I have not written much about my "second job"in real estate mainly because not much is happening. New England, like many section's of the country is in a bit of a real estate slump. I have two clients, one client is a couple that I have known for a number of years. They are a bit older than I am and have lived in their current home for almost 40 years. They have dogs, chickens, and two goats. At one time they also had horses and sheep, but have given up the other animals. It's a lovely old Colonial home (built in the late 1700's), 3 fireplaces, lots of original woodwork, three barns, a kennel, etc. They want to move. Maintaining an old home is costly, it is drafty, it has a dirt floor basement, real plaster and lathe walls, and next to no insulation. Very charming and authentic, but very old.
We have been looking for a potential new home, the chickens and goats will go to a neighbor, but the dogs will come with my friends. The criteria will be a home that has enough land so the dogs won't be a bother to the neighbors, it must have room for a kennel for the dogs (either a kennel or a building to be converted to kennels), 3-4 bedrooms, a real basement with a walkout, and updated mechanicals and not require a lot of work (no extensive renovations). And oh yes, it must be at a certain price point.
A couple months ago, I showed them a house close to their current home that my office has listed for sale. This house is listed through my office and as per state law, I work for the seller. I also represent the buyers, but for the initial showing, I represent the seller. The house in question was built by the owner for he and his wife. Since he was/is a builder, they customized parts of the house to their personal taste. They had planned to stay there for at least ten years. The wife passed away about a year ago and the husband put the house up for sale. It is about 90% finished, there are still some things to be done, decks and walkways built, some trim work to be finished, landscaping to be completed, but it shows OK and we preface each showing by saying these things will be completed as part of the sale of the home. The owner has just lost the desire to finish the house while he is still in the last stages of grieving.
On first glance, this house would be perfect for my friends, it's a large house, 4 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms, study, living room, large eat in kitchen, large dining room with french doors leading to the outside, very energy efficient mechanicals, 3 car garage with a plumbed in approved guest/in law/rental apartment over it and it does have an amazing sunset view on about 5 acres of almost all flat lawn. I also know that since this home was built by the builder that as I said, they tweaked it for their personal tastes. Instead of a vinyl,tile, or hardwood floor, they used Pergo in the kitchen. They liked dark colors, so the granite counters where almost black, the furniture is over sized and of a very specific taste (lots of people have a hard time getting past furniture and personal possessions when they look at houses), french doors that lead from the lower level guest/master bedroom to a crushed stone patio, the proposed wrap around deck and walkway connecting the house to the garage has footing poured, but is not complete.
Part of what makes a real estate agent successful is knowing your client and their needs and wants and how to match house to buyer. I know my friends/clients well enough to know that at first blush, this sounds like the perfect home for them, it really was not. They don't like Pergo floors, prefer lighter counter tops, etc and I knew the land would not suit them for a potential outbuilding. They have three cars, a tractor and a very large riding mower, the garage would be kind of small. I've been sending them information sheets on a number of houses for a number of months and have been tracking whats for sale based on their criteria and price range. There is currently not a lot in their price range. The house I do think would be great for them is about $150,000 over their budget. I know the sellers won't reduce their price and the buyers won't raise thier price point enough for them to meet in the middle. Ah well....
I warned my friends a head of time that this house was built by the owner to be his semi-retirement home and thus customized for he and his wife. They had planned it to suite their tastes. The owner had given us permission to say all of the above and that he could and would be happy to finish what was unfinished or make a reduction in price based on the unfinished work. The seller does not have to sell, he would like to sell and move on to a new chapter of his life. I would not NOT show the property to a prospective client, but did not want to get either the sellers or my buyers over excited.
Needless to say, while the showing went OK, my friends/clients were bitterly disappointed. They had a hard time getting past the furniture, did not like the Pergo floor in the kitchen, thought the proposed deck would be too small, did not like the detached garage, the basement although large, did not have an exterior door, they did not like the view off the deck to the back of the house that was just trees (the back yard view was NOT important to the sellers), did not like the orientation of the house, etc. All they kept saying after we left the house was how disappointed they were in the house. All I wanted to do was retort back "You were the ones who built up the house in your mind as your "perfect"home and I told you it was not", but I did not. For the next two months, they would ask what was the status of the house for sale, had it been show, any offers, etc and always end the conversation with the statement how disappointed they were in the house.
OK, I get it, you did not like the house. I knew they would not like the house, they wanted to see it, so I showed it to them. That is my job, I show houses. They did not like the house I showed them in town A-it was too close to the village center (actually it sits in back of one of our small town shopping centers-which is a small grocery store, post office and another small business), they did not like the house in town B-wrong style of house (then why did you ask to see it if you don't like Gambrel Style houses), the house in town C had no land, the house in town D only had one bathroom, second house in town B was out of price range,.........
It's tough keeping that balance of freind and real estate agent. It's even tougher when your clients keep harping back to that one home that they were "disappointed in". I really want to say, just get freaking over it. No one made you see it and you were the ones who built it up as the "pefect" home, I did not. Just give it up and move on for crying out loud. I'm not sure why they keep asking about the house, they made it very clear they are not interested in it, yet they want to know the status of it. I asked at one point if they were considering an offer if the price was lowered (known in the business as bottom fishing) and they said no, they were not. It's not my place to say more than it is still for sale and what the current price is. I just keep sending them the updated listings and hope they find something is a town that they want to live in.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Thinking About April Goals and Getting Over the Stonewalls of March
I really wish spring would arrive. Here in New England we are expecting snow tomorrow. I barely tolerate snow in January, the thought of snow so close to April 1st just makes me want to go to bed and pull the covers over my head until May 1st.
Don't mind me, I've had a hectic and crazy couple days~and my eye is twitching which means I'm stressing. I broke my lunch challenge today and just walked into the pizzeria and got a sub to go. Ugh.....
March has been a frustrating month. I've gotten a couple things done, but I feel a distinct lack of satisfaction in what has been done. Plus all I want to do is go home, sit on the couch and watch TV (the upside is I'm really loving my new TV). I'm not liking these depressive feelings, and it's cloudy and cold here. I'd never be able to live in Seattle.
But on a more positive note, I have a couple things/goals planned for April.
DIY Projects in the House
1) Sand, Prime and Paint kitchen cupboards.
2) Redo my closet-take all things out, paint the walls, redo the organization system.
3) Scope out Craigs List/Freecycle for a small bookshelf to use a food cupboard in the kitchen.
I only have one closet in my small house and as I've been thinning my clothes, I need to redo the closet and will probably purge more of my wardrobe that does not fit me anymore.
DIY around the yard
1) Clean out the flower beds.
2) Empty the compost pile of the good compost (black gold for the plants).
3) Fix the clothesline.
4) Reseed the lawn in the fenced in part of the yard
5) If enough energy, make a small flower/veggie garden in unfenced part of the yard.
Don't mind me, I've had a hectic and crazy couple days~and my eye is twitching which means I'm stressing. I broke my lunch challenge today and just walked into the pizzeria and got a sub to go. Ugh.....
March has been a frustrating month. I've gotten a couple things done, but I feel a distinct lack of satisfaction in what has been done. Plus all I want to do is go home, sit on the couch and watch TV (the upside is I'm really loving my new TV). I'm not liking these depressive feelings, and it's cloudy and cold here. I'd never be able to live in Seattle.
But on a more positive note, I have a couple things/goals planned for April.
DIY Projects in the House
1) Sand, Prime and Paint kitchen cupboards.
2) Redo my closet-take all things out, paint the walls, redo the organization system.
3) Scope out Craigs List/Freecycle for a small bookshelf to use a food cupboard in the kitchen.
I only have one closet in my small house and as I've been thinning my clothes, I need to redo the closet and will probably purge more of my wardrobe that does not fit me anymore.
DIY around the yard
1) Clean out the flower beds.
2) Empty the compost pile of the good compost (black gold for the plants).
3) Fix the clothesline.
4) Reseed the lawn in the fenced in part of the yard
5) If enough energy, make a small flower/veggie garden in unfenced part of the yard.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
A little more to the Snowflake Fund
I opened a savings account at the local credit union to
1) Take advantage of it's car loan rates (and now it will be to refinance the loan).
2) Set up a "snowflake" account.
I took $60 I made on property photographs and deposited it to the account. Not a heck of a lot, but at least something. I need to add to that account, I'll probably go back to pay per post. I'd been avoiding it because I'm L-A-Z-Y, but time to take advantage of every monetizing opportunity I can.
In the next day or two, I'll update my sidebars and post my April Goals and budget.
1) Take advantage of it's car loan rates (and now it will be to refinance the loan).
2) Set up a "snowflake" account.
I took $60 I made on property photographs and deposited it to the account. Not a heck of a lot, but at least something. I need to add to that account, I'll probably go back to pay per post. I'd been avoiding it because I'm L-A-Z-Y, but time to take advantage of every monetizing opportunity I can.
In the next day or two, I'll update my sidebars and post my April Goals and budget.
Teaching Kids to Manage Money
I am a big watcher of breakfast TV, usually Good Morning America. This morning, there was an excellent piece done by Mellody Hobson on teaching your kids how to handle money. Since I am writing a series of blog posts about my past and how my parents NEVER taught me about money management, I poured an extra cup of tea and watched the segment.
Quote:
Discussing money with their children is something many parents dislike greatly, according to Charles Schwab & Co.'s latest online survey. While they were eager to teach their offspring about other milestones, they were sheepish about handling money and budgeting issues.
In fact, 70 percent had taught their children how to do laundry, but only 34 percent had showed them how to balance a checkbook. The gap is more curious because many parents wished they had learned more about budgeting, saving and investing when they were young. Fifty-seven percent said they wished they had learned more about money as teenagers.
This is a scary statistic, only 34% of parents surveyed have taught their kids how to balance a checkbook. I know my parents did not teach me, I learned how to do it by reading the back of my bank statement for my first checking account. No one every sat me down and taught me about credit cards and credit card debt either.
You can read the whole article here. To see what others have said about the segment and the article, you can click here.
Quote:
Discussing money with their children is something many parents dislike greatly, according to Charles Schwab & Co.'s latest online survey. While they were eager to teach their offspring about other milestones, they were sheepish about handling money and budgeting issues.
In fact, 70 percent had taught their children how to do laundry, but only 34 percent had showed them how to balance a checkbook. The gap is more curious because many parents wished they had learned more about budgeting, saving and investing when they were young. Fifty-seven percent said they wished they had learned more about money as teenagers.
This is a scary statistic, only 34% of parents surveyed have taught their kids how to balance a checkbook. I know my parents did not teach me, I learned how to do it by reading the back of my bank statement for my first checking account. No one every sat me down and taught me about credit cards and credit card debt either.
You can read the whole article here. To see what others have said about the segment and the article, you can click here.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Tell All Tuesday~Who The Heck Am I-Part 2
A couple weeks ago, I gave you my dissertation on the first part of my life, how I grew up and what I did and did not learn about money. Here is the second part.
I graduated from college with a respectable gpa, a ton of student loans, a car, a dog, and still not a heck of a lot of common sense about real money management. I could balance my checkbook, I shopped for clothes on sale, I was sensible, but not terribly informed. My grandmother surprised me during my junior year and bought me a car. It was not an expensive or fancy car, but it was a car. This was my grandmother who never seemed to enjoy her money, but she turned around and bought me a car. I remember my mother being really angry. Angry because she was not the one who bought the car. Angry because my grandmother made it very clear the car was bought for me and needed to be in my name and my name only, angry because I took the car, and even angrier that I quickly agreed to pay for the insurance and all repair bills so I could have the car at school. She called it my multiple birthday, Christmas, graduation present. My mother muttered that she never had a new car, only used ones. To put it mildly, things were a bit tense at my house for a while.
What I was discovering as I grew up was that my mother was a money manipulator. As I stated before, she made a lot of promises to me about money that she never followed up on or changed her terms and conditions with money. I know now a lot of her anger about my car was due to the fact that my grandmother had taken part of her control over me away from her. In retrospect, I have to give my grandmother a lot of credit. She knew I was a responsible person and I would live up to the agreement of valid insurance, no friends driving the car, no drinking and driving, pay for my own gas, etc. I lived up to my end and my mother was very bitter about it. She liked and still likes failure in other people. She did not like losing her control over me.
After working for a year, I went graduate school. Based on my undergraduate experience, I was determined to put myself through graduate school all on my own, and I did. I went to the local State University and did it again on grants, loans and scholarships. My mother's offers of financial help were taken with a grain of salt. I did not count on them and when they came, she would have her usual terms and conditions attached to them. I was getting tired of having conditions attached to money. I stopped asking for it, even for birthdays and Christmas. In fact, one Christmas I asked for a vacuum cleaner. It was easier to ask for things than for money. The money I could have used for things like food and car insurance, but even gift money had conditions. The fact I was putting myself through grad school without any parental help seemed to really make her mad. I took any money I was given, but I just stopped asking for any help. It was easy this way. I did not have to deal with what ever condition was being given with the check. A good dose of guilt and manipulation with each check, I did not need it anymore.
Graduate school wasn't easy. I can remember being really poor in graduate school, eating oatmeal for breakfast and lunch and ramen noodles with frozen vegetables for dinner. My boyfriend would occasionally come up to visit with a bag of real food, I'd ask him to bring food with color, most of my meals were beige or white. My university had an Ag school and at the Ag School Diary Bar for $5 I could buy half gallon of milk, a block of cream cheese, a half gallon of ice cream, and a pound of butter and occasionally a dozen eggs if they were in stock. Twice a month I shopped at the Dairy store, I ate a lot of dairy and I drank milk, I don't even really like milk, but milk was cheaper than soda and OJ. I can remember coming home from classes one morning all excited to have my oatmeal for lunch. I opened the sugar bowl to put a spoonful of sugar on my oatmeal, only to find it full of ants. I dumped the sugar out and cried. That was my last cup of sugar until the weekend when I would get my small paycheck from my part time job. I spent the next three days eating plain oatmeal, tea with no sugar, and plain ramen noodles. The only upside to this all was I was really skinny, my hair was falling out because of poor nutrition, but I was skinny!
During this time I had and used credit cards. When I realized that I could not afford credit cards, I just stopped using them and slowly paid them off-I had a couple gas cards, a couple store cards, and a Master Card. Some months I paid the minimum, some months I was able to pay more, I did use my Master Card sometimes-like when I was desperate for a tank of gas to get to and from class and my job, but I did pretty much stop using credit while I was being a student. I just did not have the money, it was hard enough to make ends meet as it was. I also was an expert in getting the most out of a tank of gas. I am proud to say the only time I ran out of gas was when I literally was pulling into the gas station one day. I pushed the car the last few feet.
After Graduate School I started to applying for jobs in New England and just not getting a job, a bunch of job interviews, but no job offers. I packed up my life in a small U-Haul and moved to Northern Virginia with my boyfriend. He had moved down about 6 months earlier, I followed. Life was pretty good. We had a small, but OK apartment that took dogs (I supported myself and my dogs while in grad school). He had a job, I had a couple job interviews and somehow I managed to find a job on my second interview and in my field as well. I started to earn money and put money away. My boyfriend and I opened a joint checking account and we each had our own separate checking account as well. We used the joint account for household expenses and our separate account for our own fun expenses. Somehow it evolved that my boyfriend became the one who managed our money, he paid the bills, he gave us each an allowance, we both worked on the budget, it was pretty easy for me to allow him to just take control of the money. Plus I think his ego was a bit bruised. It ended up that I was the one in the relationship that earned a better salary and had better benefits. He kept saying it did not matter, but I think it did matter, nay, no later on it really mattered when I eventually moved up to a better job with more money and he did not. Since I never learned how to really manage my money, it was also easier for me to let him take care of our finances. He was actually very good at it. It was at this time that my mother started getting really weird about money. This in and of itself is a whole other serious of posts that can be lumped in with families and money.
We were doing well. I picked up a part time job that required some travel (and subsequently got me re-hooked on travel), I used the money from the part time job to pay for additional part time study for an advanced certification. I worked a full time job, a part time job and was studying for an advanced certificate. I got a new job and I learned a bunch of new skills, one of them was budgeting and money management for my department. I found out I was really good at budgeting and money management. I was able to increase income, decrease expenses and turn a profit. I got a couple credit cards. We used the cards for everything from gas for the car to school books, to family presents, to clothes shopping. We usually carried a balance, not a high one, eventually, I paid off the cards, but kept them. I liked having my plastic, I was able to shop without having to answer to my boyfriend for each debit on our debit card.
After a long time together and divergent interests, the long time boyfriend and I split up. We were having issues and part of the issues were money issues. That too is another set of posts, relationships and money. The issue was I was trying to take control of my money and it did not go over too well with my boyfriend. I had for a number of years (almost nine), let him handle our money, how it was budgeted, how it was spent, what it was spent on. Now I was taking control of my own fiscal life. I had a 401K, I wanted to donate to charities more than we were doing, I wanted us to buy property (we lived in a nice and inexpensive rental), he did not.
After I left my boyfriend, I lived happily in the WDC metro area for about 2 years until an internal transfer in my company came up and I had the desire and urge to move back to New England. After 11 years, it was time to go 'home". As Yogi Berra said, it was Déjà vu al over again. I packed up my life in a U-Haul and moved to NE. I bought a very small house and worked at my company for about another year. The company was changing and I did not like the direction the company was taking. My new boss was a very difficult person (and in hindsight, I should have realized something was wrong when she went through 12 managers in her division in less than one year), I was hating the commute from my house to work (about 40 minutes on a good day, the work did not have regular hours, a lot of long time employees at the main office were leaving and I wanted out.
I read the local paper and saw a job announcement for an office manager in a local business. I interview and took the job despite a cut in salary and benefits. It had regular 9-5 hours and I figured I'd be able to get a part time job. I had a couple part time seasonal jobs, I had money in the bank, I had no great demands on my time or life, or my bank account. I was slowly paying down my credit cards and enjoying the change of pace while I tried to figure out my life. I thought I would just have an epiphany and get a new life and go back to my slightly workaholic way of life. 'Twas not to be. 9-11 happened and as we all know, the world changed.
In retrospect, I made several mistakes. I changed jobs and took a salary and benefits cut. I made the mistake of not having a decent emergency fund. I made the mistake of not realizing until it was really too late that I was pretty much underemployed, but at least employed and did nothing to change my situation until it was too late. I still used my credit cards, but not as much as I had. I did not plan for or anticipate various house expenses-new roof, new exterior paint job, the various DIY projects that always crop up that occur with home ownership and life expenses. I had a semi serious long distance relationship that started to drain me not only monetary, but emotionally as well. I made a bunch of pretty stupid decisions, many of them financial. I made the decision at one point to stop using my credit cards and just starting paying them off. I literally just stopped using them, lived on cash and made the effort to pay of the cards. Even with good advice and careful research, I was having money issues. I needed a better paying job and I needed to get my act together.
But what really got me in trouble was my lack of understanding of the Universal Default. It was Universal Default that eventually pushed me over the edge. I will admit I made some bad choices with my money, I had one car payment go missing, I made a double payment the next month and a couple months later I missed a payment. This was all it took for the Universal Default to kick in and that was all I needed to go into fiscal hell.
The next installment
How the Universal Default kicked my butt, how my family still managed to make me crazy, how my very fragile fiscal life fell apart, how I ended up Bankrupt and how I am "Bouncing Back".
I graduated from college with a respectable gpa, a ton of student loans, a car, a dog, and still not a heck of a lot of common sense about real money management. I could balance my checkbook, I shopped for clothes on sale, I was sensible, but not terribly informed. My grandmother surprised me during my junior year and bought me a car. It was not an expensive or fancy car, but it was a car. This was my grandmother who never seemed to enjoy her money, but she turned around and bought me a car. I remember my mother being really angry. Angry because she was not the one who bought the car. Angry because my grandmother made it very clear the car was bought for me and needed to be in my name and my name only, angry because I took the car, and even angrier that I quickly agreed to pay for the insurance and all repair bills so I could have the car at school. She called it my multiple birthday, Christmas, graduation present. My mother muttered that she never had a new car, only used ones. To put it mildly, things were a bit tense at my house for a while.
What I was discovering as I grew up was that my mother was a money manipulator. As I stated before, she made a lot of promises to me about money that she never followed up on or changed her terms and conditions with money. I know now a lot of her anger about my car was due to the fact that my grandmother had taken part of her control over me away from her. In retrospect, I have to give my grandmother a lot of credit. She knew I was a responsible person and I would live up to the agreement of valid insurance, no friends driving the car, no drinking and driving, pay for my own gas, etc. I lived up to my end and my mother was very bitter about it. She liked and still likes failure in other people. She did not like losing her control over me.
After working for a year, I went graduate school. Based on my undergraduate experience, I was determined to put myself through graduate school all on my own, and I did. I went to the local State University and did it again on grants, loans and scholarships. My mother's offers of financial help were taken with a grain of salt. I did not count on them and when they came, she would have her usual terms and conditions attached to them. I was getting tired of having conditions attached to money. I stopped asking for it, even for birthdays and Christmas. In fact, one Christmas I asked for a vacuum cleaner. It was easier to ask for things than for money. The money I could have used for things like food and car insurance, but even gift money had conditions. The fact I was putting myself through grad school without any parental help seemed to really make her mad. I took any money I was given, but I just stopped asking for any help. It was easy this way. I did not have to deal with what ever condition was being given with the check. A good dose of guilt and manipulation with each check, I did not need it anymore.
Graduate school wasn't easy. I can remember being really poor in graduate school, eating oatmeal for breakfast and lunch and ramen noodles with frozen vegetables for dinner. My boyfriend would occasionally come up to visit with a bag of real food, I'd ask him to bring food with color, most of my meals were beige or white. My university had an Ag school and at the Ag School Diary Bar for $5 I could buy half gallon of milk, a block of cream cheese, a half gallon of ice cream, and a pound of butter and occasionally a dozen eggs if they were in stock. Twice a month I shopped at the Dairy store, I ate a lot of dairy and I drank milk, I don't even really like milk, but milk was cheaper than soda and OJ. I can remember coming home from classes one morning all excited to have my oatmeal for lunch. I opened the sugar bowl to put a spoonful of sugar on my oatmeal, only to find it full of ants. I dumped the sugar out and cried. That was my last cup of sugar until the weekend when I would get my small paycheck from my part time job. I spent the next three days eating plain oatmeal, tea with no sugar, and plain ramen noodles. The only upside to this all was I was really skinny, my hair was falling out because of poor nutrition, but I was skinny!
During this time I had and used credit cards. When I realized that I could not afford credit cards, I just stopped using them and slowly paid them off-I had a couple gas cards, a couple store cards, and a Master Card. Some months I paid the minimum, some months I was able to pay more, I did use my Master Card sometimes-like when I was desperate for a tank of gas to get to and from class and my job, but I did pretty much stop using credit while I was being a student. I just did not have the money, it was hard enough to make ends meet as it was. I also was an expert in getting the most out of a tank of gas. I am proud to say the only time I ran out of gas was when I literally was pulling into the gas station one day. I pushed the car the last few feet.
After Graduate School I started to applying for jobs in New England and just not getting a job, a bunch of job interviews, but no job offers. I packed up my life in a small U-Haul and moved to Northern Virginia with my boyfriend. He had moved down about 6 months earlier, I followed. Life was pretty good. We had a small, but OK apartment that took dogs (I supported myself and my dogs while in grad school). He had a job, I had a couple job interviews and somehow I managed to find a job on my second interview and in my field as well. I started to earn money and put money away. My boyfriend and I opened a joint checking account and we each had our own separate checking account as well. We used the joint account for household expenses and our separate account for our own fun expenses. Somehow it evolved that my boyfriend became the one who managed our money, he paid the bills, he gave us each an allowance, we both worked on the budget, it was pretty easy for me to allow him to just take control of the money. Plus I think his ego was a bit bruised. It ended up that I was the one in the relationship that earned a better salary and had better benefits. He kept saying it did not matter, but I think it did matter, nay, no later on it really mattered when I eventually moved up to a better job with more money and he did not. Since I never learned how to really manage my money, it was also easier for me to let him take care of our finances. He was actually very good at it. It was at this time that my mother started getting really weird about money. This in and of itself is a whole other serious of posts that can be lumped in with families and money.
We were doing well. I picked up a part time job that required some travel (and subsequently got me re-hooked on travel), I used the money from the part time job to pay for additional part time study for an advanced certification. I worked a full time job, a part time job and was studying for an advanced certificate. I got a new job and I learned a bunch of new skills, one of them was budgeting and money management for my department. I found out I was really good at budgeting and money management. I was able to increase income, decrease expenses and turn a profit. I got a couple credit cards. We used the cards for everything from gas for the car to school books, to family presents, to clothes shopping. We usually carried a balance, not a high one, eventually, I paid off the cards, but kept them. I liked having my plastic, I was able to shop without having to answer to my boyfriend for each debit on our debit card.
After a long time together and divergent interests, the long time boyfriend and I split up. We were having issues and part of the issues were money issues. That too is another set of posts, relationships and money. The issue was I was trying to take control of my money and it did not go over too well with my boyfriend. I had for a number of years (almost nine), let him handle our money, how it was budgeted, how it was spent, what it was spent on. Now I was taking control of my own fiscal life. I had a 401K, I wanted to donate to charities more than we were doing, I wanted us to buy property (we lived in a nice and inexpensive rental), he did not.
After I left my boyfriend, I lived happily in the WDC metro area for about 2 years until an internal transfer in my company came up and I had the desire and urge to move back to New England. After 11 years, it was time to go 'home". As Yogi Berra said, it was Déjà vu al over again. I packed up my life in a U-Haul and moved to NE. I bought a very small house and worked at my company for about another year. The company was changing and I did not like the direction the company was taking. My new boss was a very difficult person (and in hindsight, I should have realized something was wrong when she went through 12 managers in her division in less than one year), I was hating the commute from my house to work (about 40 minutes on a good day, the work did not have regular hours, a lot of long time employees at the main office were leaving and I wanted out.
I read the local paper and saw a job announcement for an office manager in a local business. I interview and took the job despite a cut in salary and benefits. It had regular 9-5 hours and I figured I'd be able to get a part time job. I had a couple part time seasonal jobs, I had money in the bank, I had no great demands on my time or life, or my bank account. I was slowly paying down my credit cards and enjoying the change of pace while I tried to figure out my life. I thought I would just have an epiphany and get a new life and go back to my slightly workaholic way of life. 'Twas not to be. 9-11 happened and as we all know, the world changed.
In retrospect, I made several mistakes. I changed jobs and took a salary and benefits cut. I made the mistake of not having a decent emergency fund. I made the mistake of not realizing until it was really too late that I was pretty much underemployed, but at least employed and did nothing to change my situation until it was too late. I still used my credit cards, but not as much as I had. I did not plan for or anticipate various house expenses-new roof, new exterior paint job, the various DIY projects that always crop up that occur with home ownership and life expenses. I had a semi serious long distance relationship that started to drain me not only monetary, but emotionally as well. I made a bunch of pretty stupid decisions, many of them financial. I made the decision at one point to stop using my credit cards and just starting paying them off. I literally just stopped using them, lived on cash and made the effort to pay of the cards. Even with good advice and careful research, I was having money issues. I needed a better paying job and I needed to get my act together.
But what really got me in trouble was my lack of understanding of the Universal Default. It was Universal Default that eventually pushed me over the edge. I will admit I made some bad choices with my money, I had one car payment go missing, I made a double payment the next month and a couple months later I missed a payment. This was all it took for the Universal Default to kick in and that was all I needed to go into fiscal hell.
The next installment
How the Universal Default kicked my butt, how my family still managed to make me crazy, how my very fragile fiscal life fell apart, how I ended up Bankrupt and how I am "Bouncing Back".
Why Emergency Funds Are A Good Thing-Part 2
A couple months ago I posted that I had to use my emergency fund to pay for a broken window on my neighbors car. I had thrown an old fence post through his back truck window and he did not have glass coverage on his insurance. At least I was able to pay for the new window as soon as it was installed. It was my own fault, I tossed the pole and damaged the rear window.
In all the fuss about the car, I forgot to post that I need a new storm door. We had a lot of very windy weather here in New England last week and one day I just did not latch the door properly. One of those gusts of wind (one day gusts up to 40 MPH) "grabbed" the door and somehow it came unhinged and got badly damaged. I'm lucky I did not have glass everywhere, but I did have a door that was unhinged, warped and frankly, only good for the scrap metal pile. My first thought when I pulled up to the house was that someone had broken into my house, but I realized that my front door was locked and the screen door was just "unhinged".
I was able to get a new door and someone to put it on the house today (and fix the damaged trim as well) for the whopping fee of $275. It's times like this I wish I was a little more DIY savvy. Hanging new doors is just not my thing.
I love owning my own home, but when I have to shell out unplanned money, ouch, it hurts. What it means is my plan to paint my kitchen cupboards is put off a month (need new paint) and I'll focus on re-seeding my lawn when (if, or ever) it warms up. Right now I have a huge patch of dirt where I should have lawn.....
In all the fuss about the car, I forgot to post that I need a new storm door. We had a lot of very windy weather here in New England last week and one day I just did not latch the door properly. One of those gusts of wind (one day gusts up to 40 MPH) "grabbed" the door and somehow it came unhinged and got badly damaged. I'm lucky I did not have glass everywhere, but I did have a door that was unhinged, warped and frankly, only good for the scrap metal pile. My first thought when I pulled up to the house was that someone had broken into my house, but I realized that my front door was locked and the screen door was just "unhinged".
I was able to get a new door and someone to put it on the house today (and fix the damaged trim as well) for the whopping fee of $275. It's times like this I wish I was a little more DIY savvy. Hanging new doors is just not my thing.
I love owning my own home, but when I have to shell out unplanned money, ouch, it hurts. What it means is my plan to paint my kitchen cupboards is put off a month (need new paint) and I'll focus on re-seeding my lawn when (if, or ever) it warms up. Right now I have a huge patch of dirt where I should have lawn.....
The New Car is Great!
And I am really happy with it. Plus a couple of my various friends and relatives have been very supportive about the new vehicle, a couple saying it was long overdue (hey-I went Bankrupt~ a new or new to me car was NOT in the picture until NOW). I just said I was happy that I was finally able to get the vehicle.
I've posted on a couple on line sites the old car for sale. I've had some interest (just posted yesterday afternoon) and I will see if anyone would want to buy it. The dealer said he could only give me about $200 for the car (too much mileage, too old, etc) and he was right, I could probably sell it for more. If I can sell it, I'll put the money in the old "car fund". If no one wants the car, I will donated it to a local charity for parts or to be refurbished for a needy family. I can get some sort of a tax write off next year. We shall see.
Right now, I'm having fun with the sun roof, all the gadgets, and putting all my junk, ah, stuff, neatly in the new car. I am such a child at times.........:)
I've posted on a couple on line sites the old car for sale. I've had some interest (just posted yesterday afternoon) and I will see if anyone would want to buy it. The dealer said he could only give me about $200 for the car (too much mileage, too old, etc) and he was right, I could probably sell it for more. If I can sell it, I'll put the money in the old "car fund". If no one wants the car, I will donated it to a local charity for parts or to be refurbished for a needy family. I can get some sort of a tax write off next year. We shall see.
Right now, I'm having fun with the sun roof, all the gadgets, and putting all my junk, ah, stuff, neatly in the new car. I am such a child at times.........:)
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