The Weight of Money

Our internet has been out for almost a week and I’m getting nervous. We finally got it turned on last night, but I didn’t have a chance to catch up on our bills and see where we are at. Since I’ve been panicking about bills, I’ve been paying them all in advance hoping that’ll keep us on track as life has been crazy. But instead I start worrying more because I don’t know how ahead I am and what if I missed something?

Tonight’s schedule is too full to stop in and check up on the bills. I’d ask the partner to but since I’ve been prepaying things, things are a little more complicated. Instead of having a bill marked paid to file away, there is the pile of new bills and some were paid before they showed up. Reconciling that it probably more work than the partner wants to do. He has a set way of doing things and my ways seem to counter them all.

Despite tonights schedule being full, I still must make sure nothing needs to go out the next day!

tangent…

I’m starting to see the benefits of having a bill pay service. However, instead, I really need to get back in sync with life and stop running around like a headless chicken. How is it that I took a part time job to have more time and I’m always scrambling? One of the major budget buffers was going to be saving us money on eating out, instead I seem to be cooking even less. I was also going to bring in some extra cash, but I’m taking less work than I could and still scrambling to get it done on time each week.

I keep saying that the end of May will bring a break, but who am I kidding? We’re scheduled to close the first week in June — do I honestly think time is going to slow down then? Heck, we need to pack too! Why, why, why did we unpack in the first place. I think a year of boxes would have been worth not having to pack again.

… end tangent.

I rattled this idea off to the partner, last night, as we were pulling the flannel sheets off the bed and putting on a cooler set. No, it wasn’t about saving money, it was about getting acclimated. We were pretty toasty before crawling in bed thanks to the upstairs always being so warm, the before bed walk, and an hour or so of yoga. Honestly, I was feeling the urge to close all the windows and turn on the easy solution, our a/c.

Last year, I was all paranoid about the costs of running the air conditioner. As summer faded into winter, I then panicked about using the heater - always too worried about how high the bill was going to be. It turns out that full time a/c or heat use doesn’t make a big difference in our well insulated townhouse.

However, the house we’re buying has no central air. It won’t have the awesome insulation being a middle townhouse unit offers, much less the double glass storm windows and insulation in the walls. I didn’t want to skip using the a/c to make our bills cheaper right now, I wanted to force ourselves to get used to not having that option.

The partner looked like I was insane. He refused such an idea as he hates to be hot. To him, a house without central air, sounds punishment appropriate for those (like us) who haven’t been fiscally savvy enough to have no debt and a sizable financial cushion. While he may think moving into the house in the heat of summer without air conditioning is an acceptable cruelty, he will not voluntarily sign up for personal persecution just to help us get used to the idea.

Maybe it was an odd idea, but it certainly makes sense to me. I’d rather make those transitions slowly instead of jumping off the deep end of the modern amenities pool and hating the fact that we’ll be literally swimming in our sweat equity.

Time to discuss last week’s inspection. Obviously, it wasn’t simple, otherwise I would have said “things look great!” and moved on. While the following faults are not necessarily minor, both the inspector and we agree that it is a great old house.

First, the biggest issue is some unexplained shifting obvious in the second floor interior. Old houses settle and shift over time but this isn’t “old sag.” This is clearly recent and active shifting and we don’t know what is causing it. There is no access to the foundation under the addition and that limits our ability to get a better look. What confuses us even more, evidence is only visible on the second floor, no visible indicators on the first floor interior or in the attic and the exterior looks great (well 100-years-old kind of great). So, we don’t know what is going on, but we’re concerned. Do we think it is going to fall over anytime soon? Not at all. But it is something that could cost a considerable amount of cash to fix in the near (within 5 years) future. Strike One.

Second is another structural issue that is low on our priority list, yet high on our response list. There is a newer exterior chimney, probably new within the last several years, that is moving away from the house. Obviously bad news for the chimney and the foundation but it is something that we can clearly point at and say “look! problem!”. But, it isn’t high on our priority list because the broiler has only a few more years left in it and then we would replace it with another heating system that doesn’t need the chimney. So, we want them to pay for a chimney replacement (replacement is the only option at this point) and we’ll hold out another year or so and take it down and the boiler out. In the mean time, we’ll do what we can to ensure no further shifting, that there are no cracks in the chimney liner, and that it doesn’t take out the side of the house or any parked cars. Strike two.

The first two structural issues are not related, at least not obviously. The first issues affects the addition that was added to the house at some point in time. The chimney is attached to the original part of the structure and that part isn’t going anywhere. The primary structure has the heftiest, thickest, and most close-set support timbers I’ve ever seen and a stone foundation that goes down a good 6 feet. That portion is sturdy, but the other part? We don’t know.

There are a bunch of other little things that add up as well: repair a post and bean in the basement that is deteriorating, replace all rotted exterior wood (fascia, soffits, etc.), sand, prime, caulk, and paint exterior, replace side entry roof, repair and clean all gutters, get the kitchen drain working properly.

We’ve made up a price list of the repairs — all numbers are pretty much pulled out of the air.

• Shifting Addition: unknown, $30,000+
• Replace Chimney: $8,000
• Replace post and beam: $500
• Fix drain in kitchen: $300
• Paint Exterior (replace rotted boards): $2,000
• Replace side entry roof: $2,000
• Replace broken windows: $500
• Repair and clean gutters: $500
• Total: $43,800

Our first round of negotiations is to tell them to fix everything. Seeing as this is an “as-is” sale, that isn’t going to happen. Our agent was talking about us getting more cash back at settlement, but we don’t think that’ll work cause our lending agency wouldn’t like it and we don’t want that cash going straight to a contractor. What we want is a reduction in price, even if it means it only saves us a couple dollars a month — that’s a couple of dollars that could be going to principal.

Do I think we’ll get a 40K reduction in price, not at all, but I will be pushing pretty hard on the structural stuff because we don’t know what is going on. That alone means that 30K could be a drop in the bucket to the reality of the situation. Or, it could be what we think it is and the cleaning the gutters an rerouting water will help solve the problem — when you don’t know, you don’t estimate low and hope that you’re right. For now, I’ll assume that we need to replace every single joist-timber under the addition (which would be way more than 30K, I’m sure).

To clarify, we don’t think the house is in serious trouble and our inspector didn’t either, but it is indeed a bargaining chip. We’ve set up a time for a structural engineer to take a look, but we feel she may not be able to tell us much more than we already know because we don’t have access to the foundation under the addition. When we buy the place, we’ll be fixing the grading and redirecting water that is probably not helping the situation. In the mean time, we’ll see what we can do to drop the price of the house somewhat.

Next steps: wait for the seller’s response to our request to fix everything and see what this week’s termite inspection says - maybe that’ll throw in another bargaining chip as they are required to spend up to $5,000 to fix any problems found. However, I’m hoping that nothing is found in terms of termites.

We’ve finally made it to the home inspection and I’m nervous, anxious, excited. This could be a great day if we learn that everything look good enough to survive another 137 years, or devastating if we learn that there are some problems too major for us to fix later on. I’ve moved from refusing to be excited to confidence that this is ‘the house’. Of course, it isn’t ‘The House’ in the sense that it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread, but instead it is the house that we can live in for the next 10 years at least. The neighbor factor is what impacts the longevity - perhaps they’ll be selling their property in the next ten years, we’ll have conquered our finances, and be able to buy them all out, level their houses, and expand our borders — basically reverse the process that allocated all those lots anyways (chopped up farm land).

I needed to get a lot of stuff done before the inspection, but pins and needles have prevent any rational work. Instead, I’m just watching the clock tick and looking forward to getting more pictures, measurements, and anything else we can think of. I’ll post some pictures tomorrow.

Thanks to Madame X I’m now obsessing over what I obsess about. I’m wracking my brain and coming up short with any full blown obsessions.

I do obsess about topics and ideas for short periods of times. A couple weeks ago it was about a house that we were considering buying and how we might make living in it work. That took on obsessive thoughts that literally kept me awake at night. Turns out, all that thought for nothing, the house was under contract before we could really make up our mind.

I’m bordering on obsession and acute interest in planning for the new house. Even though I was trying to not get excited, I’ve been pouring over technical details for home repair. I want to have a house where I understand every single system inside and outside. I’m tired of feeling like I simply take up space in a house, I want to know that if something breaks I’ll at least understand the ins and out of the problem, and hopefully be able to fix it.

When I’m unhappy at work, I start obsessing about escaping. I’m now juggling the escape obsession with new job search obsession while freaking out about the impact it will have on our mortgage application.

I also obsess about doing the right thing. Like and I actually responding to this meme correctly? Just how “correct” does any type of response have to be. Will people notice if I screw something up? This obsession flows back and forth from caring to much about other’s opinions to being proud of my own choices, even when they may not be the best choice or what others would choose.

And now, for one last obsession, I’m getting antsy about site traffic. I hate to admit it because it feels like such a silly, childish thing to obsess over, but I always wonder what I need to do to interest readers more. I’ve gone back and tried to reveal viewer trends based on content, carnival participation, referrals, and am often still scratching my head as to why some days/weeks/month traffic is incredibly high and others it falls off the radar. I know that I often end up with sporadic breaks in content posting and am sure that doesn’t help.

Okay, so maybe those obsession will satisfy the obligation placed on me. :) I don’t pass memes along; thanks again, Madame X!

Tired but Happy wants to know. There are many great responses to her question, go check it out. Instead of commenting, I wanted to take a somewhat deeper look at my job. I’ve mentioned that I’m not happy, but at least I was getting work that was increasing my skill set. Since it has been exactly 3 months since starting my position, I wanted to see where I stand now.

To start with TBH’s question, do I like my job, the answer is a resounding no. In fact, to quote a dissatisfied employee that worked for my mom for only one day, “there’s just nothing about [this] job that I like.”

Some tactics I tried to like my job more:

• develop personal relationships with coworkers: If I can feel some emotional, friendly connection to my peers, then I can feel better about the work I’m doing. However, that attempt failed miserably. I felt like I was really developing a working friendship with a coworker; however, even though she would be friendly at lunch, she’d turn into a bitch in the office. Finally, I decided it was better to have no relationship than a two-sided one.

• attempt to fit in more: I thought that it would be better if I walked the walk in ridiculous uncomfortable clothes and shoes. Since everyone here is all caught up in appearances and being the absolute best at everything, I thought it’d help. No, it just makes me even more bitter. The smiles and semi-friendly interactions I have when I look nice enough make me mentally scream “Screw You!” at everyone.
• rationalize work as work and be happy to go home: I thought this would work, but being happy to go home early each day means that I’m unhappy going to work each day.
• brainwash myself into liking it: chanting “debt free living, debt free living” has raised the risk of irresponsible credit card as personal backlash more than it has made me like my job.

Even though I hate my job, I still feel personal responsibility to manage my feelings ethically. When our new hire asked about the culture, I tactfully responded that it was indeed the fishbowl of expected perfection that my co-worker described. This was indeed true and I shouldn’t assume that anyone else would have a problem with it, I’m the fish out of water here. When my boss asks how things are going, I stutter and paint the picture as truthfully as possible without running screaming from the room. But, since I know I want to leave, I feel the need to let that be known.

I have a meeting set up for later this week and am not sure how to approach it. I wanted to focus on the challenges I’m facing in working with peers, conflicting information, and limited time resources. But, I also want to say “I’m on the wrong bus” and let her know that there is no way this position is going to work for me. Part of me says that I better wait until I’ve another ship to jump to before opening my mouth.

They want me to move to full time later this year and it isn’t going to happen - no amount of money could make that possible, well, maybe there is an amount that could but they ain’t going there. July will be a good transition point, but I refuse to lock myself into a date because I’ll jump ship first chance I can get.

Finally, this situation presents is impacting my emotional stability. I thought that this position would be an acceptable, but it isn’t. And now, just three months after leaving my last position, I can’t help feeling like there is something wrong with me in terms of my ability to work anywhere. It sure feels a little overwhelming when I realize that I’m starting my third job search within the past year. Of course, had I been more honest with how committed I am to my professional values, I would be in this situation. I guess I’m much more committed to living my life intentionally, in all ways, that I realized.

Every time I turn around, I’m reading about someone playing the debt shuffle game - 0% balance transfers. I’m starting to wonder if it is something that’ll help or hurt our situation.

I’ve avoided trying this tactic for a while now because I’m always worried that I’ll miss something in the fine print and it’ll turn around and bite us. Of course, I’m sure there are positive reasons for taking the leap, but I’m still pretty nervous about moving debt from one card to another. Additionally, since we are trying to get a house, lower utilization on each card is important to us. We don’t want to end up getting hurt by a high balanced (low interest) card.

But, some of the offers are very tempting. Especially the 0% for 6-12 months and then 3.99% fixed thereafter. When our lowest rate card is at 8% and highest is above 13%, 3.99% looks pretty good. Of course, we must also factor in the transfer fee (usually 3%, some with/without a fee limit) into the interest rate.

What has your experience been? Is it easy to make the transfers? Was it worth taking that step?

Saturday evening, after a week long vacation away from home, the daughter wanted to talk about the dream house she designed. It was a house with multiple floors and all the entertainment an 11 year old can think up, and probably a little more. She had drawn up extensive floor plans and summary sheets for each floor.

The Dream
The room that she prized the most was the Electronic Den (the size of 3 football fields). Here, visitors would find thousands of tvs, game systems, dvds, games. She mapped out the game closets for each different game system, 1,000-person movie theaters and their furnishings (bean bags for kids, couches for the teens, and traditional seats for adults). She seemed to have thought of everything, from education, housing, exercise, food, and entertainment, except some major economic considerations.

“Everyone wants to work here and loves it so much they don’t want to be paid. I’ll make billions.”

“But how do your employees pay for the things they need if they don’t get paid, like a house?” Wanting to know this through a little wrench into her dream.

“If they need to buy a house, I’ll give them a loan to buy it.”

“But how can they pay you back if they don’t make money?”

“Okay, I’ll just give them the money.” Satisfied with that answer, I started to ask about how will they buy food (”they can eat at restaurant for free”), medical care (”I’ll pay for it”), education for their children (”attend the school for free”), retirement savings (”I’ll pay for it”), vehicles (”I’ll pay for it”), etc. She continued to respond to everything saying she’ll pay for it, but she drew the line at family vacations — they’ll have to pay for those but she’ll help them get on shows like Deal or No Deal and maybe they can win the money. Only the “lucky” ones would get to take vacations, the rest were stuck with their 12-hour work day (3 hours for breaks, time that could be spent at another job to pay for the vacation) and 9-hours of sleep everyday.

I kept asking questions and pointing out inconsistencies (”you say admission is only $5 for adults and $3 for kids, how many people need to come in each day to pay for all your employees and utilities?”). She finally got tired of my questions, “Mom!, it’s a *dream* house”.

Reality of Dreaming
The next day, as we were walking to the park, she suddenly blurted out, “I’ll never get to have my dream house.”

We talked about the reality of what she wanted and I told her that if she really wanted it then she could probably make a realistic version of it happen with enough effort. “But all those games and systems would cost too much!” We estimated how much she’d need and it was a pretty big figure, but certainly obtainable through the right choices and planning.

Just dreaming won’t get you there
I shifted the conversation further and brought up the example of winning the lottery. People who play the lottery are dreaming about what they could do with the money. Some people spend a lot of money each week on the lottery and end up with nothing in the end. Instead, if they stopped just dreaming and starting saving, they could work toward obtaining at least a portion of their dream.

Small steps add up
Our discussion veered into savings and interest (passive income). I provided the example of how much we have in savings, the interest ($20/month) it is making, and how that $20/month continues to increase every month. “But $20 is nothing,” she complained.

I continued the example through 5 years and pointed out how it was a way of making money doing nothing. “But it still nothing, I could get a soda machine and make more.” Yes, but the soda machine requires work because you have to stock it, withdraw the money, make repairs, etcetera. But still, in her eyes, the savings example wasn’t enough, why save at all if it’s only going to add up to just a little bit over time.

Necessary Persistence
I hope that I can raise her to eventually see that all those little bits, saved a little at a time, do add up to something more. Hopefully, we can get to a point where she realizes that dreaming can be supported by planning and that things are possible if you have enough motivation. For now, she seems more focused on an unreasonable dream and disappointed that she’ll never just wake up and it’ll be true, oh the limitation of being so young and considering only today.

It looks we’re a few steps closer to buying a home. We put an offer in on Saturday and our realtor called us last night to say that they wanted another $10,000 to cover the points we requested. We said no, that wasn’t going to happen, we refused to go higher on the price but we did reduce it to just 2 points (which we needed to do anyway according to our mortage broker).

I figured we’d lost the house, but I got a call today and they accepted our compromise and it looks like all system go for getting the house. Now, I’m refusing to get excited because we’ve made it to this point before. I’ll get excited after all the inspections come up clean and it appraises high enough.

But, if all does go well, we’ll be walking into our new home come the middle of June. Guess we need to start packing — didn’t we just unpack!?

Life continues to be a whirlwind of activity.

We put an offer in on the house we saw on Friday and are anxiously waiting to hear back from the seller. I had a flutter of excitement when my realtor called this morning, but it turns out that she forwarded the wrong approval letter with the contract and is faxing the right one off today. We’re still up in the air whether well be applying jointly or with just the partner’s name — there is one lending agency that will have much better rates if the partner applies alone, otherwise combined is not problem.

Monday brings the Carnival of Personal Finance No. 95 and many visiting readers. Thank you to the many kudos, your support encourages me to continue our positive progress.

This Friday is opening night for the art show that a friend and I are presenting in. I spent all Sunday putting the finishing touches on my 3D sculpture. I spent one evening last week painting a beautiful underwater scene in the exhibit space. Tomorrow I’ll be going down to finish the painting and see what else we can add to the space to make it attractive.

My progress on getting sewing work completed has been falling behind. Hopefully my client isn’t too upset by this since I did tell her there would be a delay while I worked on artwork for the show. She emailed me today hoping for product delivery early this week and I’ve still not started. Hopefully I can drop something off on Friday and pickup some more items to help gather more funds for our home — I’m debating earmarking 50% of these funds for home decoration since the partner has already vetoed any improvements within the first 6 months of moving in.

I have five interviews scheduled for this week (interview in connection with my job, not job interviews) and that’ll keep me out of the office for a couple days. While I don’t care for my current office/job, I must admit that I am getting some great professional experiences and opportunities.