Do I think it will help me? Not really.

But there’s always hope!

Thirty minutes later, he left to purchase parts.

Thirty minutes after that, he returned to install the parts.

An hour after that…

I heard the furnace exhale hot air into our living room.

Woo Hoo! No furnace replacement necessary!

The bill? $179.93.

We were ecstatic about the cost. Much less than we expected. As I reviewed the bill after the repair man left, I noticed his hourly rate – $75. Three times what hubby charges for side work.

Yes, the guy was worth it and I was happy to pay but now all hubby and I can think is…

Hubby doesn’t charge nearly enough. No wonder he’s so busy all the time! We’ll have to review his 2012 prices.

Our neighbor recommended his friend to fix the furnace and we are waiting for a return call.

I have a plan of action. If the heater fix is less than a couple hundred dollars, we’ll pay cash to fix it now. More than that? We pay off our debt next month, pile on the blankets, thank the Lord we live in a moderate climate, and save money to repair it next season.

I refuse to get knocked off course.

In between my cold sweats, hubby was on the phone. Turns out, his cousin is an HVAC installation guy and he owed him one for some plumbing work my husband did a few months ago.

Hubby’s cousin has been in the furnace closet for two hours now.

Whirrr. Click. Whirrrr. Click. Stomp. Slam. Whirrr. Click. Mumble. Mumble. Gzzzzrrrr.

Apparently ‘install’ guys aren’t the same as ‘repair/maintenance’ guys.

I’m sitting in our office, glass of cheap wine firmly in hand, praying the next two hours go better than the last two.

Our budget depends on it.

No. I’m not superstitious.

Or…

I should say, I wasn’t superstitious.

That was before the furnace and garage door broke. The only two things my husband can’t fix himself. Cha-Ching!

Sigh.

We’re still looking good for a February payoff, but it will be a while before we can save our full emergency fund. I guess hubby will have to wait another few months before I can spring to replace that Charger oven mitt.

Gotta give them credit for reading my mind.

Turns out, you should take a look at your internet usage. Some cable companies are introducing limits AND extremely high usage could be a sign of unauthorized usage on your system. Uh Oh! So, being a natural optimist (Haaaaa ha ha ha ha), I ran to my computer, immediately assuming my usage would be high because some wacko had hacked in. A few seconds later, the usage popped up.

2 gigs.

No, not 2 gigs a day or 2 gigs in a week. I’ve used 2 gigs this month. And I’m pretty sure both those gigs are from downloading finance podcasts from iTunes. So much for my hacker. But it’s good to check every once in a while and remember to make sure my firewall is protecting me.

Naturally, I became fascinated with other utilities that let me live out my OCD *er* I mean, ‘monitor my usage to save money’.

Our water company offers ways for you to see how you compare to the average user. Their software allows me to monitor my water usage hour by hour so I can tell if I have a water guzzling washer or if my slab is leaking and I don’t know it.

My electric company uses ‘Smart Meters’ so I can monitor by the minute if I choose. They will also help you figure out where your energy drains are coming from. Old TVs? Energy sucking light bulbs?

OK, so maybe this new found power won’t help free up any time, but it will help cut down my utilities by zeroing in on where the biggest power/water/internet abusers are. And for all the sweet hubby’s out there, maybe you can convince your wife that the old tv is sucking all the power and you could save money if you bought a fancy flat screen.

Or not.

Since our debt is nearly gone, we are looking to save a healthy emergency fund, THEN and only then, focus on upgrading our home.

Anyone use solar as a way to save cash and live frugally?

Oh.

So, I bit the bullet and bought one on sale.

I turned it on full blast and waited for the house to burn down and…

nothing.

I put my hand on the front, thinking surely I’d prove you all wrong and take a photo of my burned hand and…

it was barely warm to the touch.

I kicked the thing over, assuming the carpet would ignite into flames and…

the heater shut off automatically.

Turns out, you were all right. Space heaters have come a LONG way in the last 30+ years. I carefully turned it on, cleared a 10 foot radius around it of anything even remotely flammable, and crawled into bed. I woke up about every 15 minutes fearful the house was on fire but… um, yeah, it wasn’t.

In the morning, the glorious warmth of 65 degrees greeted us. Getting out of bed is much easier when you don’t have to wear a coat to do it.

Thanks for all the help!

A few days later, there were more. I caught about 10 or so scouting my pantry. They didn’t congregate. They weren’t crawling in any specific direction, just searching for good snacks.

Since I cleaned our pantry a few months ago and saw the amount of food I was wasting, I hardly buy anything. Grocery shopping is organized and limited to items on my list. There are no snacks. No chips. No cookies. Nothing but canned goods and tightly sealed bags of baking supplies.

In the past, when I caught the scouting ants, I knew I was in for it. I’d have to throw away food and spray pest killer.

Um. Not this time.

Apparently there is so little food in my house, the ants called it a day and moved out this morning. On to greener pastures and fuller pantries I guess.

Who knew living frugal would annoy the ant population?

No, I’m not talking about Christmas spending, I’m talking about the electric/gas/oil costs of cold weather!!

San Diego had its first cold snap this weekend. Each morning, I woke up and checked the thermometer, shivering as I saw it hovering in the low 60’s – INSIDE my house. We’ve been insulating the house one wall at a time as money permits, but a good portion of our home has no insulation in the walls. Normally, hubby and I throw on sweatpants and a few extra blankets on the bed but that’s not an option this year with a newborn in the house. We have central heating but every time I turn it on, I swear I hear ‘cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching’ rather than the heat fan.

The upsetting part is, we only need one room heated at night. We close the vents to the other rooms but it’s not effective. I’m terrified to run a space heater while we sleep and we don’t have a fireplace.

How do you keep warm without spending a fortune?

I don’t know if my father didn’t realize how HUGE the trees would get or if he simply didn’t think he’d still be living in the home 30 years later, but they took over the front yard. He was forced to cut them down one by one as snow storms threatened to push them onto the house but two remained.

One of the trees was leaning precariously toward the house and would unlikely survive another winter season. My father is stashing cash for his start-up and couldn’t spend the money on a tree service so my husband and brothers decided they’d take the task on.

Not realizing my husband was planning on flirting with danger, I didn’t activate his disability insurance policy. We’ve been shopping around and haven’t nailed one down yet. Eek. I was out shooting photos and shouting, ‘Please don’t get hurt! We’ve got NO INSURANCE!!!’

Remarkably they got the tree down without injury (this proves there IS a God) and my parents have enough firewood to take them into 2020.

but this sure would be nice.

Ha.

Apparently motherhood makes you totally delusional.

Debra Poindexter (yup, that’s what she said her name was), called to sell me a B of A insurance policy for my home appliances. Sure, she didn’t have a huge chance considering all the appliances in my home are about 20 years old, but the fact that she was selling for B of A killed any chance at all.

Midway through her pitch, I interrupted and said, ‘B of A holds my home mortgage. Considering the horrid level of customer service I’ve had for the past 4 years, there’s a better chance of… well… there’s a better chance of pretty much everything happening before I bought a policy from you folks. Don’t take it personally, but you work for a miserable company.’

Silence.

‘But have a wonderful day. I really wish you personally the best. We won’t go into what I wish for B of A’ I said.

Then she hung up on me.

What?!? I was being nice!

Obviously, this was before we decided to become debt free.

Midway through the project, my husband asked what I thought about replumbing the whole house. He was concerned about the age of the house (over 50 years) and, in his experience, slab leaks from plumbing failures tend to be very expensive.

I didn’t want to do it. I felt like our credit card had been exercised enough with the remodel. He persisted and I gave in. We have all new plumbing in our home.

Last Wednesday, my mother called. They have a slab leak at their house.

The water crept across the carpeting, into walls, waffled through furniture, and up through bookcases.

My husband has been working to replumb their home and has had to cut open lots, and lots, and lots of holes in the walls and ceilings. I went to visit and felt like I was standing in the middle of a cube of Swiss cheese.

Of course this comes at a bad time for my parents. My father is working diligently to start his own business and money is tight. It would have been nice if they had been able to pick a better time for a home disaster like we were able to do.

Ugh.

I hate saying this…

but hubby was right. He saved us a fortune.

No, he’s not like me. He doesn’t rub it in – but he’s got a sparkly little glint in his eye today.

A few nights ago, my brother was trying to clear a drain when my husband wasn’t home and he ended up pushing the clog from his bathroom shower drain over to the connecting pipe with our shower drain. When I went to take a shower, it quickly turned into standing water.

Gross.

My husband came home, mumbled something about plumbing work being left to plumbers, and attempted to fix the problem. Realizing the clog was a tough one, he called a co-worker to borrow a drain snake to clear the lines.

Last night, after what sounded like quite the wrestling match, my husband walked into the kitchen and asked me to grab my camera.

‘Why?’ I asked.

‘I figured you could take a photo of our shower and talk about saving money by doing work yourself’ he said proudly.

‘By taking a photo of the shower drain? I can’t really express a clear shower drain in a photo though’ I responded.

‘No hon. Take a photo of the mess I made!’ he said while smiling, walking me to the bathroom.

I walked through the door and gasped as I looked at the black tar mess with stringy hair that covered our shower, the walls, and the floor.

I looked at my husband, who had a black streak of who knows what across his forehead, and smiled.

I love him. I really do. But he doesn’t have a good understanding of the concept that people have VERY different tolerances of plumbing grossness than he does.

Needless to say, I did not take a photo.

But I promised to share the importance of doing work yourself… or…

do what I did and marry a plumber. It’s easier.

No, I’m not going to get my hopes up and no, I’m not going to spend hours chasing paperwork they will lose over and over, but I guess we’ll see what happens?

Weird.

I read about a crazy new trend called ‘Urban Sharecropping’ a few months ago. Urban sharecropping is, ‘homeowners who lack free time or gardening skills are teaming up with would-be farmers who lack backyards. Around the country, a new crop of match-makers are helping the two groups find each other and make arrangements that enable both sides to share resources and grow their own food’ according to the Wall Street Journal.

I thought this sounded like a great way to develop my large backyard. I’d look for a farmer needing space and graciously offer my backyard.

The problem?

LOTS of people in San Diego have large yards and we aren’t exactly known for our plethora of farmers – not ones that grow legal plants anyway.

I checked out Urban Garden Share, the site recommended in the Wall Street Journal article, but alas, the closest city with listings is in Washington. The daily commute needed for watering may be a touch too far.

I found another article with more helpful links and it said, ‘Garden-sharing remains relatively new but there are signs that it’s becoming more mainstream. The City of Santa Monica recently set up a municipal garden-sharing site in an attempt to alleviate its 200-person long wait list for community gardens. “I don’t know why every city doesn’t implement something like this,” Botsman told me. “It’s a no brainer. It’s low-cost and you can lay it on to any existing social network.”’

County of San Diego? No dice. Especially in my area of town where most yards are a half an acre.

I might not have found my solution but maybe you can get a farmer, or a plot of land, this spring.

Best of luck!

“I’m staring at an exact copy of the information I sent. The 2009 taxes were in there.” I replied.

“Well mam, I can only tell you what I see” he said annoyed. “Also, the paycheck stubs you submitted were from September. That’s too old.”

“That’s because I submitted the application in SEPTEMBER. They were current when I sent them” I said angrily.

“No underwriter will accept old stubs and missing tax information. You’re going to have to resubmit everything” he said coolly.

“Spend hours collecting and packaging information only to have you lose it and have to retry in three months?” I asked.

“Looks that way doesn’t it” he responded.

I get it.

I finally get it.

I understand why people get so fed up, they walk away. I get why they rip apart their homes when they leave. I get why our neighbor set his house on fire when he was forced to leave. I get why there is so much anger.

We started this process a year and a half ago and I’m still sitting firmly on square one.

I have to admit, I picked up the phone immediately after slamming it down on Bank of America and dialed our bank. I was planning on closing our mortgage checking account to simply get the attention of this awful, awful bank. Miss a payment? Or two? Or ten? Yeah, maybe they’d actually get a hint that this fight has just begun and now I’m willing to play dirty.

About 20 seconds into listening to a particularly bad rendition of a Yanni song, I hung up.

Who am I kidding? As much as I dislike them and wish ill on them as a company, I refuse to change who I am. They may be the biggest group of underhanded dirty liars, but I’m not.

Thank you Bank of America for making me miserable. Thank you for reminding me that I can’t stand being under your thumb. Thank you for inspiring me to be debt free including the mortgage because every minute with you in my life is too long.

I mailed the ‘Oops we’re sorry, you actually do qualify for the program and we lied to you for ten months’ paperwork they requested back in September. You may have to sit down for this shocking bit of information…

They haven’t replied.

I called them this afternoon. After five transfers, I was finally connected to the ‘Status Queue Home Retention’ line. He said, ‘It’s been more than 60 days. I’m not sure why you haven’t been assigned a staff member yet.’

I wanted to ask, ‘Maybe it’s because I haven’t called before now and you guys never get moving until someone complains?’

He ‘forwarded my application to his supervisor’ (if you believe that, I’ve got ocean front property in Arizona to sell you) and asked me to call back in a few weeks for another status update.

Funny, this is exactly the same process I went through last October. I’ll hold on until January and then make an attempt to try out the HARP program recommended by a kind reader.

Isn’t the definition of insanity – someone who repeatedly does the same thing and expects a different result?

When it came to the house sitter debacle, my husband was furious. When we had to purchase the cleaning supplies and replacement curtains, he mumbled a lot under his breath while pulling out the debit card.

Hours passed and he was still angry. I stared at him dumbfounded and wondered what he was going to do. Demand repayment for supplies? Demand she replace the floors? Demand she replace the ruined furniture?

He stayed angry for a record 29 hours. During those 29 hours, he carefully calculated the damages and saved the receipts from the purchases. While he wasn’t willing to demand she replace the floors or the furniture, he was adamant my brother pay the cleaning bill since my brother insisted we not pursue anything with my sister-in-law’s sister.

I typed out my brother’s rent bill and asked my husband for the receipts so I could add the cleaning bill to his rent bill.

Do you want to know how I figured out the exact 29 hour time frame of my husband’s anger?

He went to the kitchen, grabbed the receipts, stared at them, and then said, ‘You know what hon, it’s not worth the fight.’ He threw the receipts in the trash and went back outside to rake the lawn.

That’s the end of it.

We have to replace our couches, it’s not an option to leave them. The stains are permanent. We’ve decided to do the best we can and try to live with it until next summer when we pay off all our debt and after we’ve saved some cash.

The house still smells and I get angry every time I sit on the couch. I could fight with my husband over it but I’m not willing to make the mess even bigger.

The only small victory is that we didn’t pay her. Of course, the victory was promptly smashed when my brother told me he paid her anyway.

She will never learn a lesson. I learned mine.

Of course… I’m not sure my mother and sister are as willing to move on. My brother may have to hide from them for the rest of his life.

I had long since gone to bed – he stopped appreciating my ‘help’ on plumbing projects years ago – when he crawled in sometime after 1am. He rubbed my arm, told me the water heater wasn’t fixable, and fell asleep.

Telling me I have to dive into my already nearly depleted emergency fund (more on that later) at bedtime is the equivalent to telling a 7 year old there are monsters under the bed – but worse.

I didn’t sleep a wink.

This week should be interesting… Will this be the first time we have more month than money?

First we had the damage done by our house sitter (update on that later), now we have a fickle water heater.

Our water heater has started leaking an excessive amount of water. If I lived in Kansas, perhaps leaking water wouldn’t be a problem – but I live in California. Forget oil, water is our liquid gold.

My plumber husband has been out in the garage for the last hour and a half trying to save our 5 year old water heater. All I keep hearing is, ‘I’ll get six more years out of you if it kills me!!’

I stay quiet and make a waterless dinner while he slams tools and torches the pipes. Halfway through cooking, he opened the garage door into the kitchen and shouted, ‘It’s a lot more fun to do this while you are getting PAID for it!’ then disappeared again.

We are $75 in the hole so far but I all I can think is…

Thank God I married a plumber – albeit a temporarily grouchy plumber.

We were planning to pay my husband’s brother to housesit while we were gone in Italy. He’s responsible and trustworthy and I couldn’t think of a better person to trust with my dear pups. My sister-in-law asked if her sister could housesit because she really wanted a break from her parents.

That should have tipped me off.

Did I mention she’s 19?

Anyway, we arrived home yesterday and our house had a pretty nasty scent. I assumed it was because it was closed and locked tight and that ‘scent’ was simply stale air. We noticed our back window was broken out but I hoped she had a good story as to why it was broken.

The next morning, I woke up and really saw the state our house was in through clear, non-27 hour flight, eyes.

The curtains covering our back sliding glass door were soaked in urine. The urine stains were so bad, we had to throw the curtains away. It had long since dried but the flooring was curled from what had been the area the dogs had relieved themselves in.

Near the front door, the recliner stunk of urine. Obviously the dogs had used this area regularly as well – the floor is destroyed and warping upward.

Near the entertainment unit, the wood flooring is warped and permanently destroyed from standing dog urine.

I sat on the couch and cried… then smelled the couch…….

The dogs urinated so frequently on the couch it stained the back and the seat.

Frustrated and crying, I cleaned the warped floors the best I could and emptied the trash. I opened the door to our California room off the rear of the house and was almost knocked over from the smell. Dog pee and vomit covered the floor. I opened the trash and empty beer bottles and plastic cups nearly filled it. Despite our strict requirement to have no parties, she had one (she fessed up when we called her on it).

My husband and I spent five hours cleaning our house and it still reeks of dog urine. Our dogs haven’t peed in our house since we potty trained years ago but as of now, it looks like they spent two solid weeks locked indoors peeing. We have spent nearly $100 on cleansers that mask urine smells and have to spend another $55 replacing the curtains. We have to custom order the glass for the window (she said my 15 pound dogs broke a window 4 feet off the ground – I say yeah right, sounds more like a drinking game accident) and can’t get a quote less than $100. I haven’t even looked at how much it will cost to replace the flooring near the front door, the rear door, or near the tv because I KNOW I can’t afford it. I drenched the couches in cleanser but have had no luck in making them smell better.

After all this, my brother insists I still pay her.

My mother thinks I should pay her… then send a bill for several hundred dollars in damages.

I don’t want to pay her since she left the dogs left in the house and didn’t care for them but at the same time, I don’t want to start world war III with my brother’s in-laws.

What would you do?

Dave said it was a tight budget but he should be able to survive on it.

‘Are you absolutely kidding me?!?!?’ I shouted as I ran.

I can’t imagine these kinds of outbursts make me popular with the neighbors – nor does it give them any sort of confidence in my sanity… but what else is new?

Without giving away too much about our income or mortgage amount, I’ll just put it this way, my husband and I make less than $6,000 net a month and our payment on the first mortgage alone is more than $2,400 a month. Not only do we survive on this, we reduce debt – and we’ve been doing it for two years.

Forgive me for being callus, but if you can’t survive on $3,600 a month after paying a mortgage, there’s a bigger problem than the mortgage.

BUT, I’m trying to change my paradigm and reduce the judgmental side of my personality. Do you need more than $3,600 to survive after your mortgage is paid? If so, why? (Not counting any medical problems or child care. The guy didn’t have medical problems and didn’t pay for child care)

Murphy’s Law has moved in to our home.

Let’s see, the incident happened nearly three years ago, didn’t happen on my property, and wouldn’t have been prevented by flood lights but…

Sure. Now seems like a great time to demand a change (To be fair, there are 5 watt nightlights brighter than our porch lamp so I can’t exactly fault them for saying we are inadequately lit).

My husband knew how to run the wire and install the fixtures but the $300 price tag for materials pushed us over the edge. We had to…

Dive into our emergency fund.

The whole weekend, as my husband made repeated trips to Lowes, I tried to figure out how we could possibly pay for it without dipping into our emergency cash.

When the job was done, my husband suggested we recycle the stack of cans he had been saving and I thought, ‘Sure. $5 of recycling is going to save us’ but went along anyway to help him sort the bottles and cans.

30 minutes of sorting in 95 degree heat really helped my attitude problem.

How much did we net at the recycling place? $477.85.

How? My husband took the $27.85 earned from recycling and, since neither of us had our wallets, lifted the lid to put it in his truck center console and found a $450 check payment from a side job he was paid for a month and a half ago and forgot about. (Yes, that was a long run-on sentence)

If I wasn’t so happy about putting it back into our emergency fund, I probably would have smacked him for forgetting about it in the first place.

Emergency floodlights and part of the vet bills… covered. Whew!

Each year, the city re-evaluates all reductions and can raise the tax bill if property values have risen. I’ve been nervous over the last two months as the city re-evaluated our home. Our home is not worth any more than it was last year – perhaps it’s worth even less – but when it comes to government and needing money, they usually err in their favor (trust me. I can say this. I’m a government employee and…that’s what we do).

I opened the mail over the weekend and found an official letter from my city. It said…

they have decided my home value is stagnant and have approved another year at the reduced tax rate!

Yes!!!

Well, regardless of your stance on whether it is a moral decision or a financial one, if you plan to default on your mortgage despite the fact that you can pay it…

You better hurry up.

Fannie Mae is taking steps to thwart strategic defaulting.

Walk away? Sure. Want to buy a house in the next SEVEN years? No longer an option.

I excited that Fannie Mae is as disgusted with strategic defaulting as I am. I love the quote, “Walking away from a mortgage is bad for borrowers and bad for communities and our approach is meant to deter the disturbing trend toward strategic defaulting”

I doubt this action from Fannie Mae alone will work but I’m hoping others will join to curb defaults of homeowners who want out of a bad decision but don’t want to pay the price.

Yay Fannie Mae!

See the article here:

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/jun/23/fannie-mae-to-penalize-homeowners-who-walk-away/

When people hear how far upside-down we are on our home (a common topic in southern California), a good number of them ask… ‘Why don’t you walk away?’

Sunday night, 60 Minutes aired a segment called ‘Walking Away’ about homeowners who can pay their underwater mortgages but choose not to. Nine states forbid banks from chasing other assets, making this process nearly painless.

According to these homeowners, ‘it’s a logical business decision’, ‘it’s legal’, and ‘it’s the right thing to do’.

In fact, there are companies who help you through the process (for a fee of course). One of them is called Youwalkaway.com who says their greatest challenge is convincing people that this decision is not immoral, it’s a business transaction. Homeowners, who can pay their mortgage, live in their homes for free until foreclosure and store up cash for their next big purchase.

Maybe I’m in left field but…

First, I do believe this is a moral decision. I don’t care if I had a lame bank or made a bad deal, I made the decision to take the deal and as long as I am able, I will hold up my end of this nasty bargain.

Second, this is a selfish decision. Sure, these homeowners will save themselves an instant wad of cash… at the expense of their neighbors, their fellow homeowners, and in the end… themselves. One way or another, you and I have to pay for those losses.

Third, no one learns a lesson when there is no loss. The show talked about people storing up cash and buying more things. If you don’t suffer the loss, you simply can’t learn from the lesson and you will make the same stupid mistakes over and over again.

We’ve learned that when people ask about our underwater status, we smile and say ‘Eh, we’re not concerned. We’re staying for the long term and don’t keep track.’

We made a BAD, BAD decision and it’s a lesson we will pay for 125,000 times but I certainly don’t expect others to foot my bill.

We decided to build the fence with the lumber faced horizontally rather than vertically to reduce waste. We used every inch of lumber we bought!

We’re done with home improvement… for now anyway.

It creaked. It groaned. It fell. I cried.

We have a couple options:

a. We can leave the fence broken, give away our dogs, and hope nothing larger than a hippo wants in or out of our yard.

b. We can do yet another band-aid fix – i.e. buy more chicken wire, bazooka bubble gum, and a load of hope and prayer.

c. We can construct what I consider a perfectly acceptable but perhaps not aesthetically pleasing Preskool bubbly plastic play gate in a rainbow of colors available at garage sales everywhere.

Or

d. We can build a real fence.

Now is not a good time for this to happen (when is?). My husband started his job on Tuesday and won’t receive a paycheck until next week. Fortunately, those of us who are paid bi-weekly receive three paychecks in one month two times per year. January just happens to be my three paycheck month.

Sniff. Goodbye extra car payment.

We decided to build a new fence with my third check. Over the last three years, we could have paid for a new fence several times over but never seemed to have enough to do anything more than band-aid fix after band-aid fix. My husband is constructing the fence and stringing it with power so we can add lighting in the future. Looking at the perfectly dug trenches in our back yard, it appears as though I am haunted by a 170 pound gopher who looks a lot like my husband.

It’s time to stretch ourselves. I’m tired of continuing to make bad temporary financial decisions.

When I call Bank of America, they never know where to transfer me and my call is often magically ‘dropped’. We never received paper statements and our online statements have been a nightmare. Other than a statement of monthly payments, no other information was made available. I had no idea if or when our property taxes or mortgage insurance where paid and I could never find our principal balance. I called to ask why our mortgage payment jumped $150 a month and the best answer they ever offered was ‘I don’t know. Taxes maybe?’

Bank of America finally listed my full account information online this month.

Holy. Cow.

First, we were not notified that the cost of our homeowners insurance jumped by 50%. Call me crazy, but that’s kinda something I’d like to know.

Second, the extra money we’ve been paying on our principal balance the past two and half years has been offset by a reduction of our monthly payment.

This is hard to explain, but it’s sneaky by Bank of America none the less. We pay $20 extra per month on our second mortgage through Wells Fargo. They apply the $20 toward our principal balance but keep our payment the same. Since our principle balance is reduced and our payments are the same, our $20 is stretched to around $50-$75. Our $20 a month to Wells Fargo has paid off around $3,000 of mortgage debt instead of $720.

Bank of America has taken the $20 we designated toward principal and reduced our balance by exactly $20. Then, since our principal balance is reduced, they reduce our monthly payment. Unlike our loan with Wells Fargo, Bank of America has made it so we aren’t shaving any time off the life of our loan and we’re saving no money. Very Sneaky.

Realistically, I should have pushed harder for the information from Bank of America and demanded an explanation of the $150 hike. I assumed it was all from the recent property tax hikes, and most of it was, but I could have saved money by knowing there were other reasons behind the higher monthly payment. And, I would have liked to transfer the $20 I’m spending for no benefit at Bank of America and switched it to our Wells Fargo account.

I assumed my mortgage was the one payment I didn’t have to monitor closely – but I was really, really wrong.

Thank you Bank of America for making me your babysitter.

“I have good news!” he said with delight.

Did he get a job? Did he find a thousand dollars in change while cleaning the couch cushions? I thought.

“The neighbor rented an industrial size rototiller and if I help him at his house, he’ll bring it over here and we can use it! We can dig up the backyard!” he said.

It has become painfully obvious that my husband and I have differing meanings of ‘good news’.

In his defense, we have wanted to tear apart our backyard for months but we haven’t had the time or the money for a giant rototiller.

I don’t know how you spent your weekend but my hours passed painfully. I followed my husband with a shovel and a water hose while he smiled with glee pushing the manliest piece of machinery our yard has seen. The layer of dust is so thick on my scalp, I’m on wash number two and I can still do a good impression of Pig Pen from Charlie Brown. I may have ‘accidentally’ sprayed my husband’s face with water a few times out of sheer spite but it failed to wipe off his giddy look.

Next weekend our neighbor is renting a cement mixer… and has made the same offer. My husband said, “Sweetheart! We can finally widen our driveway – for FREE!! All it will take is a little bit of elbow grease!”

How is it that in less than a week, the Swine Flu is suddenly looking like a good way to spend Thanksgiving weekend?

The big question…

How long can we hold on without my husband’s job?

Our initial numbers (without unemployment benefits) put us at 8 weeks. Our reductions to debt paired with our cash in savings and unemployment benefits put us at…

9 months.

Had this happened before we had taken control… had this happened before we made the decision to live below our means and reduce debt… we would have made it through a month, maybe two tops.

But now, we’re looking at 9 safe months. 9 months to find a job before things get hairy. Sure we won’t make progress other than minimums and we certainly won’t eat anything other than Ramen noodles but, we can hold on.

I have four words to say –

Thank. You. Dave. Ramsey.

1 – If you are hoping for a huge change… this is not the answer. Not all changes are permanent and/or large. Some adjustments may last as little as 3 months.

2 – Loan modifications are not quick. If you can’t wait the standard 9 weeks for the review of your file and another 5-9 weeks for paperwork processing, you don’t have enough time and you may want to move forward with other options like a short sale or foreclosure.

3 – Give an accurate listing of all your expenses. Don’t exaggerate but don’t minimize either. Have a good understanding of exactly how much you are paying. Keep this information available for when you call the bank.

4 – You will be rejected if you have recently made large purchases or if your credit score is low. You shouldn’t be making large purchases anyway so I can’t say as if I blame the banks for this stipulation.

5 – If you have a second mortgage with another lender, they will likely require you to get approved for the Making Home Affordable Program on your first loan before they will consider a change to your second mortgage. If you are accepted for the program on your first loan, it’s easy to submit the same paperwork for your second mortgage.

6 – This should not be your only option. It’s worth a try, but don’t fool yourself into thinking this will solve your problems.

7 – If your home is not a Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac mortgage, this program does not apply to you… BUT some lenders are still willing to modify other types of loans.

8 – This is a voluntary program. No one HAS to help you. Sure it’s good business sense to lessen foreclosures on the banks part, but if you are a problem child, don’t expect any help. Banks don’t want to keep you as a customer anyway. Be kind, courteous, and polite even if you are frustrated.

According to the bank’s calculations, my husband and I qualify. We are now in the first 9 week waiting period while they review our files. We have stellar credit scores and we haven’t made large purchases in a long time. We are good candidates for an interest rate reduction from the over 7% it is currently, down to the market rates of 5-6%.

Do I really think it will really happen?

No. But it’s worth a try.

and applying for the Making Home Affordable program.

Yesterday, I left work early and made THE call. My call started at 5:07 p.m. and ended at 5:57 p.m.

I called the Making Home Affordable number on my Bank of America mortgage website and waited 17 minutes on hold. Someone answered and transferred my call since my mortgage used to be a Countrywide mortgage and they had a separate division.

I’m fairly certain they routed my call around the world because really, what else can explain the 24 minute hold time and the gentleman who sounded like had lunch in Bangladesh. He asked for my name, account number, checked my account, thanked me for paying on time, and told me I would be transferred yet again to a representative. 9 minutes later, a message said, ‘Our office is now closed. Please call back another time.’

I would give you advice on dealing with the Making Home Affordable program but since I didn’t talk to anyone, I will tell you this… you need more than an hour.

Dear Bank of America… I had far better things to do than spend 50 minutes of my life listening to Kenny G. and the recorded reminder that someone will be with me shortly. Obviously you and I have VERY different definitions of ‘shortly’ AND, I had to drink three glasses of Chianti just to keep my ears from bleeding.
Ugh. Kenny G.

I’ll let you know how it goes… if I ever get through.

Our realtor praised the beauty of the townhouse until he spotted… termite dust in the corner.

A LOT of termite dust. And the more we walked around, the more we found. Those hardwood floors showcased the busy work of those nasty bugs.

The place was loaded – so our realtor recommended we move on. I had wanted the townhome badly and was heartbroken at the sight of that nasty termite residue.

Fast forward three years to two mornings ago. I had flipped my head upside down while blow drying my curly mess and was staring at my bathroom floor thinking a nice mop job would go a long way when suddenly I spotted IT. IT was a pile of termite dust.

I dropped my blow-dryer – and screamed.

I looked heavenward and said, ‘Gee thanks Lord. As if I don’t have enough to worry about – job loss, money, etc. You send me pestilence?!?!’

I ranted and raved for three days. I cried. I told Chris that if we didn’t lose our house to job loss, we’d lose it to the dang termites that we can’t even afford to eradicate.

Then this morning, I dropped my sweater on our driveway. I bent to pick it up and noticed termite residue on the asphalt. As I start to scream in anger, the wind blew and ‘termite dust’ tickled across my face and into my hands.

Turns out, our tree is shedding tiny bits thanks to the sudden turn in the weather. The ‘termite dust’ is actually our tree sneezing into our bathroom window located directly under it and across our yard.

So. Um. Sorry for the yelling Lord. And, um, if it’s not too much of a bother, could you keep the real termites away?

I left to housesit for a co-worker and came home to …

My husband explained that he had discovered mold under the floor and in the walls and decided to replace everything to be safe.

So why… why… why… did I assume that when we intended to insulate the separation closet wall in a 50 year old house, that we would simply be able to insulate the closet wall?

This is our spare bedroom as of today…

A few days ago, my husband asked if he could insulate all four walls. We both agreed that as long as we had one wall down, we should take down the remaining three walls, fix the electrical, and fix the phone line. Total tab so far? $142. I am so very thankful to be married to a talented construction man.

When making decisions like these, it’s hard not to want to put it off until later or take the easy way out. What we constantly have to consider is: Is this going to cost more later if avoided?

My nearly $200 electric bill tells me… I should have done this two years ago.

The good news? Energy improvements, including insulation, are tax deductable. Yes!

Want more info? Go to: energystar.gov/taxcredits

I’m fortunate to be married to a hardworking construction genius who can do the work himself (plus, my husband looks irresistible in safety goggles). We only have to pay for the materials which should run about $100.

Why are we insulating? Our house was built in the 1950’s and no insulation was used on any interior or exterior walls. Our heating and cooling bills are much higher than they need to be. The initial expense of the upgrade will be quickly paid for in lower electric bills plus, it’s better for the environment. And… our new roommates are newlyweds – that’s reason enough in itself.

It always seems like when we have an opportunity to get ahead, the necessities of life burn through the cash. Between tuition costs, new dog vet bills, and the two weddings, we have had to pony up more than $3,000 in the last two months.

These expenses would have buried us in the past, but careful planning and frugal spending have kept our heads above water.

Then, he casually mentioned that the guests were old high school buddies and this was really important to him.

On the inside, our home is nice. On the outside… well, let’s just say we usually wait until the sun has set and our guests have had a glass or two (preferably three) of Chardonnay. We can’t afford landscaping so our yard is a grouping of well mowed weeds and raked dirt piles.

Before we went on this recovery from debt diet, we had planned to landscape our backyard and remodel our 50 year old kitchen. Take out another loan – it would have been so easy. But now, we’re living within our means and paying off debt. It will likely be another 5 years before we can pay cash.

It’s hard to deal with the pressures of keeping up with our peers. It’s hard to not feel a little embarrassed at our less than presentable yard (though to be fair, his friends had nothing but nice things to say).

Sometimes it’s hard not to feel frustrated but…

It’s not hard to feel relief from the lifting debt. Seeing we’re only about a year away from being debt free is like breathing again.

After a long wait, I finally received a letter in the mail approving my appeal. We will be receiving a check for our over payment in the amount of…

$1,100

AND, we will be paying less next year, saving nearly $100 a month.

Check into whether or not your city has the option of property tax assessed value appeals. Don’t pay a company to do it for you! You can do it yourself!

It’s worth it!!

I hate our couches and I think they are ugly.

This week, my husband did what good husbands do – he attempted to solve my dilemma of ‘seating space’. He came home with a behemoth of a recliner and said, ‘Look honey! More seats!! Can you believe someone was going to throw this away?!’

I bit my tongue before a ‘Yes’ slipped out. Instead, I said ‘Wow hon, it’s… wow.’

‘And they have TWO! I’m picking the other one up tomorrow. How awesome is that?! Seats!!’

He happily jumped in the chair and reclined, a big grin spreading across his face.

How could I be mad or ungrateful? He solved my ‘seating dilemma’. Sure I have an ugly blue giant in my living room (err… soon to be two), but I’ve learned to take his efforts for what they are. That ugly chair is a monument to the fact that my husband listens to me and he’s doing his best to make my life easier… without spending a dime.

I’m going to stop whining about the sofas for a while. Who cares about sofas when I have a man like that?

But then again…

This is the same guy whose ‘sound judgment’ created the likes of Junior and Jingle All the Way.

And now, he wants to prolong it for several years through a special statewide ballot?

When I make less, I have to spend less. I can’t demand more money. Why can my state live financially irresponsible in a way that I can’t?

I didn’t give my approval on May 19th. I have to figure out how to survive on my new tiny salary; can’t I demand the same for my taxes?

Is this just a California thing or are you spending a couple extra Benjamin Franklin’s a month on taxes?

My husband loves this system. He turns on the hose for a few minutes while he eats breakfast and turns it off before he leaves for work.

Or should I say… he lovED this system.

I came home from work on Thursday and heard water running. Confused, I headed to the backyard and was greeted with a mass of water and a geyser like spray erupting from our hose bibb.

Turns out, hubby darling forgot to turn the system off and the pressure built until the backflow device exploded. This water mistake will likely add $150 to our water bill.

To make matters worse, my ever so annoying dogs like to kill every living thing in their territory. The new lake in my backyard caused dead, tailless, lizard and mice carcasses to float to the surface. I guess I can be grateful my dogs aren’t bigger. I don’t think I could have held my gag reflex quite so well at the sight of bucktoothed bloated squirrels.

To the state of California – I am sorry for wasting our precious resource. I have decided to make amends and cut my already short 5 minute showers to 3 minutes. So, when you see me… and I stink… remember, I had a choice to assault your nose or assault my wallet. In these desperate economic times, I chose your nose. Please forgive me.

And yes, we learned from this. Thanks to a $30 timer, this won’t happen again.

What was your biggest home accident?

Realizing my planting skills barely rivaled a 4th grader, I sought planter packs designed for small children. I spent $10 on supplies, read the directions (twice), and gently planted the seeds.

According to the seed packets, sprouts would appear in 10 days.

2 weeks passed and there was no green in sight.

After another long week, I finally gave in after day 24 and threw the sproutless pots into the green recycle bin.

A few days ago, while trimming some hedges, I opened the bin, tossed the branches, and noticed something funny…

Every single pot I had angrily thrown away was sprouting with life in my recycle bin. Plants are safer in my trashcan than they are with me.

I can’t afford a landscaper… but my husband is hereby the official garden keeper in this house. I’m sticking to what I’m good at – cleaning!

Stupid Plants.

This is when I made Mistake #1 – Recommending this before actually trying it.

And followed it with Mistake #2 – Not understanding the actual size of ‘1 cubic yard’ of mulch.

$6.00 at your local garden supply will purchase a bag, maybe two at most, of mulch. I didn’t think it was unreasonable to assume $6.00 would stretch to three, maybe four, bags at the greenery.

My husband asked, ‘Two yards will fit in my truck right?’

We made Mistake #3 when not stopping to ponder the question mark at the end of her response, ‘Uhhhhh. I guess?’

Mistake #4 was not asking ‘Why are you starting up a tractor?’

Two tractor loads later, I was shocked at the distance $6 stretched.

For the first few years, we didn’t need the money to clear our bills and we certainly enjoyed using it on dinners out and hotel stays. When I lost my job last year, the rent from our two roommates was vital in keeping our heads above water. Sure, it’s awkward to be nearly 30 and referring to ‘my roommates’, but it’s significantly less awkward than saying, ‘My debt collector’, ‘My bankruptcy attorney’, or ‘My foreclosure officer’.

If times are tough, maybe roommates should be a consideration.

Fortunately we haven’t had a bad experience yet, but this is a very serious decision and should be heavily thought out. We’ve stuck by some clear, yet simple, guidelines:

1.) Write a lease agreement – even if (and especially if) it’s a friend and you only expect them to stay a month or two.
2.) Have very clear rules – i.e. don’t go into my bedroom, don’t eat my food, don’t leave messes in common areas.

Some recommendations for roommates:

Firefighters: Their 24 hour shifts give you some much needed space – plus they are good to have around when you accidentally set something on fire.

Guys with girlfriends: I saw our roommate’s rent check more than I saw him.

Brothers/Sisters: You survived growing up with them, what are a few more years? Plus, it’s easier to yell at family about dirty dishes in the sink.

Some people you should never consider:

Perfect Strangers: I’d rather my family not appear on Dateline talking about how the new roommate seemed so nice… until he killed me.

College Girls: I lived through that once and it was enough. More drama than Jerry Springer.

College Boys: Not a lot of drama but I was over keg stands and frat parties eight years ago.

People with animals and/or children: Who needs pee on the floor and chewed shoes – oh, and animals are destructive too.

Do any of you have roommates? How is it working out?

I excitedly went to our local nursery and realized the 15 bucks I budgeted for landscaping each month would allow me to complete my dream backyard sometime in 2037.

Um. Someone forgot to tell me how expensive plants are.

Disappointed, I went to work and lamented to a co-worker about my landscaping situation. She sweetly offered me some cuttings of her plants – several of which were on the list from the landscape architect. While we were talking, another one of my co-workers walked by and joined the conversation. He suggested I contact local garden clubs including water saving cactus clubs. He happened to be moving and offered to bring in several of his plants that matched my list. Let’s just not tell these generous co-workers about my history of plant killing OK?

Inspired, I can home and did some research and thought I’d share it with you.

I found several garden clubs – some of which offer spring plant sales.

Our local college offers a degree program in Ornamental Horticulture. Students grow plants and sell them for less than half of what they retail for at nurseries.

Our local dump (should I be politically correct and call it a ‘Solid Waste Disposal Site’?) offers high quality mulch in several different colors and sizes. If you are willing to load it yourself, you can save a fortune.

And perhaps the most odd place to find plants… our local 99 cent store!

Any ideas I missed? Where do you get your plants?

But I guess that’s part of a journey.  It can’t be all fun right?

I worked a tough job for a ‘big box store’ to pay the bills while applying for any decent job available. I finally landed a great job in December. 

I’ve struggled with unexpected expenses – like a monthly $150 property tax hike and a 1% sales tax hike…

I’ve made lifestyle changes – the biggest one is my use of public transportation…

I’ve struggled with monotony…

And I paid off my car.

Here is where I am on my debt journey.  Somehow, we’ve squeezed $10,000 toward our debt – $30,000 to go.  Sure I’d like it to be more, but $10,000 isn’t a bad number.

I can’t wait to finish this journey and finally become…

DEBT FREE!!

During my childhood, my parent’s water source was a well (actually, it still is. They’ve lived in the same house for 30 years). They never worried about water rates rising. They never had a water meter on their house. They simply had to worry about…

Their water source drying up.

Try selling a house with the very minor problem of no water.

Conservation was always a big deal in our house.

City living has spoiled me. I learned that showers longer than 2 minutes are a gift from God.

But our latest water crunch and water hikes have reminded me that conservation, in resources and in money, is my responsibility. I have conformed to the water company’s request that I take shorter showers (sometimes I skip all together… this has NOTHING to do with the fact that I usually skip a shower when I wake up late for work) and stop watering at least 20% of my lawn (since we don’t have a lawn, it’s fairly easy to stop watering it) but we’ve gone a step further – we rerouted our washer.

For $15, we bought some pipe and fittings to connect to our washer. All water now drains to our trees and roses.

We water our landscaping for free.

Those living in the southwest should consider this. Not only are you doing good for the environment, you’re saving money on your water bill.

(Just don’t forget to make sure your detergent is biodegradable)