Kevin Thompson

IF YOU PUT DOWN less than 20% on a conventional home loan and you’re still paying private mortgage insurance (PMI), do what I did: See if you can get those pesky PMI payments eliminated.
I purchased a home in September 2017 for $341,000. The interest rate was near 4% and I put down roughly 10%. Why not put down 20%, so I could avoid PMI? My thought: If I can borrow money at an interest rate below 5% and get a reasonable rate of return elsewhere,

WHAT WILL RETIREMENT cost? One solution to this riddle is to save as much as we can and hope it’ll cover our expected expenses. Finding the right answer—the exact amount of savings required—can involve hours of calculation, and even then there’s a fair amount of uncertainty.

At my financial planning firm, we help clients with this calculation. Our starting point: We believe the foundation of most retirement plans should be Social Security. Many Americans choose to take Social Security earlier than their full retirement age (FRA).

I PURCHASED MY FIRST home in 2005. At the time, I was a Major League Baseball prospect with the New York Yankees organization. I had always been taught that homeownership was part of the American dream. Looking back, I’m now much more skeptical.
Purchasing a home on my salary was difficult. Minor leaguers don’t land big contracts like their counterparts in the major leagues. In fact, I had multiple years when I made less than $10,000 as a professional baseball player.

IT WAS JUNE 3, 2006, and I was in the starting lineup for the New York Yankees. We were in Baltimore, playing against the Orioles at Camden Yards. I went 1-for-4 in my major league debut.

A week later, I had the experience of a lifetime. June 10 was my first start at Yankee Stadium. It was a nationally broadcast Fox Saturday day game against the Oakland A’s. I hit my first major league home run.