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Sep 19, 2011    |       13 comments

I’d rather buy #%*#&…

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Bank of America called this morning. I ran to answer the phone when I saw their number pop up on the caller ID. For some crazy reason, I thought maybe they’d magically approved us for the making homes affordable program.

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!

Sep 15, 2011    |       10 comments

Drip, Drip, Drip Went the Money…

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When we purchased our home, we were forced to remodel part of the bathroom due to a shower pan leak. The ‘partial’ remodel turned into a full master bathroom remodel very quickly. My husband tore out the shower pan, then decided to tear out the shower walls since he was working on it anyway. Then he decided to replace the floor since the shower was going to be new and… you get it. He didn’t have to do much convincing to me. The bathroom was in terrible shape and I was excited to replace it.

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’m curious as to what a plumber charges to fix a slab leak. Moreover, would a plumber in Long Beach (or any other large city) charge more or does the price tend to remain constant regardless of location.

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.

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