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Mt Dew for cheap!

April 9th, 2010 at 08:45 pm

Wow, what a sale this week at Lowes Foods. Mt. Dew is on sale for $2.10 for a 12 pack here. I've gotten 10 packs so far and will go back for more. I haven't seen 12 pack sodas this cheap in YEARS, maybe even decades. I know soda isn't good for us but DH is addicted to the stuff unfortunately and drinks about 2 cans a day. This sale will last us for months and months... yahoo!

Update on totals for DH's sale of "A"

April 6th, 2010 at 03:00 pm

Ok, drum roll, please...

The total as of today, April 6, 2010 is $11,300!! I was hoping he'd make the $10,000 mark but he's surpassed that already and is still going strong. He still has quite a few of "A" pieces left to sell so who knows how much we'll end up totaling after it's all said and done.

I'm so proud of him! Smile

The dog took over our bed!

March 25th, 2010 at 02:33 am

Too cute not to share with all of you dog lovers!

Another $1500! (again)

February 23rd, 2010 at 04:28 pm

DH just transferred another $1500 from his paypal account to our savings account! That makes a total of $7,000 so far that he's put into our household account from his sales of "A". He thinks he can get $4-$5k more before he's done. I'm so proud of him!

Update on snow wi/picture

February 10th, 2010 at 07:54 pm

I posted a while ago a picture of my back deck... now compare this picture to that one and see how the "blizzard" of 2010 has hit us hard! Today is definitely a NSD as we are stuck at home!

Another $1500!

February 10th, 2010 at 03:43 pm

DH has transferred another $1500 from his paypal account to our savings account. This added with the $4000 he transferred last week makes a total of $5500! He's keeping $500 so that he can buy something but he still has a lot of stuff to sell so we'll see if we hit the $10k mark for sales of "A". So far, $6k total is great!

February 10th, 2010 at 03:40 pm

Woke up to MORE snow falling!

February 6th, 2010 at 02:46 pm

It sure is beautiful but we sure are stuck at home! Guess it is a good thing since that pretty much means NSD's. Smile

I know you can't see in the pictures but the snow is falling steadily and so calmly -- very peaceful feeling to be outside since it's so quiet as no one is out and about.


Pictures from my front porch:



craigslist sales adding up

February 5th, 2010 at 04:41 pm

Sold:
$50 curio
$30 futon
$10 dishes
$22 new mary kay makeup lot


Still not sold:
$280 upright freezer


Still to post:
$10 ficus tree

Now I'm looking around the house for more stuff to sell since I took the day off due to the foot of snow we got last night!


The back deck


View of our driveway



Potential rental property...

January 29th, 2010 at 02:41 pm

We looked at 5 different places last night with our realtor. We are very interested in a small townhouse (one side of a duplex). Built in 2006, it comes with all newer appliances plus a nice washer and dryer in the unit. The best thing is that there are already tenants in the place (a husband and wife) which means that we would have immediate occupancy. Calculating the current rent payment they pay vs. our costs in carrying the place would net us $250 each month. Since it's a newer building, I don't foresee a lot of maintenance expenses anytime soon which is also a plus. What do you think?? Oh, and it's only listed for $78k -- I would offer around $68k and see where we end up (I'd say somewhere around $72k hopefully).





Picture of our dog

January 21st, 2010 at 04:08 am

I love seeing pictures on here so thought I would share one of our pooch. He's a silky terrier and is 9 years old. We just got him about 6 months ago (his owner was just giving him away) and he's been a great addition to the family. We have 4 cats as well but those photos will have to come later. Smile

$40 purse -- woo hoo!

January 20th, 2010 at 09:36 pm

I finally got around to taking back a purse that my sis got me for Christmas. It just was too little for me and not really my style so I thought I would exchange it for something else. Imagine my surprise when the lady said I was getting $40+ back on a gift card! Whoa. I really don't think my sis spent that much on the purse (it's a small Liz Claiborne). I was expecting more like $15 at the most. Wowsers. Smile

My mother; social security benefits, and taxes = UGH ->warning long vent!

January 17th, 2010 at 04:36 am

Geez. My mother is driving me crazy.

Long story short is that my dad is going to start drawing down his social security benefits. He turned 65 last Spring but decided to wait til 2010 to draw. They go to the local SS office yesterday and my mom instructs the guy helping them to withhold 10% from my dad's checks in order to help save on their owed taxes at the end of the year (they make a TON of money via interest income).

My mother goes to work and talks to her co-workers about this. They tell her that she's crazy to tell the SS folks to withhold anything because all the SS income is non-taxable.

She calls me fussing at me! I wasn't even there with her nor did she ask me to research the issue beforehand or anything. She's even mad at me that the office is closed on Monday for MLK day. She wants me to email the guy to tell him to stop the 10% and thinks I can do this without having his email address (she's quite computer illiterate and doesn't understand the Internet, etc). I tell her that I will look into it and will call the office first thing on Tuesday.

I go off to have dinner with DH's side of the family. DH's sister's father-in-law was there - he's a retired CPA - so I asked him about the situation. He tells me that if half of my dad's distributions plus all his other income is greater than $32,000 for the year, then yes, the distributions are subject to taxes. I even verified this info on the IRS website when I got home just to make sure I heard what I thought I heard from him.

I tell my mother the news and she asks me why the federal government is taxing the distributions... like I know why the IRS and the federal government do what they do! Geez. She proceeds to tell me that I need to talk to her work friends so that they can explain it to her as I'm not doing a good job of it... I flat out say "NO". Why the heck do I need to explain anything to these people? My mother keeps telling me that I must be wrong because all her "friends" say that no taxes are supposed to taken against social security income.

Hello???!!! Let me put this in perspective. Nothing against factory workers, but my mom works in a small factory where hardly anyone makes even $20k a year. My mom and dad have always been savers so even though they may have "low on the totem pole" jobs, they have TONS of money in the bank - I'm talking around $40,000 in unearned interest income alone. Therefore, their situation is quite a bit different than their co-workers. I completely believe that her friends at work are speaking the truth as they know it because I doubt that they have family members drawing social security who have, with other income combined, to make the $32,000 threshold for married couples.

It drives me crazy that she would rather trust her co-workers who barely have high school diplomas instead of trusting her own daughter who graduated college with a finance degree and just got my MBA AND even a trusted CPA family friend (who used to do her taxes years ago before he retired by the way).

She kept telling about her friends' advice and lada lada lada... I was so frustrated that I finally just told her to get her friends to do her taxes for her as apparently I have no clue what I am doing (I usually do my parent's taxes). Well, that got her panties in a wad --- she's fuming mad at me now and ended our phone conversation telling me that she will take care of everything from now on and won't bother me anymore on anything (you know, trying to put on the big guilt).

I'm just done with it. If she won't listen to me, then why should I even bother? Am I wrong?

Got an increase at work!

January 14th, 2010 at 07:28 pm

Woo hoo. As I've posted before, I just got my MBA in December. At our last board meeting this past Monday, I casually asked our personnel director if it would be alright to ask for a salary increase come July 1 (the start of our new budget year). I didn't think I should ask for one right now... anyway, he said, yes, that it would be better to wait til July 1 so that we could build it in the new budget.

Well, he comes to me this morning and said that he and our big boss had discussed my situation and wanted to go ahead and give me a raise effective Jan 1. It's an extra $2500 a year. I'll take it!

I honestly didn't think I would get anything since our budget situation is getting quite dire but am very grateful and thankful that they thought I deserved one. I'm going to do a happy dance now. Smile

2009 utility costs

January 8th, 2010 at 04:29 pm

I kept a tally on our household utility costs for 2009:

Electric = 1,587
Cable TV/Internet = 824
Cell phone (3 basic lines, no texting or other frills) = 974
Water (on a well system) = 320
Propane (for heat only) = 975

Total for 2009 = 4,680

We are a family of 4 in a newer 2600 sq ft home. I don't have anything to compare this total to as I haven't gone back to see how much we paid out in past years... but thought I would ask if anybody out there knows if this looks reasonable or is it way out of line? I do realize that costs would vary upon where you live, etc...

12 years of salary history...

January 6th, 2010 at 09:12 pm

I like to keep up with our gross pay on a yearly basis and have been doing so since 1997 when I hit the workforce...



The declines in 99 and 01 represented when I went out on unpaid leave to have our children. Also, in 2006 there was a decline because I dropped a part-time job since we were moving to a new part of the state.

119% improvement in 12 years... not so bad. Smile


What an end to 2009!

January 4th, 2010 at 02:53 pm

As they say, everything comes in three's:

1) 20 inches of snow falls the weekend before Christmas then...

2) our 4-year old refrigerator compressor goes out for whatever reason then...

3) a massive ice storm comes through on Christmas day knocking down trees all over causing lost power for days...

Ho hum. It will cost us $500 to replace the compressor. It will cost us hours, if not days, to clean up the debris from the ice storm. Ho hum.

Great start to 2010, huh?

What I got for $13,250...

December 7th, 2009 at 10:12 pm

I am officially done with my MBA program. Graduation is on December 18! I am so happy to be done with this... it took me 3 long years going very part-time but I can now say that I did it and without taking out a single student loan. The total cost of just tuition (no books or anything) came out to be $11,257.68. I would guesstimate that I spent around $2,000 on books, proctor fees, etc. So, my MBA cost me around $13,250 in the end. I am not guaranteed a raise because of today's economy so my return on investment may not hit for another few years though.

Soda on sale...

November 23rd, 2009 at 08:15 pm

Our family drinks way too much soda... not coffee or alcohol at all -- just soda. So, anyway, I try to stock up whenever they go on sale. Lately, the best deal has been $2.75 for a 12-pack. But today, I scored. Harris Teeter is having a sale of buy 2 get 3 free on Coke products. The regular price of a 12-pack is $5.99 there (outrageous!) so with the sale, I got 10 12-packs for just $2.40 each. I think I'll head back tomorrow to get another 10 and we'll be set. It's been years since I've been able to buy a 12-pack of soda for less than $2.50.

Plan for Christmas with Charity angle

November 6th, 2009 at 07:44 pm

Thanks for the responses to my recent post about how I wanted to go "charitable" this year at Christmas time concerning gifts. I am a huge Somaly Mam Foundation supporter (fighting child sex trafficking in Cambodia) and found that The Body Shop sells reusable tote bags for $5 where $2 of each purchase goes to the Somaly Mam Foundation. So, I had the brilliant idea of buying these bags (like 15 of them) and using the bags as "gift" bags for the normal Christmas presents I will get folks. Sure, they may not look festive and whatnot but they will serve the purpose I aim to achieve... family and friends will still get their useless materialistic junk they expect while I can at the same time give them something to help the environment (hopefully they'll reuse the bag many times) and help my charity of choice. The Body Shop also sells lotion that 100% of the profits go to another child prostitution charity so I'll get a handful of those as well to put in the bags... maybe I can find even more products that support charities and just make huge "gift bags" as the presents. Of course, this very well may blow my Christmas budget out the water but if I combine that budget with my charitable giving budget, maybe all will wash out. If you know of any other websites that sell products to help benefit charities, let me know. Smile Thanks to momcents for the idea!

One year later and back to the same house...

November 5th, 2009 at 07:28 pm

I posted a year ago about a house that we were interested in...well, that house still hasn't sold yet and they've lowered the price by $86,000 now. We would still love to move into it but want them to go down another $100,000. It needs a lot of work and DH and I just don't think it is worth more than $250k (they started at $435k and it's down to $349k now).

The house is a 1976 brick rancher that needs a lot of updating from end to end. The location is just to die for -- that's really what is worth the money. The tax value on the property is at $269k. Is there any good way to base a market price on what the tax value is?

Here are some pictures of the backyard --- isn't it beautiful!?? Keep in mind that we live in the middle of the Blue Ridge Mountains so finding a home on such a FLAT lot in the middle of town is nearly impossible. The river is literally the back border of the property and is just wonderful. On the other side of the river is a beautiful golf course -- ahh, location, location, location.

How much would you think we should offer just based on the tax value (and without you even seeing a picture of the actual house yet)?





Oh, and if you are interested... the current owner of the home is an elderly lady. Her sister was the one who built the house and lived in it all these years. Her sister died 3 years ago and left the house to her. It's been vacant for 3 years (it took the lady a long time to clean it out and go through everything)... so it's not like she has to sell it as she has her own home but at the same time she is paying the property taxes and stuff on it so I'm sure she'd like to see it sell. However, based on past conversations with her, she "thinks" the house is worth closer to a million dollars because of its location... um, yeah.

Christmas gift idea

November 2nd, 2009 at 02:22 pm

So DH and I would really like to go "non-material" this year with our gift giving. We'd like to donate money to charities in honor of our family and friends. Instead of spending hundreds of dollars on junk that no one wants or needs, we just would love to have our money go toward the causes we feel are important this year.

Then, we woke up to reality. There is absolutely no freakin' way that our families would accept this kind of gesture. Unfortunately, both our sides expect nice gifts under the tree for Christmas... a card or certificate acknowledging a donation just wouldn't cut it.

We'll still donate to our charities this year but alas, we'll have to just conform and buy more junk again as always.

Oct wrapup!

October 28th, 2009 at 07:01 pm

Here is a reposting of our estimates of what Oct was going to look like with actual expenses in bold.

1st Weekend in October:

1. Fall Festival at the kids school. Will cost around $20 or so to let the kids go and enjoy the activities -- fundraiser for the school so no biggie.

2. A co-worker gave me 2 free tickets to a Halloween event at a local amusement park. We have 4 in our family so we'd have to buy 2 more tickets which would cost $52. The event happens every year but we had never been before so it would be a real treat for the kids. Even at $52, we'd probably never get this great deal again (basically 50% off), so we'll go. We have to go this particular night as the free tickets are only for this night (opening night) so we'll head out there after the Fall Festival.

3. Going to sis's house 3 hours away for a birthday party for both my niece and nephew. Will enjoy the trip to visit with them but will be spending a pretty penny at the same time.
Birthday gifts to buy = $40
Gas for trip = $50
Eating out with extended family = $100 (I'm expected to foot the bill for dinner)

Total estimated for first weekend in Oct = $262 $132

2nd Weekend in October:

1. Some of DH's family from CA will be here. DH hasn't seen them in probably 15 years so that will be a very nice visit.
Cost of entertaining them will probably be just around $100.

2. A different nephew has a birthday so another birthday gift to buy = $20

Total estimated for second weekend in Oct = $120 $15

3rd Weekend in October:

1. NC State Fair - we try to attend each year as our own little family tradition. We used to live right there but after we moved away, we are now 4 hours from the event. So with tickets, hotel, food, gas etc., this weekend might be pricey at around $300.

2. DH's sister has a birthday so another gift probably at around $30 for her.

Total estimated for third weekend in Oct = $330 $300

4th Weekend in October:

1. Our youngest celebrates a birthday so with her gifts and throwing a party with friends, we are estimating a price tag of around $150.

Total estimated for fourth weekend in Oct = $150 $80

5th Weekend in October:

1. Halloween -- won't probably spend too much on costumes this year. Oldest will be wearing something that I made for one of her school plays and we haven't decided on what the youngest wants to do yet. Got to buy candy for the neighborhood kids so all in all, maybe just $30.

Total estimated for fifth weekend in Oct = $30 $320

THAT'S A TOTAL OF $892!! Geez!

Total for the month is actually $847 which is less than expected. We reallocated some but still came under budget for the month. Still a huge month of non-essentials but at least the out was less than expected.

got a lowball offer -- almost

October 21st, 2009 at 07:42 pm

Ok, our house is on the market not out of necessity but just because we'd like to move to a different house/neighborhood.

I just got a call from our realtor that was interesting. She said a buyer's realtor contacted her and before her clients even want to look at our house, they want to know if we'd take a cash offer of $50,000 less than our asking price. We've only been in the house 3 years -- going down $50k would mean we would be selling for about $20k less than what we paid for it. This may be a good deal for someone who needs to sell but we DON'T NEED to sell. I'm a bit dazed at the "offer" even before they see the place.

After the initial shock, I got my brain cells back into alignment and started looking at the situation. The house that we want is still on the market. So, if we go ahead and sell our current home, even at a loss, we could move forward on the "dream" home. That is really all I can figure as the upside to going so low on the sale of our house. With our current home off our backs, we could potentially strike a great deal on the other end in the purchase of the new home -- the owners of that home moved out of state a few years ago and I'm sure they are extremely motivated on selling the house as it is vacant and just sitting there...year after year... so they may take a low offer. Hmmm ... the thinking continues....

iTunes and Paypal are crazy!

October 6th, 2009 at 09:20 pm

DH gets 3 consecutive emails from Paypal late Sunday night around 11pm. They were receipts for payments for purchases made at iTunes... DH hasn't bought anything off of iTunes in over a year or more. We knew immediately that someone must have hacked into his iTunes account, purchased some stuff, and since his iTunes account is linked to Paypal as the source of payment... voila. He changed his passwords and emailed PayPal and iTunes. Paypal responds within an hour stating that after their "investigation", the charges were valid and there wasn't a thing they could do about it. iTunes waited until Monday to write back and say that they wouldn't do anything without a court order!!! We don't even recognize any of the stuff these hackers bought as they weren't songs or anything "normal"!! Geez. I can only imagine how many more charges would've kept coming through if we hadn't been right there at our computer when those emails were coming in and could immediately change our passwords.

Thank goodness for our good ol' credit card company that we have been with for at least the last 15 years. I called them up, they credited us the amounts, and told us not to worry about the charges. They will figure it out with Paypal from here for us.

Sure, there are horror stories about credit cards and such but not once have we had a huge commotion about charges we didn't ever do. About 5 years ago, someone hacked into DH's paypal account directly and bought a laptop or something from Russia. Paypal didn't bluntly come out and say anything was our fault at that time but it sure was our burden of proof to show that we didn't go to Russia and purchase a laptop! Our credit card company immediately issued the refund for us back then even though Paypal was still "investigating" it. I absolutely despise Paypal's fraud department but with DH on ebay all the time, it is an evil necessity.

October is full of "non-essential" expenses!

September 30th, 2009 at 02:30 pm

1st Weekend in October:

1. Fall Festival at the kids school. Will cost around $20 or so to let the kids go and enjoy the activities -- fundraiser for the school so no biggie.

2. A co-worker gave me 2 free tickets to a Halloween event at a local amusement park. We have 4 in our family so we'd have to buy 2 more tickets which would cost $52. The event happens every year but we had never been before so it would be a real treat for the kids. Even at $52, we'd probably never get this great deal again (basically 50% off), so we'll go. We have to go this particular night as the free tickets are only for this night (opening night) so we'll head out there after the Fall Festival.

3. Going to sis's house 3 hours away for a birthday party for both my niece and nephew. Will enjoy the trip to visit with them but will be spending a pretty penny at the same time.
Birthday gifts to buy = $40
Gas for trip = $50
Eating out with extended family = $100 (I'm expected to foot the bill for dinner)

Total estimated for first weekend in Oct = $262

2nd Weekend in October:

1. Some of DH's family from CA will be here. DH hasn't seen them in probably 15 years so that will be a very nice visit.
Cost of entertaining them will probably be just around $100.

2. A different nephew has a birthday so another birthday gift to buy = $20

Total estimated for second weekend in Oct = $120

3rd Weekend in October:

1. NC State Fair - we try to attend each year as our own little family tradition. We used to live right there but after we moved away, we are now 4 hours from the event. So with tickets, hotel, food, gas etc., this weekend might be pricey at around $300.

2. DH's sister has a birthday so another gift probably at around $30 for her.

Total estimated for third weekend in Oct = $330

4th Weekend in October:

1. Our youngest celebrates a birthday so with her gifts and throwing a party with friends, we are estimating a price tag of around $150.

Total estimated for fourth weekend in Oct = $150

5th Weekend in October:

1. Halloween -- won't probably spend too much on costumes this year. Oldest will be wearing something that I made for one of her school plays and we haven't decided on what the youngest wants to do yet. Got to buy candy for the neighborhood kids so all in all, maybe just $30.

Total estimated for fifth weekend in Oct = $30

THAT'S A TOTAL OF $892!! Geez!

FSBO?

August 25th, 2009 at 02:01 pm

Ok, I've posted about how we have our house for sale. We put it on originally for $349,000 and about 2 weeks ago, lowered it to $325,000. Our contract with the realtor expires next week and we are going ahead and withdrawing the listing now (our realtor says it looks better on the MLS system as a withdrawal instead of an expired listing). At $325,000, the 6% commission fee would have been $19,500 that we would've had to pay out...and we were only willing to negotiate the price down to $320,000 bottom line. We didn't feel like our realtor was doing much to push our house so we are actually glad to get out of this contract...but rather than going with another realtor...we are now considering whether or not to keep the house on the market as a FSBO (for sale by owner). We could lower the price of the house to $305,000 and still make the same amount of money as we would have with the $325,000 realtor price. If we offered a 3% buyer's commission fee, it would mean that we could put it on at $315,000 for the same payout.

We've never sold a house ourselves before without a realtor. Does anyone have any advice as to whether or not we should try to sell it ourselves? Here are the options:

Option 1 - FSBO
List price of $319,000 (willing to negotiate down to $305,000 if need be)
No MLS exposure
Out of pocket expense for advertising, etc = xxx??
Pros: we control everything
Cons: we don't know anything

Option 2 - FSBO flat-rate listing service
List price of $325,000 (willing to negotiate down to $315,000 if need be)
MLS exposure
Out of pocket expense for listing service = $499 for 6 months
Pros: agent will help with the paperwork, MLS listing will provide realtor exposure
Cons: immediate cash out of $499, 3% buyer commission

We've had 2 houses sell in our neighborhood within the past 2 years. One sold for $318,000 and the other sold for $305,000. However, the $318,000 was much more of a comparable than the $305,000 due to size, style, etc. Therefore, we don't feel our pricing is asking for too much at all.

Has anyone had success (or failure) at selling your home yourself? What should our next step be? I've already created a website highlighting our house (in case we go this FSBO route) and we are willing to do much more to advertise our house. We just need to know we can actually do it ourselves! Smile

My sister's financial mess

July 22nd, 2009 at 02:56 pm

I spoke with my sister the other day about her finances. She's a SAHM with two kids under 3 years old. Her husband works 45-50 hours a week just to make ends meet but they are barely getting by. He brings home NET around $420 a week or about $1,600 a month. Ok, do the math here... their house payment is $600 and their car payment is $650 each month. Yes, I wrote that correctly - $650 for one car payment!!! Her van broke down in the middle of the interstate while she had the two kids with her and her husband swore that she would never be stranded like that again... so he goes off and buys her a brand new van costing around $35,000!

nyway, that's $1,250 right off the bat just for house and car payment. Then add in about $400 in utilities, cell phones, cable, etc. There is absolutely no money left for food, gas, savings, emergencies, diapers (yes, the kids are still wearing diapers!). I don't know how much they have in credit card debt but I'm sure it's a scary number. Oh, and I didn't mention how far behind they are on all their bills so they spend probably a good $200 on late fees alone each month.

I asked my sister how they manage each month and she said that they just pay whatever is being in jeopardy of being turned off that month. So this month, it was the power bill. Next month it will be to pay on the van some. The next month, who knows?

It's a very sad situation. They are good people and aren't lazy by any means. However, they are stretched way too far and it's hard for them to catch up to even see where the break even point might be each month. My sis can't work right now as they can't afford child care, especially with her husband working very long hours. He has a good job but it takes him away from home quite a bit for days at a time. She did have a 401K and an IRA from when she did work but they cashed all that in about 4 years ago to avoid bankruptcy. He has no retirement savings at all. He is about 42 and she is 38.

I see the toll this takes on my sis and it bothers me not to be able to really help them. I give her a few hundred dollars here and there when I can but it hardly makes a dent into anything for them.

Our 'real' summer vacation plans...

July 21st, 2009 at 06:04 pm

We had taken a mini-vacation a few weeks ago over the 4th Holiday. Now, it's onward to our real summer vacation that we'll be taking in NC beginning next week...

Day 1: Carowinds (amusement park)
Day 2: Great Wolf Lodge (water park)
Day 3: Great Wolf Lodge
Day 4: Camping (just bought a great tent on sale!)
Day 5: Explore the NC Outer Banks
Day 6: Outer Banks
Day 7: Outer Banks
Day 8: Outer Banks
Day 9: Return Home

We've budgeted $2,500 for the 8 days. We've been to Carowinds but as for the rest of the activities, even camping, it will all be new to us so it should be fun!

Signed up on Facebook

July 16th, 2009 at 01:54 pm

Well, I did it. A couple of days ago, I signed up on Facebook and it's been fun. I've "connected" with several folks that I went to high school with. I found one girl that is now a fairly successful model. She's done a lot of print work and has been in a few commercials and a movie. I NEVER in a million years would've pegged her as becoming a model!! Interesting how life turns out sometimes.

Back on finances, July is the month that my raise goes into affect (we get paid on the last day of each month). That gives us an extra $550 after taxes more a month or over $6,500 more NET each year. Yea! It'll be a welcome addition to our net cash flow each month.

Our house is still sitting here stagnant. We've just found out that a house in our neighborhood (which was rented and not on the market) was sold a month or two ago for just $305,000. We've got our house listed for $349,000. This is not good at all. Of course, our house is bigger, nicer, and all that jazz but yikes. Our contract with the realtor runs out Aug 31. We've decided that if the house doesn't sell by then, we'll just take it off the market until next Spring. It's not like we have to sell and I'm not sure I want to just give it away either. I just hate that I won't be able to buy that house I posted earlier... Frown But, if things don't work out, it's not the end of the world. We are just fine where we are, both have really good stable jobs, and luckily are not caught in a dire financial situation like many are in today's economy.


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