<$Thursday, July 3, 2008$>
Tidying up
| I did some financial housecleaning today. It's been way too long since I've done that, but the timing was just right to receive some much needed debt consolidation. Just in time, too, what with our impending mortgage and utilities payments. I had a great offer from one of my creditors to transfer my balances, for 4.9% interest until the balances are paid off. This came just as the card we use primarily for gasoline (but also used to pay for our honeymoon) jumped from 0% to 14.99%. That's really quite a jump. It was time to finally take all of the advice I've seen to consolidate debt. Now I'll only have one credit card to worry about paying off, and a much lower minimum payment than what all of my payments currently add up to. Talk about debt relief. It's also perfect timing for helping with our mortgage application. I've been gathering mortgage quotes from various lenders, but I think the lender our real estate agent recommended is going to be the way to go. I turned in our application this afternoon, and I'm pretty confident we'll get the loan we need. This ball's a-rollin'! I'm so excited. Tomorrow we're viewing the house and putting in our offer. Eeeee! Everybody cross your fingers and say a prayer for us to get the house! Labels: debt consolidation, debt reduction, house-hunt |
House Hunt & Puppy Quest Update
| This week has been one of the most hectic weeks I've experienced in a while. Apart from work being way more busy than you'd expect on a week when a third of the company is on vacation, I've been spending all of my "free" time making phone calls and filling out paperwork and doing research for our potential house. That's right, we found a house! We found two houses, even! One that we love, that's listed at the very tip top of our budget, but that, with the exception of an extra bathroom, is everything we want in a house; and one that is less expensive, and is also everything we need, but that needs some work to update it and make it pretty, and is our backup in case we don't get the first house. As for the first house, we're meeting our agent there tomorrow to go through it once more and put together an offer. Hopefully, next week I'll be able to report that they've accepted our offer and we're in escrow limbo. Also next week, I'll do up a big post about everything we've learned about how to buy a house when you're a first time home buyer with a single income and very little savings, without getting yourself in deep, deep trouble. In other news, we're not eligible to adopt a puppy from the rescue shelter unless/until we get our cats vaccinated, which we were planning to do anyway before moving them into the city. The only reason we haven't done so yet, or at least haven't done so in a long time, is because they're totally indoor cats and are never exposed to other animals. Also, they're both pretty young and healthy, and our unhealthy, elderly dog was our priority. At any rate, they're both going to get bundled up and taken to the vet soon. That should certainly be interesting. Labels: house-hunt, personal, pets |
<$Monday, June 30, 2008$>
I Need a Better Budget
| It took me forever to figure out a way to track my personal budget electronically that my ADD-enhanced brain could handle. After trying out other people’s spreadsheets and budgeting programs, I finally found one that was simple enough to work for me. It’s just a simple, basic spreadsheet that I keep in Google Docs, and thus far, for the most part, it works. But it works for now because my finances are really pretty simple. Normally I tend to live by the rule, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Just starting the process of buying a house, however, is beginning to give me a pretty good idea of how complicated my finances are about to become. So I’m thinking it might be time to consider upgrading to something a little more hard working in the budget software department. A popular one that I’ve seen a lot of people touting, but that I hadn’t yet tried, is You Need A Budget. I recently got a chance to try out a full trial version of YNAB Pro, and I’m pretty impressed. It has four categories: Register, Budget, Scheduler, and Reports. The Register section is for tracking your spending, and works just like a check register. I don’t know how good I’d be at using this feature, since I’ve never been able to get into the habit of using my actual check register. The big, ADD-friendly advantage this has, though, is that it automatically plugs the numbers into the “Spent” column of your budget and calculates your remaining balance for that category. That part’s pretty nifty, and saves enough extra steps that I might be able to get myself to do it. The Budget section is, of course, where you budget your funds. It’s pre-filled with every category you could possibly need, but just in case it missed one, it lets you add your own custom categories. It also lets you delete lines you don’t need so you can streamline your budget. For each month there are three columns – Budgeted, Spent, and Balance. Enter your budget in the first column, natch, and if you use the register properly, it does the rest for you. The only drawback of this section, from my standpoint, is that you can’t break it down into a bi-monthly budget. This has always been my biggest hang-up in trying to use budget software, as I get paid twice a month and have difficulty translating that into a one-month worksheet. The Scheduler could really come in handy for someone with ADD, or simply a tendency to forget stuff. You can schedule your payments, and when the time comes it will subtract them from your budget for you. If your bill payments are all automated, this could be really useful in keeping you from forgetting to account for a payment. Finally, the Report section is also just what the name suggests. It lets you view your spending by category pie chart or by column, and you can track your balances at a glance by a handy bar chart. To simplify things even further, you can import any existing Excel worksheets into the program, instead of having to start over from scratch (although it didn’t let me import a Google Doc spreadsheet that I had downloaded in Excel format). You can also import bank transactions directly from your bank’s web site. Overall, I think this budget software is all it’s cracked up to be. It’s streamlined, intuitive, and very ADD-friendly. I probably won’t be investing in a licensed copy unless/until they add a bi-monthly budget option, but if it already had one, I’d at the very least be willing to shell out the $20 for the basic version. In a nutshell, re: YNAB Pro: I approve. |
<$Thursday, June 26, 2008$>
I think I just drooled on myself a little.
| Nicole at Baking Bites shows how to make your own home-made Drumstick (tm) style ice cream cones. Only better! Labels: recipes |
Spill coffee on your wooden table.
| We're always on the lookout for non-toxic, natural alternatives to all the chemicals in our lives. This is especially important to my cancer survivor husband. I've been a little worried about this, wondering how, after we move, are we going to handle all of the paint jobs, furniture touch-ups, etc. that seem to go along with home ownership? So I'm pretty happy to have stumbled upon this Ask Metafilter article on non-toxic wood treatments. I'm especially intrigued--and a little squicked--by all of the info on shellac, where it came from and all of its uses: Pharmaceutical - shellac is used to coat enteric pills so that they do not dissolve in the stomach, but in the lower intestine, which alleviates upset stomachs. Its also used as a coating on pills to "time release" medication. Fascinating, huh? But then, there's this: If you use shellac, you have the added advantage of being able to tell your friends you painted it with an excretion of the female Coccus Lacca beetle, harvested from the bark of the trees where she deposits it to provide a sticky hold on the trunk, necessary during mating with the non-stick capable male. Bleah. But as someone else over there pointed out, honey is a bug excretion, too, and a mighty tasty one at that. At any rate, now I'm having visions of inexpensive unfinished bookcases naturally died with coffee and sealed with beetle juice dancing in my head, and no pesky carcinogens to ruin my fun. Labels: green, healthy living |
I can has hows now plz?
| New real estate agent seems pretty great so far--no trouble at all getting an appointment with her on her end, she's really flexible, which is just what we need. We just had to figure out some transportation for Husband, and now we're good to go a-hunting tomorrow afternoon. I'll have to come back to work afterwards to make up the hours I'll miss, but it's worth it if it can speed this process up. We're so tired of being houseless! We're especially eager to hurry up and move since we put in an application to adopt a puppy. We didn't think we were ready yet--it's been 8 weeks since we lost Fizzgigg, but it still feels like it just happened--but we saw a report on the local news about a bunch of Bichon Frises getting rescued from a puppy mill and brought to a local rescue shelter, and it just felt like the right thing to do. The shelter told us that they only place puppy mill survivors in homes that already have an established adult dog, though. I'm not sure why, but I think it has something to do with them being freaking terrified of people because of all of the abuse and neglect and whatnot, and the other dog makes them feel more secure. So anyway, we're not eligible for one of the rescues, but they offered to process our application anyway and put us on the waiting list for a puppy, and we agreed. I still get sad thinking about another dog in Fizz's place, but at the same time, the prospect of a puppy is helping me feel a little better. I haven't had an actual puppy to raise in... oh, ever. The only family dog I can remember getting as an actual puppy was when I was six. So it's exciting, the idea of raising a dog from scratch and knowing its entire life story. Scary, considering what a little holy terror Niblet was when she was a kitten (and still is, sometimes, seven years later), and remembering that baby animals can be as irritating at times as they are cute (or maybe that just goes for kittehs). Even so, I'm looking forward to it. Even more, I'm looking forward to being able to give it its very own yard to play in. So that's the news of us for today. Hopefully, by Monday I'll be able to give you a positive update on the house hunt. Labels: house-hunt, personal, pets |
<$Monday, June 23, 2008$>
What I've Been Up To Lately
| As I mentioned last month (o.O), we've officially started our house hunt. But we didn't get very far out of the gate before we got tripped up and had to take a step back to compose ourselves. Unfortunately, the real estate agent we were going with--who is a great guy and and a very knowledgeable agent--is just too busy right now to accommodate our weird schedule. After the second time he's had to cancel an appointment on us--we had cleared Friday afternoon to go look at houses, but he got tied up in closing rigmarole with other clients and couldn't take us--we're stepping back to take a deep breath and decide whether we want to stick with this agent or try out my sister's favorite realtor. So that bit sucks. We did get to go out one afternoon a few weeks ago, and found a house we both really liked, but we were dithering on the location, and while we were doing that somebody else snatched it up. So much for that. Apart from that, I've begun revamping my web site (a redesign for this blog is next on my list), which entails re-self-teaching myself CSS and various other web languages. I also revamped my Etsy shop and added some new items, and have still more stuff to add once I get a sunny afternoon free to take pictures. And I've been writing. I think I'm only 20,000 words or so from the end of my novel. That looks like a lot, until you hold it up next to the 70,000 words (or somewhere thereabouts) that I've already written. Finally, I took a much needed vacation, in which I didn't go anywhere, slept as much as I pleased, got lots of "me" time, and discovered a thrift shop where the clothes are expensive but the price tags are so very not. We're talking brand names that I gave up thinking I'd ever wear a long time ago, and nothing over $5.99. No, I'm not telling you where it is. I don't want you snurching all the good stuff out from under me. But today, I feel stylish and cute and like I belong in a cotton commercial. It's the fabric of our lives! Labels: house-hunt, meta, personal, shopping |
Let the hiatus be ended. I come bearing links.
Hidey-ho, boys and girls! Since I've been absent for so long, I'll waste no time giving you the goods.
That's all I've got. Unless you also want excuses as to where the hay I've been for the last month. I don't really have any of those, either. I just felt a little burned out on blogging--especially on blogging-for-hire--so I put this blog on the back burner while I decided whether or not I wanted to continue it. And the decision I reached is that, indeed, I do. So although, like with my other blog, posting will remain a little sporadic while I try to finish the rough draft of my novel, I will be posting here again. And I will try my very hardest not to let it descend into all rants about our nightmare house non-hunt (which is a whole 'nother post), although as things currently stand, that certainly is tempting. It's good to be back! Labels: bargains, coupons, food problem, link roundup, meta, personal |
<$Thursday, May 22, 2008$>
Sound the trumpets: the hunt is ON!
| Thanks to all the craziness this month, which still has yet to let up, we have yet to actually begin our house hunt. I've been searching online, but we've postponed meeting with a realtor twice, and we don't have any houses lined up to see live and in person. This might be a good thing, since we don't really know what we're doing. I ordered Home Buying For Dummies  , which shipped yesterday, so hopefully we'll get it in time to at least skim this weekend. Meanwhile, through my online perusing I found a nice townhouse just a few blocks from where I work. I think Husband has his heart set on an actual house with a yard, but all I can see are the dollar signs. This condo is affordable(depending on the dues and maintenance fees, natch), well below our spending budget, and the location is fantastic. It's a decent neighborhood, with plenty of shops and eating places in walking distance, and several grocery store options within a few miles. The biggest plus for me is that I could walk or bike to work, allowing us to get by with only one car. I'm also considering the fact that the asking price for this place is low enough that we could possibly borrow the entire amount that we initially applied for and have enough left over to pay off our credit cards. Between virtually eliminating my huge commuter gasoline bill and eliminating our credit card payments, even with condo fees I think we'd still come out ahead in our monthly budget. So while it might be a hard sell for Husband, I still want to check this place out. Hopefully, I'll be able to get us in to see it this weekend. Labels: house-hunt |
<$Monday, May 19, 2008$>
Bauhaushold Blahs
| The Bauhaushold has not been doing so great lately. For starters, we lost one of our own: our furbaby Fizzgigg passed away the first of this month. The rest of us have been slow in recovering from the huge wound left by the tiny guy's absence, a process not helped along by Husband and I both coming down with bronchitis last week. Since then, a whole course of antibiotics has downgraded it to a chest cold, but even so, we feel yucky. So this is why I haven't been blogging lately. I just haven't had the will, nor the energy, to keep up with all of my blogs, and this one received the brunt of my neglect. Sadly, my finances have been equally neglected all month, and that is so not good. So I need to get back to finance blogging, because that will make me feel obligated to be diligent about my finances once again. It's probably a false sense of accountability, but it's accountability nonetheless. Thankfully, Wednesday is a payday. I'll be able to start from there with a clean slate. Labels: personal |
<$Thursday, April 24, 2008$>
Calculators
| What I need is a backwards mortgage calculator. Not one that tells you how much you can allegedly afford based on your salary, which is all I seem to be finding, but one where I can enter how much I want my total monthly payment to be, including taxes and insurance, and it will tell me how much to borrow based on that. Because what I can comfortably afford to pay in a reality wherein we still having money to, y'know, do stuff occasionally, is a lot different from what these calculators are telling me I can afford. Unless we decide we want a house but no life. Then we're solid! Labels: house-hunt, loans |
Clear!
| There's a defibrillator on the wall at my office, near the restrooms and water fountain. I've always found it a little morbidly humorous whenever I pass it, and co-workers and I have joked about busting it out on each other. Choking on water that went down the wrong pipe? Here, let me defib you! Everybody stand back! Clear! I just read a scary statistic, though -- that about 900 people die of heart attacks daily. Difibbing jokes aside, heart disease really is something Husband and I both take very seriously. It killed both of our dads, and we're both considered medium-to-high risk for it ourselves. It's one reason we both try so hard to take good care of ourselves and are willing to shell out extra money for healthy foods. We could both do a lot better, though. You can find out your own level of risk at Inside Cardiac Arrest, a new program from St. Jude. I hope you do so. I mean, wow. 900 people a day. I think I'll look at that defibrillator in the hallway with a little more appreciation from now on. Labels: healthy living |