Back to Savings

Since we currently live with my folks, I've kept my Savings Angel account, but most often just give my mom money to help pay for groceries and she does the coupon thing.

However, since Chris and I will soon be moving, we are trying to take advantage of some sales before we move in so that our pantries are not completely bare.

So today we went shopping! Got a few basics... drugs for the medicine cabinet (those can get expensive, so we stocked up on some good deals!), oatmeal for lots of breakfasts, kleenex, womanly products, shampoo, laundry detergent, etc.

Looking at my receipts, I think we did a good job. I had a little bit of a hard time figuring out my totals with the Rite Aid receipt - they don't break it down with the instore savings like everyone else does. But, here's my best calculations on what we did:

SPENT: $107.89
SAVED: $86.68


Good job us!

House Status

So we settled on a price last week. We had the home inspector come in on Tuesday and check out the house for us. He had actually inspected the house 9 years ago when it was a foreclosed home and the current couple who lives there bought it.

He was very impressed by the house and explained to us how blessed we are to be getting this home as our first house, not only because of the quality but also a good neighborhood. To our benefit, the current owner is in construction, so all of the fixer-uppers that he did were done on a very high-quality professional level. Great for us!

Everything looked great except for very low levels carbon monoxide. Our inspector said you'll start getting a headache at 30 parts per million and the highest this was getting was 6. However, he recommended we have the furnace inspected. So Chris is meeting with a furnace inspector at the house tomorrow to just check things out and see what we're looking at. Meanwhile I'll be at the dentist - hopefully no cavities.

After we're both done with our respective appointments we'll head to the bank and start sorting out that whole mortgage loan thing. Definitely don't look forward to signing up for such a loan, but I take comfort in the fact that we have no car debt, no credit cards, and the only loans we have are student loans. Plus, with the help of the tax return we'll receive for buying a house, we should hopefully be able to pay off the student loans within a couple more years! I know, that seems like a long time, but that's waaaay better than the proposed finish date that the loan holders give. Once the student loans are paid off, we'll be able to add more to the emergency fund (you Dave Ramsey followers know what I'm talking about) and push harder on paying down the mortgage.

Speaking of Dave Ramsey, Chris won tickets to go see Dave Ramsey tomorrow night in Grand Rapids! So... we're excited to check out that live event. Should be a good motivation to kick in that gazelle intensity again. Don't get me wrong, we budget very well, but it's always good to re-motivate to push a little harder.

Then Friday when I get home from work, Chris, my mom and I will all hop in the car and head to Findlay, Ohio to meet up with my dad. We'll check out the office he's been working in and...well...that'll be about it because I won't get home until after 5 and it takes a few hours to get there. Then Saturday morning all four of us will pile into a car and make the long trip to Pennsylvania. We'll stay with my Aunt Sandy (I'll get some good herbal recipes from her while I'm there) and then Sunday meet up with the rest of the East Coasters of the family for a celebration of my grandma's 78th birthday. I'm excited to see the relatives - we couldn't make it out to the last wedding because I was standing up in one here in town. We don't see that side of the family that often. Then Monday morning we'll load back into the car and make the trip home!

So the other day I went to the library and loaded up on some books and DVDs for the long drive (did y'all realize it's free rentals at the library for DVDs? Just FYI in case you didn't know... Good money saving entertainment!). My podcast I listen to (PotterCast, for those of you that are crazy Harry Potter fans - hey, podcasts are a nice way to pass time when you're working on a long project) was talking about Avatar, the Last Airbender, so I checked out the 3 seasons they had at the library. It's funny, 'cause when I was in LA for a semester, I actually interviewed at Nickelodeon to work on this show as an intern. Unfortunately I didn't get the gig, but I ended up at Film Roman, which was still interesting, just not in the area I was actually looking to study.

Anyway...I think that sums up the current status of my life.

I'm excited to get out of the basement and into a house. Once Chris and I have the keys to the place, I'll invite y'all over. But you might have to take your own chairs, 'cause we have almost no furniture. Living with my parents for over a year, Chris and I got rid of our old used couches. At the house we'll have two rooms that need couches. We do have a dining room table and a bed. And we definitely have a pretty well stocked kitchen (at least in regards to pots, pans, utensils and spices). Food... well... I need to get back into the Savings Angel thing and start stocking up on stuff so we don't have completely barren pantries when we move.

If you've made it this far into the post, I congratulate you for reading so much.

Easy as 1, 2, 3... Right?

Well, we're just a few steps away from being homeowners:

1. Seller's need to sign one last dotted line on the contract
2. House Inspection next week
3. All that other stuff that makes buying a house take 4-6 weeks.

We're pretty excited to get the house - especially so we can have you all over! Unfortunately, we have very little furniture to our names, so y'all may need to bring camp chairs along when you visit until we get some seating. ;)

Anyway, check out some pics! (This is the current resident's furniture - it will be much emptier when we move in).

Offers and Counter-Offers

We put in an offer on Wednesday.

Today we received a counter-offer. Everything in the counter is fine except the price.

So... We're countering with another price. We'll see if we can meet somewhere closer to our budget!

House Shopping

It's been a very long time since I posted. Life has been busy!

In December I was sick for half of the month, so when I finally got better, I had to cram all of the things I was going to do in preparation for Christmas earlier into the month into the last week or two before Christmas. Hence a very busy December.

In January Chris and I were able to recuperate some from the holiday craziness, but then dove into more serious house shopping.

We've seen about 20 houses so far. We had put in an offer a couple of weeks ago (didn't get it, but we're the backup if the other falls through) and have found a new one (actually just down the street from the other one) that we're considering putting an offer on. Chris and my parents have such hectic schedules right now - we were hoping to get all of us as a group to look at the house one more time, but I don't want to dawdle in getting an offer in, so we're going to try to get my parents in the next day or two and Chris' parents in it hopefully this weekend.

Also this week Chris will be meeting with our mortgage person and finding out what we can afford as an offer by finding out what monthly payments would be for the mortgage, insurance and taxes. Meanwhile, our realtor is looking into the yearly utility costs so that we can keep that in mind as well.

The house that we're considering is higher than what we were planning on, so I want to be very careful not to stretch ourselves too thin and be miserable trying to keep up with payments. So hopefully all of our careful planning will not go to waste!

Anyway, I'll let y'all know if we put an offer in and what we find out when the time comes.

For now, I'm keeping busy!