One thing we're very proud of here is that The Fool's readers are smart! Read what they've had to say recently about money.
We've had the article-comments feature on the site for maybe six months now. Admittedly there's some needless sniping and ludicrously-biased opinion. There are some Grumpy Old Fools. There is smugness and schadenfreude. And there is certainly some unintelligible English.
But, despite that, there are a huge number of excellent, quality posts that add a great deal of depth to the articles we write. With just 500 to 800 words to write in, The Fool's writers are forced by necessity to exclude many useful or related points. We try to get around this by linking to other articles and guides, or by writing follow-up articles. However, your comments often fill in the gaps for anyone so inclined as to keep reading. Also, your wide perspectives, extra opinions, entertaining messages and frequently impressive knowledge often adds interesting points that us writers had yet to consider.
With that in mind, I'd like to collate some of the comments that I've thought have added the most value to our articles over the past two weeks:
Will we ever learn!
Comment from mickgjames on Are 95% Mortgages Next For The Chop?
Reports of the `death' of high LTV, 100% or even 100%+ mortgages are exaggerated.There may be a few years of `never again' but anyone who thinks the banks will learn from history has learned nothing from history themselves.
Accidental black humour
Comment from MisterBojangles on How To Tackle A Large Debt.
Why have you illustrated an article about large debts with a photo of a man throwing himself off a cliff? Rather close to the bone, no?
Focused like a laser!
Comment from Hungary on How To Tackle A Large Debt.
Recently I lost most of my self-employed work and got into financial trouble.
I doggedly persevered with my repayments, tightened my belt, fed myself and my 3 children on £10 a week. (Well-stocked larder and I cut down on my own food intake to 2 meals a day.) I found some more hours of work eventually and I am crawling my way out. It will be 4 years before I am out of debt, but then I will be a whopping £500 a month better off! That is my focus and motivation.
Reclaiming insurance payments
Comment from laalaa41 on How To Tackle A Large Debt.
Like millions of others [I think this estimate might be a wee bit too high! - Neil], I reclaimed payment protection insurance payments successfully. All my payments were returned which came to just under £3K. Nice.
Thinking about the future
Comment from MuppetKeeper on Who Stole Our Savings Habit?
My wife and I are in our late thirties. We realised about six years ago that the `good times' could not go on forever, so aggressively paid off the mortgage and saved in many other ways too.
When times are bad, save. When times are good, save harder!
A Foolish alternative to pensions
Comment from TwoThousand on ISAs Beat The Credit Crunch.
Using an ISA for your pension isn't such a bad idea, particularly if you are taxed at 20% today and likely to be 40% in the future. Growing the funds now for future investment ensures you have the benefit of capital gains-free growth and the option to benefit from the 40% tax saving when you transfer to a pension.
How to handle stock-market volatility
Comment from Saveaholic on ISAs Beat The Credit Crunch.
Stock-market investments are a long-term investment and to me low markets represent a good buying opportunity, because you're getting your shares/units at a low price. The markets are volatile at the moment and you need to have strong nerves, but it is possible to gain from volatility by drip-feeding in a small amount each month.
It's still a good idea to keep a rainy-day fund in cash. If you need some money in a hurry you don't want to be selling share-based investments when markets are low. I favour cash ISAs for my emergency fund.
A smart Fool on the property market
Comment from ss770640 on Turning Back The Property Clock.
Analyse it all you want, you still don't have a clue what is going to happen!
Our youngest reader on mortgages
Comment from Whoyoufooling's toddler on Are 95% Mortgages Next For The Chop?
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.Followed by Whoyoufooling's response:
Please excuse the above...never leave a three-year old unattended on a computer!
Interest-rate predictions
Comment from merv212 on Why Longer Fixed Rate Mortgages Make Sense.
The simple proposition is why take interest-rate risk on the financing of a long-term asset? Even the experts don't know the direction of interest rates so why try and speculate on interest rates?
More on rate predictions
Comment from gordonbanks42 on Why Longer Fixed Rate Mortgages Make Sense.
I cannot understand why TMF writers ever thought that it was smart to try to surf the short-term mortgage market rather than go for long-term fixes. The former requires skills in market timing, whereas TMF ideology is by-and-large to avoid having to try to time the market in anything, at all, ever.
In June last year I took out a 10 year fix at 5.69% and I am grinning very broadly (if somewhat selfishly) as I write because I know that I am only ever fighting an affordability battle on one front - maximising my income, rather than two - maximising my income and managing my mortgage costs. The fact that mortgage rates are now above what I am fixed at is just a small bonus - it wasn't why I did it. If mortgage rates fall back to 5%ish in 2 or 3 years' time I won't be too sad because I know that interest-rate rises alone cannot force me out of my home for a very long time.
Note: I've trimmed and tidied up all these posts, but not changed their meaning or emphasis. However, I left Whoyoufooling's kid's post as it was. Perfect English that sets a tear to this writer's eye.