every dinner, oh well, I cook them normally. Don't re-freeze something that's started to thaw.

No matter how cold it is outside, never move your grill indoors! The carbon monoxide build up is undetectable until it reaches lethal levels.

This is my tip!  I was surprised to see the ingredients in the commercial wrinkle releaser and did some experimenting on my own.

The main ingredient in commercial wrinkle releasers is water. I got a spray bottle with adjustable spray. Using a very fine mist, I just spray the garment lightly and smooth and tug. It works great! I think if you wanted to put something like one tablespoon of fabric softener in a whole spray bottle of water, that would also add a nice smell, but the water alone works on the wrinkles.

Here's to saving money during the holidays and all season long!

The housing market in central Ohio, which rebounded nicely when the federal tax credits were offered in 2009 and early 2010, today is looking like "more of the same."

According to the Columbus Board of REALTORS® (CBR), the number of homes sold and the average price of homes sold from January though October 2010 are nearly identical to the statistics from 2009.

The number of homes sold from January through October was 16,891 - almost identical to the 16,932 homes sold in the same period of 2009. Average sale price so far this year is $160,671 compared to $161,623 last year.

"While we certainly would like to see a more lively housing market, we're just pleased that year-to-date numbers are holding their own," says CBR President Sue Lusk-Gleich.

Home sales are likely to grow in 2011, but not too quickly. According to the New York Federal Reserve Bank, household finances are improving, and major purchases will increase as well. 

Freddie Mac reports that the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate in October 2010 was 4.23 percent - the lowest rate since the statistics were first recorded by Freddie Mac in 1971. Ten years ago, the rate was 7.8 percent; 20 years ago, it was 10.17 percent; 30 years ago, it was 13.79 percent. According to Lusk-Gleich, "The time to buy is now."

"Those of us in the real estate profession continue to talk about how perfect this market is for many buyers - especially for those purchasing their first home," Lusk-Gleich adds.

Should you spend the money on a real estate commission or save that money by selling your home by yourself? That is a question many home sellers ask themselves. Today, we want to discuss why it is crucial to have a true professional guiding you through the minefield of challenges that exist in the current real estate market.

The housing market today is more challenging than it has ever been and seems to be becoming more difficult each day. What impact will foreclosures have on prices? Which loan products that were available just last month are no longer available? How do you convince perspective purchasers to pull the trigger on an offer when everyone is telling them that they should see another 100 houses before they make a decision? These are tough questions for a trained, experienced professional.  The lay person would find it almost impossible to keep abreast of this rapidly evolving industry.

Here are five important reasons to use a real estate professional:

1. Pricing Is Difficult

Just a few years ago, you didn’t have to worry about overpricing your home. If it was too high, all you needed to do was wait as historic appreciation was taking place. The situation is quite different today. With experts calling for another drop in home values, overpricing your property will cost you time. In this market, time costs you money. A professional real estate agent will discuss how increasing inventory could dramatically impact the value of your property in the months to come. They will help you set the right price in today’s market.

2. Negotiating Ability Is Crucial

Buyers today have an almost unlimited supply of homes from which to choose. They realize that puts them in a great negotiating position. Most buyers are now being represented by an agent. Sellers need to also be represented by a professional expert trained to negotiate real estate contracts.

3. Mortgaging Is Key to the Deal

The biggest impact of the housing market collapse is that lending standards are much stricter today than they were a few short years ago. Rules are constantly changing. Even FHA has gone through a guidelines overhaul in the last several months. You need a real estate expert who has teamed up with a knowledgeable mortgage professional to make sure that the buyer in the deal is in fact capable of obtaining a mortgage. Losing time with an unqualified buyer costs you money in a market where prices are falling.

4. Your Family’s Safety

We have always found it puzzling that the same person that will lock every door and window and set the alarm today will then allow total strangers into their house tomorrow. The real estate industry trains its practitioners to take steps to protect themselves and their clients. Take advantage of putting a person between you and the person calling on an ad or yard sign.

5. You Probably Have More Important Things to Do

Selling a home could turn into a full time job. Learning the necessary disclosures, coordinating the dates of your closings, dealing with a challenge regarding your appraisal and re-negotiating the offer after an engineer’s report are just a few of the concerns you may face. You would probably be better of spending that time with the items important to you and your family and leaving the challenges to your agent.

Bottom Line

To make sure the sale of your home is handled professionally – hire a trained professional. In the long run, you will wind-up with more money in your pocket and have fewer challenges with the move.

Absentee landowners that neglect their residential or commercial properties now face a six month jail sentence and $1000 fine. Passed by Columbus City Council, Monday, Oct. 25, Mayor Michael B. Coleman is expected to sign the Disappearing Real Property Owner ordinance into law by week’s end. The legislation is active 30 days after it is signed by Coleman.

“The ordinance strengthens the penalties for the landowner that disregards the standards for our communities,” said Charleta B. Tavares, City of Columbus Council member and Housing Committee chairperson.

Under the plan approved by council members, code violations would become first-degree misdemeanors if city officials can't locate a property's owner and a notice mailed to the address in county records comes back as undeliverable. The charge would remain on the books until a person is located.

“Initially, we proposed legislation because we were hearing from lots of community members about the vacant houses in the city of Columbus,” said Tavares. “We were looking at other tools within our housing administration to ameliorate the vacant and abandoned housing situation,” she said.

For more than a year, the Columbus Board of REALTORS® has remained active in the discussion to hold absentee property owners accountable for blighted structures. “We first got engaged in the conversation last year when the original legislation – Vacant Housing Registry Ordinance – was introduced,” said Gavin Blair, Columbus Board of REALTORS® government affairs director.

The initial “ordinance put an undue burden on property owners,” said Blair, by requiring landowners to “pay an annual fee to register a property,” as well as report when the building is for sale or rent.

“We joined with the Columbus Apartment Association and the Building Industry Association of Columbus to oppose the initial ordinance because there was no distinction between absentee property owners and engaged investors,” notes Blair.

After scrapping the original legislation in April, the Columbus City Council, Housing Committee started over. This latest strategy is aimed particularly at out-of-town and often out-of-state investors who have purchased cheap properties in Columbus with the hope they'll eventually be worth a lot more.

“Through collaboration with CBR, Columbus Apartment Association, Affordable Housing, Building Industry Association, alongside individual REALTORS®, neighborhood residents, and various advocacy organizations, we were able to develop a consensus ordinance that was a win for everyone,” Tavares said. 

According to the Columbus Board of Realtors, home values continue to rise which is good news for central Ohio. The average sale price for the first nine months of the year is $161,204 up 7.4 percent from the beginning of 2010 according to the Columbus Board of REALTORS®.

There were fewer homes listed for sale last month than is customary for September. Over the last five years, there was an average of 3,710 homes added to the market during the month of September. However, last month only 2,997 residential homes were added to the already elevated inventory in central Ohio.

Although slightly lower than August, the total residential listings in September (16,728) was still higher than it's been since August of 2008 when the inventory level rose to 16,975.

"Inventory levels had come down over the last year and a half - which is what we were working towards," said Sue Lusk-Gleich, President of the Columbus Board of REALTORS®. "When inventory levels are too high, the increased competition forces some homeowners to sell at prices that are too low which in turn often affects the values of other neighboring homes."

"In order to re-balance the market, we either need the inventory to decrease or the number of buyers to increase. And since the tax credit incentives brought many buyers into the market earlier than we would have seen otherwise, we have a smaller pool of potential home buyers to absorb the inventory now."

"When comparing sales figures to the previous year, we need to remember that home sales have been elevated since April of 2008 due to the tax credits," adds Lusk-Gleich. "Even so, sales are still up four percent year to date."

Home sales across Ohio were down 20.3 percent in September but are still up 1.5 percent for the first nine months of the year. The average sale price in Ohio last month was $129,572, down 3.5 percent from last September. Year to date (January through September), the average sale price was $134,318 which is down four percent compared to the first three quarters of 2009.

Nationwide, existing home sales - which are completed transactions that include single-family, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops- were down 19 percent. Distressed homes accounted for 35 percent of sales in September compared with 34 percent in August; they were 29 percent in September 2009.

The median sale price nationwide for all housing types in September was $171,700, down 2.4 percent from one year ago.

According to Freddie Mac, the national average commitment rate for a 30-year, conventional, fixed-rate mortgage fell to a record low 4.35 percent in September from 4.43 percent in August; the rate was 5.06 percent in September 2009.

Housing affordability is near an all-time record. Mortgage interest rates are almost half of what they were ten years ago and they're about one-and-a-half points lower than the peak of the housing boom in 2005. At the same time, home prices are running about 22 percent less than five years ago when they were bid up by the biggest housing rush on record. 

As promised, the latest programs in Ohio's effort to help citizens facing foreclosure were up and running Monday, September 27, 2010.

According to Doug Garver, executive director of the Ohio Housing Finance Agency, which is administering "Restoring Stability: A Save the Dream Ohio Initiative," the programs had already received 1,000 calls before the 1 p.m. news conference.

He went on to estimate that 26,000 Ohio families who are at high risk of default or foreclosure will be helped under one of four new programs being funded with a total of $320 million from the federal government. (See The Hannah Report, 8/11/10.)

The four programs under the "Restoring Stability" banner were designed to assist homeowners with financial hardships who have previously been unable to qualify for existing loan modification and foreclosure prevention programs, Department of Commerce Director Kimberly Zurz explained at the news conference.

"This expansion of the Save the Dream Ohio statewide initiative will provide additional assistance to Ohio homeowners who are struggling to make their mortgage payments due to a financial hardship," Zurz said. "Worrying about payments can quickly turn into worrying about losing their home. We want to help as many Ohioans stay in their homes as possible."

Approved earlier this month by the U.S. Department of Treasury, "Restoring Stability" options include the following:

- Rescue Payment Assistance Program. This program will provide a payment to the mortgage lender to help delinquent borrowers become current on their first mortgage.

- Partial Mortgage Payment Assistance Program. This program, which is expected to provide assistance to 90 percent of those seeking help, will provide up to 15 months of assistance for unemployed homeowners while they search for a job or participate in job training.

- Modification Assistance with Principal Reduction Program. This program will provide an incentive payment matched by an investor to reduce the mortgage principal balance so a loan modification may be possible.

- Transition Assistance Program. This program will provide an incentive payment to the mortgage lender and homeowner to assist with short sale or deed-in-lieu agreements to help homeowners exit their homes gracefully.

Homeowners can now submit applications online or over the phone or by visiting one of 35 housing counseling agencies across the state. These U.S. Housing and Urban Development (HUD)-approved agencies have been designated to provide services under the four programs.