An email I received over the weekend was sort of a knock on the head. The sender made me realize that sometimes I dive too deep in my articles. I assume too much knowledge on behalf of the reader. The suggestion was that I create a few "Personal Finance 101" articles with some basic personal finance rules and definitions.

Fair enough. Today I'll start with some of the terms you might encounter when buying a home. After all, buying a home is unlike almost every other kind of purchase. The activity has its own language; and as anyone who has visited a foreign country can tell you, not understanding the language can be not only intimidating, it can get you int trouble.

Down Payment - This one's easy, just like when you buy a car. The Down Payment on a home is the initial amount you'll want to pay in cash toward your home's purchase price. Your down payment becomes your initial home equity. The amount of your down payment is typically expressed as a percentage of the purchase price. Down payments are usually in the 15-25% range.

A large down payment–typically 25%–may help you get a more favorable interest rate and let you avoid paying for mortgage insurance.

I received another email overnight, this one from a real person. Here's the content of that message, sans salutation and name/contact info of course:

I like your writing. I like the stuff you're saying and it makes a lot of sense. Keep up the great work!

One thing though is you should put up more pictures and graphics on your page. You know, make it prettier. Anyway have a great day.

First off, thank you for the compliment. Growing up, the mother of one of my friends (yes, I had/have friends and no, not my mother, someone else's mother) told me to just say a simple "Thank you" when someone gave you a compliment. Funny how some of these lessons just work. Those are the ones that stick with you forever.

Thank you.

Now, are you saying my site is ugly? Well I can't just say a simple "Thank you" to that and be done with it, can I? Hardly.

Actually I know my site doesn't do much for the eye. I developed a simple theme for it myself. It's not fancy but it gets the job done. Why did I do it myself and why didn't I make it really whizzo cool?