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Archive for May, 2017

Online Shopping

May 29th, 2017 at 07:54 pm

I can honestly say I laughed when I read this article about this women who spent

Text is $41,000 on Amazon and Link is http://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/26/what-one-woman-learned-from-spending-41000-on-amazon.html
$41,000 on Amazon

She realized that she bought 427 items in 2014 or more items than days in the year. She makes a lot of money (I think $170k/year) and works for google. But she talks about how easy it is to mindlessly spend online.

I agree 100%. I know MANY people who spend thousands of dollars a month online shopping. I am friends with tons of them. I hear things like I just spent $1000/month on Amazon. I buy everything on Amazon. When I ask what do you spend, it's shocking.

I've spent $79.74 all year on amazon on 4 items. I am spending another $89 on 2 book collections this weekend Roald Dahl 15 book $48.99 and Laura Ingalls Wilder $33.99 9 book set. We do go to the library weekly but I try to buy books that are classics for my kids. I am not sure where my books went but these we'll keep and we love going to the library otherwise.

I bought ada twist scientist 10.99, usually I don't buy these sort of new books, desk chair 44.99, face ski mask 9.99, and pencil sharpener 13.79. Yep 4 items. Before buying I tend to shop around even online.

But what's worse? How many people are mindless drones and they shop on amazon though the prices are not the best. I have a friend who has laundry detergent, soap, etc all delivered for the convenience. But I pointed out she's a member of costco and shops there anyway why not buy the stuff in bulk cheaper. Her answer is that it's easier to have it delivered instead of shopping sales at costco and waiting for deals. The true irony is she wonders why they can't afford to buy a house or save money?

Probably because when I make a suggestion like shopping at costco and watching deals the answer is it's not worth their time. And pointing out that online shopping can easily lead to overspending. The answer is that it doesn't it saves money because it's cheaper.

I would have to guess that the truth is overspending is overspending whether you do it online or in stores. I actually think it's easier online because you are so disconnected from the feeling of spending that you click and buy it charged to a debit or credit card.

The woman in the article talks about it. I have to admit I try to not online shop because I think I spend more online. I think I lose track of my spending. But maybe I'm in the minority if so many people do it.

Do you shop online a lot? Does it save you money? Or do you spend more? Are you sure it's cheaper?

I just spent an hour pricing out boxes from amazon versus uhaul. Yes I have to go to uhaul but most packing supplies are cheaper at uhaul except tape, and they have an better return policy. Of course I have to go to uhaul but it's worth it.

moving list

May 28th, 2017 at 06:26 pm

This is the first time we are moving into a place and having a list of things we have and want to buy. Usually we move in and make do with what we have. I guess because this feels more permanent, and we have money we are making a list of items we want.

We are buying the king size bed we've wanted for 10+ years but never gotten. Just the mattress, we have to figure out the frame later. Also a tv and grill are on the list. 2 years when we moved we didn't have any income so it didn't make sense to spend money when we had none coming in.

We are also replacing the kids beds. They are both in queens and we want to move them to smaller beds and get them desks. For now the DK1 will get a twin bunk bed and the DK2 will keep twin until we figure out our guest room situation. So we are able to sell/recycle two queen size beds. The truth is one is our old bed which we handed down when we bought a foam mattress. The other a friend gave us and so we didn't pay for it.

Right now we are looking at $1150 for a king size purple mattress for us. Two twin mattresses for the bunk bed.

We also need stools for our island. But since I can't recall if it's extra tall or regular counter height i'll buy them asap when we move in.

We also shopped playsets but they are so expensive that DH instead wants to try and buy a used one on craigslist because it appears that many people just try to get rid of it after their kids outgrow it. So though we budgeted $2000 we're going to see if instead we can spend $500 and get something better quality.

Interestingly we bought a lawn mower and seeder from our sellers. We were driving by their house yesterday and they were having a garage sale. DH and I were going to drive by when he sees the lawn mower. He stops and hops out and offers them money because hey we need it. So for $25 we got a mower and seeder.

As far as packing? Right now we are starting to sell and purge what we don't need. I think more than packing selling and getting rid of stuff we don't need will probably help more in the long run. We have quite a few items we are looking at and will start selling or donating.

change in plans

May 26th, 2017 at 07:49 am

Interesting change in plans. We are no longer closing on June 9th instead we negotiated a closing of June 7th. In return we got possession of the house June 24th instead of June 30th. This all came about on Tuesday. It's been a crazy few days. It actually worked out greatly in our favor.

I won't tell our realtor this she'll be pissed and honestly I don't think she's working in our best interest. But heck it's not her money and not her house. I sucked it up and worked with her mortgage guy but only by forcing him to match our deal with capital one.

Our landlord was very accepting and is allowing us to get out of our lease June 30th. Fantastic. We are out a month early. Today I showed the house to a woman and her daughter who are very interested and turns out renting another property managed by my property manager. They are being kicked out of their rental because their landlord is selling. Our PM turned them onto our house so it appears to be a match made in heaven. I hope she gets it.

Anyway we save $1200 because we were going to move over fourth of July and keep our rental until July 15th. Being out by June 30th saves us enough to makes the hassle worth it.

I got an estimate of $1100 to pay movers, and $1100 extra for them to pack. So $2200 to pay full service movers. Instead however my DH and I are leaning to the hourly company we used when we moved 2 years ago. They charge $79/hr for packing and $95/hr for moving.

I think that 11 hours of moving is more than enough. So I'm leaning toward that. Especially since we also have a 22 hour budget to have them pack up the house as well. I'm not sure how it'll work out and we could afford the full service. But I'm a little nervous about timing the packing plus moving.

penny wise, pound foolish

May 21st, 2017 at 04:44 pm

So we're moving out of our place. I negotiated moving out 2 weeks early and not losing our deposit. Saving us $1200. Our plan is to have it cleaned July 1st. Then move in a mix of us and movers July 2nd-5th. Then be out by the 5th and let our property manager clean and the new tenants in by the 15th. 10 days should be enough to have it cleaned and repaired. The property manager agreed and I agreed to show the house as needed.

Now I had friends who were interested in the place. They are a family of 5 with a parent staying with them so 6 people. They live 5 minutes from me in a townhouse complex where they rent a 2 bed/1 bath townhouse with 1 car garage for $2275/month. Their lease is up end of May. They can resign for $2275 (it was $2200) or they can pay month to month for $2775. The lease breakage is 3 months or $6825 if they break their lease. I told the mom (my friend) she's better off going month to month because the $500 works out cheaper than signing a lease. They are house hunting and the realtor told them they are likely to be able to buy in November/December when there is less people looking.

However I don't think they are in a position to buy since they were approved for less than the mom hoped. She initially thought they'd get approved for $600k. But the bank told them $450k. This puts a big damper on their house hunt. She said they don't have more than $30-35k to put down and she needed help selling her jewlery to get more. I told her don't sell her jewelry. But that will bring in $10k for closing costs she thinks. I have no idea how selling jewelry works except I feel like you don't get much.

They have a house from where they moved that they could sell and it would help with the downpayment. Currently it's rented out. I told her that would really help them with the downpayment and minimize risk in buying. She said they have to think about it. They want to try to be "rich" by being landlords.

Anyway I told my property manager about them and gave them his contact info. They offered him $2275 a month to rent. I slapped my head. Seriously? Less than I'm paying they thought was a good idea? It was ridiculous and he said he didn't get back to them. They asked me to inquire if he had gotten the email and that's when he told me what they offered. I told him just tell them no. It wasn't feasible.

Oh well. Since he has 8 offers now for showings on Tuesday 4-6 pm I guess we'll be fine. It's for $2500/month and I am guessing that it'll be taken on Tuesday. So we are set to save money.

As for my friends? They lost out on renting a bigger house for $125/month more. Maybe $125/month is a lot but at the same time they would have had space for 6 people better than in a 2 bedroom townhouse. It's cheaper than a 3 bedroom townhouse in their complex which was $2500/month. Sometimes people are penny wise, pound foolish. In trying to score a deal and be cheap they lost out I think on a better house and a better flexible rental agreement. I sent them a copy of mine so they could read it for lease breakage. Oh well. Say La Vie.

we're set

May 17th, 2017 at 05:49 am

So the appraisal came through and we are set for closing on June 9th. We actually were already done with our mortgage and cleared to close sans appraisal. I'm very excited and happy. It's a relief. We know we are set to close and no longer waiting on an appraisal and worrying what happens during negotiations with the sellers.

That being said now my DH is ready to talk moving. We have decided we're buying the king size bed we've desired for years. Until we moved two years ago we didn't have a choice since it wouldn't fit up the stairs to our bedroom.

We also have to decide what to do about the kid's beds. They both have queen size beds, one we got for free and the other is our old bed from when we got a memory foam. I think we should do twin beds but let one keep a queen? We don't have a guest bedroom.

That's the other thing. We have to decide how to manage the renovations we are planning. We need to replace the windows, ceiling, and paneling on the 1st floor but the question is do we do an extension/bump out or do we just reconfigure the space we have? We have 700 sq ft but it's poorly laid out. We could probably create a bedroom downstairs if we got rid of the laundry room.

But of course this is something we have to consider carefully so we don't do something stupid and overspend or not do something that doesn't cost much more to improve the house.

This is stressful. Plus we are nervous about movers and planning since the sellers are living in the house supposedly until June 30th. But what if they aren't out? Or if they move sooner? These are all questions swirling about.

Now that we know we are closing I feel like I next will contact the school and register the kids. I also need to determine if we are doing private school as well for the DK2. I think she's a bit young for kindergarten and was considering private school so she'll have extra help for the 1st year and more attention. So much to do and so little time.

Renting can beat homeownership

May 10th, 2017 at 04:38 pm

I was thinking a lot about friends discussing how renting is throwing away money. It's really, really not. I can see how people think buying a home builds wealth. It's an enforced savings plan. Every month you build up savings by paying down the principal of your house.

But here's the truth! If you saved that principal payment and invested it, as well as invested the entire down payment of your home I'm pretty sure you'd come out ahead of the home owner. But the reality is three-fold.

One how many people would actually save the principal difference between renting and owning? So in that sense yes homeowners do tend to build wealth faster because they are forced to. And typically renters don't have the discipline to save. This is usually true as well because renters often times lack the discipline to save the principal for a down payment on a house. So home buying will build wealth but renting often doesn't because of lack of discipline. I see it too often with most of my long term renter friends they say "i could afford the same monthly payment as rent but I have no down payment." My point to them is then why aren't you saving?

Second, usually people's mortgages are more than rent. Renting often is less perhaps due to the fact that many people will rent the minimum space needed but buy a home much bigger because they are stretching the budget. I can attest to that. Our townhouse we sold was 3bd/2.5 bath townhouse 1500 sq ft. We were DINKS without kids. We didn't need that much space but we bought 5 years before kids to "grow" into to. Probably would have been smarter to rent a 1 bd apartment (like we had just sold) and then moved into something bigger 5-6 years later when we had kiddo #1. So for sure we were pretty dumb, but we liked owning and having dogs. I'm sure our rent would have been something like $1600/month (it was $1400 for a month to month studio at the time) instead of our $3k/month mortgage. But we could afford it and enjoyed the space. So if we had invested the $1400/month difference? We'd likely have made more money. Granted out of the $3k we were paying down I think $700/month principal so we were saving about half the difference. But still $700/month = $8400/year for 10 years is $84k and we could have invested that. So renting would have built up our wealth just as well.

Third I've noticed and perhaps I'm wrong when you renter you get a better location than when you buy. Most people have to compromise on something. So everyone I know compromises and has long commutes of 1-2 hours to get a "big" house. This means if they rented they could usually get something closer to where they needed to be but to afford to buy?

Right now if we wanted to save money DH and I could buy the place we're in for $600k. Instead we're buying something closer and more expensive but about the same size. So we compromised on size of home instead of location. We are paying for location. Also the $600k home would probably break even with our rent which we are overpaying because we had a dog. It should have been $2k/month we paid $2400/month for a dog. Our mortgage now is quite a bit more. But we also could have tried to rent in the same neighborhood we bought at it would have started at $3500 and we probably couldn't have a dog. So to us it's a wash.

But I don't think renting is losing money. I actually think to buy a home many times you are paying a premium to own. I think that many renters don't take advantage of the financial side to keep up with savings and match a homeowner. I think if they did it would become clearer how renting can be financial advantageous.

Have you ever considered renting if you own? And have you ever considered buying if you rent? Did you run the numbers?

For us we banked the extra money so renting we easily matched a homeowner. But I like owning with the stability and I like having a dog. I like feeling like we can do something to the house and not worry. Will we be paying a premium? Absolutely but it's one that my DH and I are willing to make because we want to. We know the financial disadvantages and advantages but still want to.

FWIW I think buying property and being a landlord is different. I think it's different numbers and cash flow and it's an investment not a primary residence you live in. I think it's something that can match stocks easily but you have to know what you are doing for arguments sake we aren't talking about RE investing.

Owe our kids?

May 10th, 2017 at 05:48 am

I've heard twice today from friends that they owe their kids a certain quality of life. One was the friend who is about to have a lifestyle change. She said she was struggling with the realization she can't give her kids the lifestyle they have now. I said that's not true. The lifestyle they have now is funded by debt so it's not real. You can't compete with that. Even staying married you'd be cutting back and "decreasing" their "quality of life" anyway. She thought about it and agreed. But said it still sucks because this is all they've know. I agree.

Then at lunch another friend was discussing about how she is desperate to buy a house because renting is throwing away money. That renting is making their life unstable and shouldn't they buy because it would stabilize their life for their kids? I mean they are rushing to buy a house with less than a 10% DP and she was talking about pawning her jewelry to get more money together. I wanted to shake her and say no you don't need a house to be stable. The kids are okay. But I get it. I get the feeling of instability. I asked her if they were preparing for retirement and she said no. They are struggling to save for the house.

But that got me thinking. I've never felt we owe our kids anything. I feel like we need to be responsible adults and making good decisions about our financial future is being good parents. I don't think we had to buy a house for our kids. We bought it because we wanted a house. We also don't think that we have to provide x, y, or z.

But I'm realizing that parents of all different economic levels feel this pressure to provide everything. We're expected to provide a nice home, college, car, house down payment, wedding. It's insane. Don't get me wrong I get wanting to give your kids everything. But I'm still firmly in the camp that you take care of yourself and everything else will fall into place. I see these parents giving EVERYTHING of themselves and their money for their kids. What happens when it's time for them to retire or not have a job? How will their kids manage if everything is handed to them? Or worse will their kids be able to turn the tables and support them if these parents give anything for them.

Are we doomed to failure if we continue down this path? What do we really owe our kids?

$5k loan followup

May 9th, 2017 at 07:00 am

I told DH full disclosure. I ended up showing him a few emails and photos and he agreed she needed the money. She retained a lawyer today and was advised not to wait to file for divorce but most as quickly as possible.

Well things are worse than she thought. So she thought it was just cheating Nope. Well she went into their garage and started opening up all the mail they've been ignoring for years. She hasn't paid a bill since 2007 when they got married. They had separate checking and savings accounts and he paid all the bills. So she never bothered to open a bill or inquire how things were going.

Her husband has played her and everyone for a fool. He's built a house of cards spending money he makes as fast as he can and then some. As I've helped organize the paperwork and explained some of the debts I said to her it's time to cut her losses and pray she can get out of this without declaring bankruptcy. But it might already be too late. She is so far in the hole.

The lifestyle she's become accustomed to is too champagne taste for her beer budget. How will she go back and change her mindset? I can see it in the way she handles money now? I can't tell her right now but she needs to realize that the house of cards money even after the divorce won't cut it. Maybe the sale of the house will wipe the slate clean of debts. But the days of going to the grocery store and buying whatever she wants is probably over. I asked her once before how much they spend on groceries and she guessed for a family of 5 about $3k/month. She put down in the budget $2k/month on groceries. That's not counting the eating out, starbucks, take out. We've found receipts for an average of $600/month lunch at her husband's club. That's on top of his eating out daily.

I dare not say the truth, but perhaps she had a suspicion that the lifestyle they were leading was way more than $200k/year. That the spending was so over the top, but she thought they were making enough to cover it. Yes she was saving for retirement but she made much less money. I really wonder how she had no idea they were living an unsustainable lifestyle. Or maybe he has been burning through his inheritance faster than even he imagined.

I don't know but the unpleasantness of the money situation I think will be hard. I can't even fathom how hard this fall will be. Tougher still to realize that he dug them into a deep hole and if not for the hole she might have a chance. I know BK seems irresponsible, but I wonder if it's not the best option in this case? How do you live on a $50k salary when you've been used to 5x that or more?

We'll see how this all plays out. But it turns out that more people than you can imagine are living lifestyles they can't afford. I never dreamed that she would be one of those people.

Shopping my rate

May 4th, 2017 at 04:24 pm

I spent yesterday shopping around for the best deal and rate. So what did I end up with and how? Well my agent said we could shop the rate but had to the use the lender she suggested because the seller's would feel betrayed. They had talked to our lender and asked questions. But at the end of the day I said no way. I said if he can't match the deal we're moving on.

I got from Capital One no fees everything waived from their end. Also $1300 towards 3rd party fees like title insurance, appraisal, deed, sales tax, etc. Finally $500 for having a checking/savings account. Of course the rate we locked was 3% for 7/1 Arm. Very solid deal.

Chase initially offered me $995 in fees, 3.25% 7/1 Arm. Of course I said no go too much in fees around $2800 which is a lot of money and .25% which on our loan was around $125/month. Over the life of the loan that's substantial since it's $1500/year. No go. I would have walked over the interest rate a loan but to add in $2800 in fees I wasn't about to tolerate it and the seller's could try to get out of our contract.

Chase agreed to all terms and matched it. They agreed to 3%, $0 fees, and $1300 towards 3rd party fees. I also got $595 for having a checking with them, I now need to open one to get that final bonus. So I got what I wanted.

Don't let people push you around. Further my DH has/had no idea. Everyone who thinks women are the ones who are dependent are crazy. Even my realtor called me a shark and said it's really unusual for a stay at home mom to do the financials. Really? If anything I almost think a stay at home should be more involved because we have the time to do it.

Next up? Getting our home insurance in place. Deciding how to approach our landlord to get out of our lease early by a month. If not we'll eat the cost.

i didn't use redfin

May 3rd, 2017 at 04:37 pm

I didn't use a redfin broker. If I had I'd get back 15% of the buying commission 3%. Of course I could have negotiated with a full price broker more say 2% of purchase price or at least 1%. With redfin I'd have gotten back $5500 or so. My current realtor offered us a rebate of $4000. I went with the full service realtor and I have to say I am satisfied.

I'm happy because I feel I got my money's worth using someone who knew the market and could explain the nuances of location. I had been looking for a long time and found someone who sold a lot and for a long time the area I was interested in. I also think she helped us win the home over using a redfin agent. I think she better strategized and wrote a better offer. You are probably sighing going really?

No seriously we beat out someone by $7500 who waived their financing contingency and their inspection contingency. We did a pre-inspection before our offer and we didn't waive our finance contigency or appraisal clause. LOL. The competing offer did. So I think I paid for someone to help me buy a house in the market we're in but minimize our risk. We still won when other people are doing things like no pre-inspection and no finance contingency. Our agent said she never does without finance contingency because anyone can lose a job and though she's sold for 30 years and it's only happened once during a home purchase it can easily happen. And she thinks she can usually win without it.

Besides since I got to see the competing offer they qualified like we did up to the same approximate number, but had way less money to put down barely 10%. We didn't strike our finance contingency/low appraisal but had offered up 40% cash down. I'm going to guess it was a hard decision since our offers were pretty much a wash. They could easily lose $7500 in a low appraisal. But I would have picked us too even with the finance contingency since the other offer had only 10% down even though they were risking the low appraisal and no finance contingency. Maybe also the banks we went with Chase and they were using So-fi which uses a lot of company stock in loan requirements.

FWIW it's 23% of our base, the bank because of DH's 1 year lack of income wouldn't allow us to borrow up to other people's limits. They wouldn't consider his bonuses so our income is solely on base salary. Considering 1/3 of his income (potentially more) is bonus we're pretty comfortable. Plus his base is less than what we were making in 2015 when due to his 10 year tenure at his job we were making "more" money with base and bonus so if we had applied for a mortgage we'd have qualified to borrow more.

So the way we look at it, we get a nice rental for a few years. We'll sit tight and see if the perfect home comes up and in 12 months they'll start counting all his base and bonus income. After which we plan on banking all his bonus anyway. So we are putting less money 20% down than we made on our last house but decided we're investing the rest. Although we are talking about using some cash to renovate the bottom floor. We can put down 20% cash DP, 1 year EF (will keep 6 months), and invest the rest. If we had bought up to the top of what they lent us now we'd still be under 30% but our cash would be capped out at 6 month EF. So I guess it's for the best.

I'll figure out what the cost of renovating is and then decide. I'm a lot more relaxed knowing how much play we have financially. We're closer to where we were when we last left our mortgage at 23% PITI. Of course because of our deductions it's closer to 50% of our monthly take home after savings. But this should be an interesting ride.

Accepted offer

May 3rd, 2017 at 03:51 am

Our offer was accepted on the house. I am very excited. It's a bit surreal. So did we compromise? A LOT. Was it worth it? I hope so. Am I happy? Yes. Nothing in life is perfect. We just have to make the best decision we can with the information at hand.

Last week we made an offer on another home for the exact same price. This week it was accepted on a much smaller home. How much smaller? The house last week was 3500 sq ft with every detail we wanted in a house. 4 bedrooms, playroom, den, 3 car garage, small yard and relatively new 2004. But the house we bought? Amazing location, 2040 sq ft, 3 bedrooms, 1966 built, and great yard and deck. Truthfully?

We compromised on the house. The house is a little bigger than what we live in. It lacks a lot of what we wanted including the fourth bedroom and or den. We have a flex space that can be a playroom for the kids. We have to renovate the downstairs and fix the windows, ceiling, and walls. But I love the character. Maybe it's a mistake.

But the plan is to live in the neighborhood we love and watch for the right house to pop up. We were looking at rentals anyway in this location and this popped up. So we decided to jump on it.

Cross your fingers it closes cleanly.

$5k gift

May 2nd, 2017 at 04:01 am

I'm pretty sure I'm gifting a friend $5k. I haven't discussed this with my DH and I'm not sure how to bring it up. I'm not even sure when. I've never before kept a secret from DH but this is not exactly my secret to share but at the same time it's our money.

It's a $5k retainer for a divorce lawyer for a friend. NO there will be absolutely no reconciliation. There is no possibility of it. The reason is because she has no money. They have money as a couple. But she works part-time and the money goes into the joint account. She can swipe her debit card and pay for stuff but no way can she siphon off $5k by thursday and pay the lawyer to be retained.

She found out on Saturday that he's been paying for escorts for years. It's why he tells her they have no money. She found out last week because she tested positive for HPV. She is going in to test for other STDs and to test for cancer from HPV. A supposedly devoted father and family man? This is my 3rd friend this year getting divorced. The others have separated and it's mutual. She's the only one who is going to slam him with the divorce out of the "blue". Hence the money for retainer is needed.

They have 3 kids and are 6 months shy of their 10th wedding anniversary. She's never snooped on his phone when she found his old phone and looked. There is no going back. She's done but she can't tell him yet. He's too much of a liar and he's been siphoning off money from them into other accounts she didn't know about.

He also hasn't filed taxes and she has no idea about the real truth of their financial status. She acknowledges this is all her fault. She didn't take an active part in their finances. She trusted him. A boy she knew from high school. Yes they meet 10 years later and dated and got married. She'll be 40 in September so maybe it's a good time for a new leaf.

I can't tell DH because they are our couple friends. I am having a hard time swallowing that I need to pretend everything is great and invite them over. I can't tell DH because I don't want him to have to pretend to get along.

This is eye opening in so many ways. Financial for sure. I feel a bit like cynical now because I always ask friends especially after doing people's taxes do you know how much money you have? And I have yet to meet a female friend working or not who has been able to answer my question. I have yet to meet someone who knows who holds their mortgage. Or how much they have in savings and which bank accounts they have.

I realize the women reading this blog and on the forum are extremely financially astute. They are the money managers in the family. But is it really such a small percentage of women who really know what is going on? I wonder if I could ever relinquish that much control to my DH?

Could you? Did you? Would you? Is it possible to not be the money manager and still be aware?