The Bauhaushold Report

Tidying up

noreply@blogger.com (jeanjeanie) — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 22:31:00 +0000

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!

House Hunt & Puppy Quest Update

noreply@blogger.com (jeanjeanie) — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 16:14:00 +0000

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.

I Need a Better Budget

noreply@blogger.com (jeanjeanie) — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 21:03:00 +0000

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.

I think I just drooled on myself a little.

noreply@blogger.com (jeanjeanie) — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 21:17:00 +0000

Nicole at Baking Bites shows how to make your own home-made Drumstick (tm) style ice cream cones. Only better!

Spill coffee on your wooden table.

noreply@blogger.com (jeanjeanie) — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 18:33:00 +0000

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.

Confectionery - shellac is used to provide protective candy coatings or glazes on candies like Reese's Pieces, because of its unique ability to provide a high gloss in relatively thin coatings (like a French Polish). It was used at one time on M&M's. It is approved by the FDA as a food safe coating when dissolved in pure ethanol (not denatured).

Hats - shellac is used to stiffen felt used to make hats. It allows the makers to shape the felt into brims, bowl shapes, etc.

Food Coatings - because of its FDA approval, shellac is used to coat apples and other fruits to make them shinier.

Electrical – shellac mixed with marble dust is used by lamp manufacturers to glue the metal base to glass incandescent bulbs.

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.

I can has hows now plz?

noreply@blogger.com (jeanjeanie) — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 17:31:00 +0000

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.

What I've Been Up To Lately

noreply@blogger.com (jeanjeanie) — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 19:46:00 +0000

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!

Let the hiatus be ended. I come bearing links.

noreply@blogger.com (jeanjeanie) — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 19:03:00 +0000

Hidey-ho, boys and girls! Since I've been absent for so long, I'll waste no time giving you the goods.

Austin journalist Omar Gallaga (possibly better known to you as OmarG of Television Without Pity Smallville recap fame)has recently done an article on using coupon sites and other web sources to save money on groceries. Scroll to the bottom of the article to find a good list of links to appease your frugal soul.
Relatedly, the same Omar just finished hosting a live chat with coupon expert Rochelle Hamby of divagirlsdeals.com. She answers questions on gaming the coupon system and getting the most for your many, many (too many) grocery dollars, and lists even more coupon and bargain resources.
Still on the topic of the Food Problem, Kris over at Cheap Healthy Good recently (okay, practically a month ago; but I've been meaning to blog it ever since) posted on How 60 Minutes a Week Can Save Hundreds of Dollars on Food, with even more stellar advice on getting the most bang for your coupon-buck, and be sure to catch her follow-up post on Eating Healthy While Clipping Coupons: The Dos & Don'ts.
Finally, in these belt-tightening times it's just as important--and also as much of a challenge--to save on fuel for your vehicle as is is fuel for your body. Freeshipping.org can help out with that by providing free shipping coupons to over 750 retailers, making it make that much more sense to save your gas, stay home and shop online.

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!

Sound the trumpets: the hunt is ON!

noreply@blogger.com (jeanjeanie) — Thu, 22 May 2008 16:15:00 +0000

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.

Bauhaushold Blahs

noreply@blogger.com (jeanjeanie) — Mon, 19 May 2008 17:40:00 +0000

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.

Calculators

noreply@blogger.com (jeanjeanie) — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 20:15:00 +0000

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!

Clear!

noreply@blogger.com (jeanjeanie) — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 18:20:00 +0000

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.

Pre-qualified!!!

noreply@blogger.com (jeanjeanie) — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 20:33:00 +0000

Our mortgage app is approved! Yay! Whee! Yay! We're pre-qualified for the ballpark figure I asked for, and he said we could easily go higher if necessary! Because I have good credit! For reals! ME! GOOD CREDIT! This wouldn't have happened a year ago! I can't stop speaking in exclamations!

HOUSE!

Is Lifelock worth it?

noreply@blogger.com (jeanjeanie) — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 20:32:00 +0000

I don't tend to worry too much about identity theft. It's possible that I don't worry enough. I take all the reasonable precautions--I shred everything with my personal or financial info on it before throwing it out, my passwords all contain numbers AND capitals AND lowercase and are sufficiently obscure terms that would be tough to crack even without the number/caps jiggety, I protect my PINpad during transactions like a straight-A student protects her test answers, I don't carry my social security card around with me--and so far, I've never had my identity stolen. So it would seem that what I'm doing works. But with all of the scary statistics and the alarmist media constantly carrying on about this problem, I sometimes wonder if, so far, we've just been lucky?

I've also been hearing a lot lately about lifelock, which sounds like a good idea if, like me, you are an unpleasant combination of busy/hurried/tired/lazy/ADD and are perfectly happy to pay experts to do complicated things for you. $10 a month seems a pretty reasonable fee to set this and forget it and let other people worry about it for you.

On the other hand, if you are (also like me) frugal and (SO not like me) have time on your hands, I don't think they do anything that you couldn't do yourself for free. My finances being what they are, I tend to opt for the latter; but really, I think it's a relief to know that, had I the funds, I would never have to take on this headache by myself.

Prioritizing opportunities for joy

noreply@blogger.com (jeanjeanie) — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 20:26:00 +0000

Last night I gleefully handed over $70 so that Husband and I can attend this. I was going to blog today about how I didn't flinch away from it or regret it for an instant because this is something that belongs in the "Totally Worth It" file. And then this morning I dropped $500 on car repairs.

Sigh.

I still don't regret buying the tickets, and I doubt knowing I'd need costly emergency car repairs beforehand would have made a difference. Some things, generally things that aren't STUFF, that aren't tangible and don't take up space in your home, but experiences that thrill you -- and yes, meeting my favorite author-slash-mentor-slash literary hero is pretty dang thrilling to me -- and fill up your memories with good times. This is why I don't regret having maxed out my Discover card to help pay for our honeymoon, even though I'm still paying for it a year and a half later. Some things really are Totally Worth It. Worth scaling back in other areas for a while, worth extra hours at the office, worth shelling out the money without even batting an eye. It's easy to forget that in the quest to be frugal and debt-free.

Of course, routine car maintenance is also Totally Worth It, if it keeps you from having to plunder your emergency fund for emergency repairs (actually, we have been keeping up with car maintenance pretty well, and this fanbelt wackiness isn't something we could have prevented. I'm just sayin'). But this is exactly the sort of thing emergency funds are for, so I'll try not to fret too much about it.

Mother's Day Flower Coupons

noreply@blogger.com (jeanjeanie) — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 15:25:00 +0000

The count down is on: only 26 more shopping days till Mother's Day. If you're shopping the Internet for ways to show your mother you love and appreciate her (do we really need a special holiday for that?), that leaves plenty of time to get your orders in. At the Bauhaushold we tend to opt for a semi-frugal mother’s day by spending the most precious thing we have to give: our time. Our mom's tend to love that. Go figure. We're not total cheapskates, though, so our time usually comes with treating them to a nice restaurant and the requisite card and flowers.

1-800-Flowers is making the latter part a little easier and a little more cost-effective this year. In addition to some already discounted sale items, they're also offering the following coupon codes for early bird shoppers:

Mar26 - Save $10 no minimum
Mar15 - Save $15 w/min $74.99 purchase
Mar25 - Save $25 w/min $99.99 purchase

These could come in especially handy if you're having to celebrate Mother's Day long distance. Flowers are certainly no substitute for the loving presence of the fruit of her labor, but answering her door to a gorgeous bouquet will be a nice reminder that you're thinking of her and appreciating all that she put up with from you over the years.

Another snowflake, and thinking about the future

noreply@blogger.com (jeanjeanie) — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 14:04:00 +0000

We got our state refund check this weekend. It was initially going to be almost exactly enough to reimburse us for our tax preparer fees, but then the state held out some back taxes that Husband owed from 2003. On the upside, at least that won't count against us anymore, and the check will still make a nice snowflake to add to our debt snowball.

Those taxes he owed, by the way, were from the year before we met. Let this be a lesson to you young'uns that the financial decisions (and mistakes) you make now not only affect your own future, but also that of your future significant other. I had pretty much decided I would never get married back when I ran up all of my credit card debt. Yet here I am, years later, married and struggling not to let my debt have a negative impact on my marriage, and delaying having children until the credit cards are paid off. It's hard to think about these things when you're young and single, but they do bear some thinking about. [/lecture]

Food, revisited

noreply@blogger.com (jeanjeanie) — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 17:14:00 +0000

I picked up some Naan bread the last time I was at Whole Foods, and last night I had it on my mind as I did some mid-pay period grocery shopping. Knowing I had to eat it soon before it went moldy but not quite knowing what I wanted to do with it, inspiration struck in the organic frozen dinner section in the form of a frozen Chicken Tikka Masala. I snatched it up, took it home, nuked it while my Naan heated in the toaster oven, put it all together and, oh, wow. So good. I wish I could remember the brand of the Indian dinner -- it had the word "Ethnic" in it, that much I remember, and the box was dark red with gold writing -- because it was as good as any I've had at Indian restaurants. It was filling, too, which means I got to put half of it up for today's lunch, and I've been looking forward to eating it all morning. It was a bit of a splurge at $3.95, but cheaper than a restaurant visit, and I don't regret it one bit.

Speaking of which, back on the subject of the food problem: we've pretty much "solved" it by agreeing to cut back in other areas so we could increase our food budget to keep up with our standards plus inflation. It's not a perfect solution, but I don't have the patience/attention span to consistently do the coupons & sale fliers thing, and good, healthy food is one area where we're not willing to compromise.

I think part of being frugal is learning to pick your battles. Decide what's important to your ability to enjoy life, and allow yourself leeway to spend in those areas. Cut back and scale down in the areas that don't matter as much. For us, this means we both had to give up a portion of our personal spending allowances, which was only painful until we realized that we usually spent that money on food anyway.

I still expect, though, that our food bill will decrease after we move and we have a real kitchen of our very own. While I think life without the occasional Tikka Masala is hardly a life worth living, I'm also pretty certain that buying the ingredients to cook it ourselves will be less expensive than buying it pre-made. And that goes for the vast majority of what we currently eat.

One house, please, hold the murder

noreply@blogger.com (jeanjeanie) — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 14:29:00 +0000

Yesterday I sent in the last of the paperwork needed to finalize my mortgage application, go team me! And afterwards I was so excited I hopped on the Re/Max web site to look at the local listings and see what we can expect to afford. Not that I haven't been doing this periodically for a while now, but this time I was both more optimistic and realistic in my search. So, assuming we get pre-approved for the amount that we asked for, it seems we can either afford a nice condo in a decent neighborhood, or a decent house in an iffy neighborhood. Seeing as how we've both got our hearts set on a house, that's a little, well, disheartening. We're open to the idea of a condo, though. At least we'd still be building equity, and we could trade up to a house in five years or so, when we can afford to apply "nice" to both the house AND the neighborhood.

Actually, I suppose it's possible to do that now if we hit up some government auctions. There's a really nice house in a pretty nice neighborhood currently up for auction with a starting bid of $25,000. We can't place a bid without our pre-qualification letter, though, and the auction closes soon. I'd be shocked if we managed to put in a winning bid, anyway, but if the timing were better it would be worth a shot. It's a much nicer house than we'd be able to afford otherwise.

Oh, well. There are still a couple of houses out in West Tulsa that suit my style and sensibilities, but just when I was beginning to think that might be a relatively safe part of town, suddenly the news keeps reporting murders in that area. It's kind of a sad fact that we'll probably be hard-pressed to find a 100% murder-free neighborhood in Tulsa these days, but that doesn't mean we're not going to try.

Houses vs. Apartments

noreply@blogger.com (jeanjeanie) — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 18:42:00 +0000

Husband and I really hope that the mortgage loan and everything related to it comes through, because the last thing either of us want is to have to rent an apartment. We've already gone through trying to find a decent rental house, though, and that was a fiasco that I'm really not looking to repeat. If for some reason, though, it should--God forbid--work out that we won't be able to buy a house, we still have to move this year. In that event, apartments might be something we'll have to consider.

Of course, having grown up in LA, Husband would be a lot more open to Los Angeles Apartments, but since we're stuck here, and since he's had some pretty horrible/scary experiences in local apartment complexes, we're both really hoping it doesn't come down to that. Still, I mostly enjoyed my stints of apartment-living, and it's not all gloom and doom. I can still think of plenty of advantages. For one thing, it's much easier to find pet-friendly apartments than it is duplexes or rental houses. There's also the all the landscaping and maintenance you get, which was always a huge selling point for me, what with my complete aversion to yard work and all. I guess I really am getting older, though, because I find myself happily fantasizing about having a yard to maintain, flower beds to plant, even tending a vegetable and herb garden. That's definitely something younger me would never have expected. So in the pro/con balance, it's houses FTW! It won't be the end of the world if we have to find ourselves an apartment, though.

A journey of a thousand miles, etc.

noreply@blogger.com (jeanjeanie) — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 16:02:00 +0000

The mortgage app is hereby submitted. All of my pertinent financial information is ready to be faxed over to the broker. Since my credit score has really improved over the last year, and we've managed to pay off such a decent amount of debt, I'm not worried too much about our chances of getting decent terms. And since we're first-time home buyers who make less than the qualifying earning threshold, I'm fairly confident about getting some FHA, etc. grants thrown into the mix, too. The procrastination is over, the bullet is bit. Now I get to look forward to a lot of paperwork, a lot of legal and real estate terms that will hurt my head to understand, a lot of disagreement with Husband over what we both want in a house versus what we can actually reasonably afford, a lot of tiring days looking at houses, but in the end, we can look forward to our very own home. And then we can maybe possibly start talking of babies, but first things first.

Improving credit, investing fear, new used books, and a hiatus

noreply@blogger.com (jeanjeanie) — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 20:12:00 +0000

Things have been busy lately, and they're just getting busier. But here's a quick update before I take an official (as opposed to the unintentional one I've been taking) hiatus for a few days to catch up on stuff.

We made a substantial credit card payment with some of Husband's student loan money, so now, for the first time in years, our available credit exceeds our total balance. Not that we have any plans to use all of that available credit, but it's got to be a good thing for our credit scores.

I created an account at Sharebuilder, but I haven't created a portfolio or started funding it yet. I'm a little bit afraid of it. I think I need to feel a little more knowledgeable about investing before I begin. Especially in this market.

I still haven't turned in the mortgage app. I'm going to do it this week if it kills me.

I've discovered two new (to me, at least) used book stores near my work. I've really been trying to be frugal about my reading this year, as books tend to be a big part of my spending. Between free e-books, the free books and gift certificate our tax preparer gave us to his used book store, and my husband's library, I should have plenty to read for the rest of the year. Still, it's nice to know there are used book shops near enough that I can visit them on my lunch hour.

That's about it. The main reason it's been slow here lately is because there hasn't been much to report on the Bauhaushold front, and I haven't had time to explore what's happening elsewhere in the pf blogosphere. Soon, though, I should have plenty to talk about, what with the upcoming house hunt and impending tax rebates and all.

But for now, I have lots of work to get done. See you next week.

The Mortgage Crisis: It's Not Just Us

noreply@blogger.com (jeanjeanie) — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 18:17:00 +0000

With all of the talk going around both the news media and the personal finance blogosphere about the housing and credit crises and the downward spiral of our economy, it's pretty easy to become discouraged these days. I guess that's one reason I keep sitting on our mortgage application--as housing prices drop, it seems like a great time to buy, but with the Mortgage industry so unstable, it's also pretty scary. I definitely don't want to get into a deal that will just leave us homeless in a few years. I don't know whether to find it comforting or even more depressing to realize that the US isn't the only nation affected by this mess. The UK doesn't seem to be doing much better, or at least that's the gist I get from this article on UK homeowners being treated unfairly. It seems like there are greedy lenders on both sides of the Big Pond who are trying to take advantage of people's desperation and only making it worse for everybody. With stories like this, it makes me want to be sure I shop around, do my research, and be extra-careful about finding a reputable mortgage broker to help us down the path of homeownership.

Sometimes you just have to take a step back...

noreply@blogger.com (jeanjeanie) — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 19:23:00 +0000

...and admit when something's not working out. Like splitting "Growing Up" into three separate blogs, for instance. That's not working for me at all. In fact, all it's doing is stressing me out.

As such, I'm going to be making the following changes around here:

1. A name change. This blog will soon and thenceforth be known as The Bauhaushold Blog. And it's getting a redesign to match.

2. A re-integration of subjects. The house & home and health stuff is coming back here to roost alongside the personal finance stuff. It's not like you can really separate all of those things from each other, anyway.

3. A move. This one is still tentative, and will be the last to happen, if indeed it does happen. But I'm thinking about putting this blog on the front page of my site. I haven't totally made up my mind about this, though. I might end up just leaving it where it is.

Product Love: Naked Naturals Shampoo

noreply@blogger.com (jeanjeanie) — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 16:31:00 +0000

I'm having a great hair day, if I do say so myself. A couple of weeks ago I was given samples of naked naturals shampoo and conditioner, and I finally remembered to take them to the gym with me this morning. Specifically, I was given awapuhi and lavender shampoo for color-treated hair. I used to color my hair pretty regularly, but it's been quite a while since I've bothered, mainly because of all the swimming I do. The chlorine can be pretty rough on my hair, though, so anything that targets any kind of chemical damage is a good thing. What's more, I've finally got the hang of putting on my swim cap (not as simple as it sounds, trust me), so between that and finding a great shampoo & conditioner, I'm planning on trying out a henna treatment sometime in the next couple of pay periods.

For today, though, my hair is softer than it's been since pretty much before I started swimming. It's more manageable than it's been in a long time, too. I'm not generally one to believe claims that shampoo can magically give you better hair, but this one almost has me convinced. After a single use, my hair looks better than it has in a long time (and it smells great, too. Mmm, lavender), so I'm guessing that regular use of this stuff would give me some pretty great-looking hair. That this all natural shampoo is environmentally friendly is icing on the cake. I just wish it was available in the places I normally shop. You can buy it online directly from the source, but the MSRP of $9.00 is frankly too steep for my Suave-level budget, no matter how great the shampoo is. Walgreen's price of $7.99 is a bit more like it, and there's one right across the corner from my office. That's still more than I'd like to spend, but between coupons and watching for sales, I could probably squeeze it into the beauty budget. If and when I do start coloring my hair again, I definitely will, because I'm pretty confident that it will not only protect and strengthen my hair, but also help preserve the color longer, which will mean more time between touch-ups, which will only save me money in the long run.