Twin Bunk Bed

It's time for Home Equity 101. But, don't worry, it's not a difficult subject, so you should be able to ace the course. However, what you do with what you learn can, in the long run, effect your life more than your entire grade point average.

Let's begin with the basics. Your home is worth a certain amount and you probably have a mortgage for part of that. For example, let's say your house appraises for $250,000 and your mortgage is currently for $200,000. The amount you owe on the loan ($200,000) subtracted from what it's worth on the open market ($250,000) adds up to the equity you have in your home. In this case your home equity would be $50,000.

See how easy it is? But here comes the tough part. What are you going to do with that $50,000 equity you have in your home? Are you going to keep it there in case you ever have some kind of emergency or want to sell your home and have something left over? Or maybe you even like the idea of paying off your mortgage entirely so you own your home free and clear and no longer have the monthly overhead.

But, then again, maybe you want to take out a home equity second mortgage or a home equity line of credit to be able to access that $50,000. There are lots of reasons you might want to have your hands on that money. Possibly for something like credit card debt consolidation, medical expenses, a college education for your children, taking a vacation to somewhere you've always wanted to go or just to have more cash on hand to spend when you feel like it.

However, and here's the tough part to consider, if you do that, you'll use up all the equity in your home. And that puts the roof over your head in a shaky position. If anything should happen and you couldn't cover the extra mortgage payments, the top would blow off of your home investment and you'd no longer have the security of a roof over your head.

So, now that you know the basics, it's time to see if you have the common sense to make a good, sound, grown-up decision about your home equity.

Jack Tanner blogs about his experiences with home equity loans and rates at http://www.HomeEquityLoansZone.com. Stop by and learn all the tips and tricks he's used over the years to take advantage of home equity loans.

In February, the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) announced 2006's "greenest" and "meanest" vehicles, as well as listing the environmental scores for every car and passenger truck from that year. The scores are contained in the ninth edition of ACEEE's Green Book Online, which is available online at GreenerCars.com.

Not surprisingly, the greenest vehicles on the ACEEE list were all hybrid or alternative fuel cars. The winning manufacturer for 2006 was definitely Honda, whose hybrid-electric Insight finished in a virtual tie with their natural gas-powered Civic GX. Toyota's Prius captured third, while another Honda (Civic Hybrid) and a second Toyota (Corolla) rounded out the top five.

The numbers didn't bode particularly well for U.S. manufacturers, who scored only four top ratings of the fourteen vehicle categories rated by ACEEE. It shows that Detroit still has a ways to go to catch up to the imports when it comes to producing green vehicles, even though GM has been running a huge ad campaign touting the fact that 1.5 million of their vehicles will run on E85--which is definitely a start. However, there is still a long way to go before U.S. automakers can close the gap with their foreign competition when it comes to building green machines.

But the news gets worse, according to ACEEE ratings of "mean machines." When it comes to the least green of the entire 2006 crop of vehicles, Dodge captured the award for its Ram SRT10, followed by Lamborghini's Murcielago, Bentley's Arnage, and two more Dodges, the Durango and Ram 1500 250 pickup. Several pickups and SUVs rounded out the "bottom ten," including the Hummer's H2, Ford's F250 pickup, GMC's Yukon XL K2500, Volkswagen's Touareg, and Chevrolet's Suburban K2500.

With gasoline prices expected to continue to escalate, auto manufacturers will continue to feel the pressure from consumers to build more efficient vehicles, incorporating more and more hybrid features to offset the hit their customers are feeling at the gas pump. ACEEE recognized some effort by automakers by awarding some "Greener Choices" listings to such widely available vehicles as Ford's Escape Hybrid SUV, the Honda Odyssey minivan, Toyota's Tundra pickup, the Hyundai Sonata, and Ford's Focus Wagon. The ACEEE recognition demonstrated that automakers are at least moving in the right direction with some of their more popular vehicles.

The ACEEE points out that simply changing vehicles to the top of a particular class can easily save a consumer more than $500--while reducing greenhouse gas emissions some 30 percent. For more information about the ACEEE ratings, see GreenerCars.com.

Copyright 2006 Jeanette J. Fisher

Jeanette Fisher, author of interior design and real estate books helps home owners makeover their homes with "green design." For more home environmental issue articles, visit Environmental Psychology