Dog Ate My Finances

Oops, I'm in Love

2009-11-24T04:39:00.000-08:00

Oh, crap. I fell in love with a house.

It's a beauty. A half-mil beauty next door to a 3M mansion and a 1M house. It's one of the only 70s builds left in the neighborhood. Our realtor thinks we can get it for about 500, and 400 of that is dirt.

It has a weird 70s layout that we loved the second we saw it. It's ultimately a teardown. Granted, a teardown with granite that wouldn't be a teardown in any other neighborhood, but eventually a teardown.

So, let's throw out a number, 510.

We have, counting mom's loaned 15K, 95K in liquid cash. That's pretty good for being in debt one year ago, and zero net worth 1.5 years ago.

Taxes at 14K. Higher than I thought.

Part of me wants to just do it. GIMME GIMME. MINE!!! I want to just get all the loan I can and never leave. And we'd have to pay 2.5K to rent anyway. So this is no big deal, right? I keep trying to rationalize and justify and plan, while still hating debt as much as I do. I guess we never should have looked at houses that expensive because now I really feel like we're in a self-imposed, greedy bind.

A Buy-Out?!?!?!

2009-11-22T07:57:00.000-08:00

One of Senor Dog's customers is thinking about hiring Senor Dog. That would mean that Senor Dog would work exclusively for this client, as an employee, and he would get rid of all his other clients.

And so he dropped a word I've never been more excited to hear: BUY OUT. The company would buy out Senor Dog's company. Wow. A FREAKING BUY OUT. O.M.G. This is the most exciting thing I've heard in a while.

I find it very hard to value Senor Dog's company for the buy-out. It's mostly just him, and all his incredible skills, talent, and hustle. I help a little, we have a few part-time contractors to cover more ground. But, it's mostly him.

So, really the buy out would be part of the negotiation of him becoming an employee. And, let me tell you, after working for himself, they would really have to make it worth his while.

They haven't even made an offer yet, so obviously this is nowhere close to a done deal. But they did drop the idea, and I'm just so excited I have to tell y'all!! I guess we'll know more when there's an offer in hand.

One Year Debt Free

2009-11-20T10:15:00.000-08:00

One year ago, we made it. After struggling with debt since I went to college at 18 and when Senor Dog financed his car at 16, we are DEBT FREE.

We've now been debt free for a whole year. We don't owe anybody a dime. I don't worry about which bill to pay or whether I should pay it off or save. I don't think about whether debt is more important than retirement savings. I don't think about how much it cost every day in interest to pay Sallie.

When you're debt free, your life is your own. When I got laid off, it sucked, don't get me twisted, but we only had our own bills to pay. We didn't have Sallie demanding her pimp percentage. Nobody had any power over us. When I think about it, we owned our lives.

When you're in debt, especially when you have as much debt as we did, you feel like you got behind somehow. You feel like you'll never catch up. You feel like Sallie will always own you. But you will make it. When you finally catch up, when you don't owe anybody a dime, it lifts a weight you can't even imagine.

Now that we've been debt free for a year, I had to think back to those days when Sallie would follow me around and haunt my thoughts. It's been so long, I didn't even think about that weight any more. It was unpleasant to remember it -- I used to think about Sallie every time I bought coffee or the name brand toilet paper. She was like the worst roommate ever who trashed the house and told me how fat I looked every morning. Your life will be better without debt, without that baggage. I think y'all can all do it!

No Mas

2009-11-18T04:19:00.000-08:00

It's just a terrible feeling when you get a call from your darling husband, look up, and realize you have worked 8-8 without eating, drinking, or going to the bathroom.

Worse, I feel like I accomplished nothing. The people I help just want more. It's never enough. I just get all these calls and emails about how much more I am supposed to do. I'm supposed to help their friends. I'm supposed to make all of these calls and do all of these things. I just keep getting calls. People keep showing up.

It never ends. It's never happy. No one ever calls me or ends up on my desk because they are happy. And even people I have made slightly less miserable don't thank me. Even the satisfaction has no time to sink in because I've got six voicemails yelling at me. They act like it's my responsibility to help them because of their shitty lot in life.

Me, I've chosen to get treated like this. Oh, and I get paid less than the secretary.

How Much House Can We Afford?

2009-11-16T16:15:00.001-08:00

As with all things in life, you get what you pay for in real estate.

We looked at a couple houses in the 500K-ish range. That's a lot of money...

On one hand, this is our only chance to buy into this kind of neighborhood... But, it's a lot of money. I really think it could be a good investment for that super-fancy neighborhood. But, it's a lot of money.

I've been watching friends buy (or think about buying) in DC, NYC, and California. In those places, 500 sounds like a bargain. So maybe I've lost perspective on cheap Texas real estate.

Can we afford 500K?

Want to Move

2009-11-15T12:12:00.000-08:00

Our cars got broken into this weekend. Again. It's about every other month now.

Every day, I think about moving. Every day, there is some crappy thing in this house that pisses me off. The lights quit working. The closet is terrible. The burners aren't level. The cars get broken into. One of the toilets is always broken. The water heater is picky. The fridge drawers don't close well. No storage for our stuff. Whew.

So sick of this place.

If we can't buy, we'll just have to rent something nicer.

The Harbinger

2009-11-14T08:20:00.000-08:00

We went to a party in the 'burbs with a couple we love to death and go way back with. They had a baby and moved to a giant house in the burbs that can only be described as a McMansion.

The neighborhood is lovely. It's clean, there are hiking paths, and even a little swamp/lake thing. There's a rec center, churches, a GIANT grocery store. It's the suburban dream. A chest freezer in the massive garage. Five bedrooms. A pool with a bubbling fountain.

The party had a few hold-overs from the swinging downtown life, like us. But mostly it was people from the burbs and their kids. They have a big party about once a year. At the last one, there were two kids and a baby. At this one, there was a 2:1 adult:kid ratio. People "parked" the strollers/car seats in the giant, two story entry way with generic light fixture.

The food was catered. There was no music. You had to watch your language.

I think I can see the future coming. Maybe not for us, but for the people around us. It's coming. Fast.

PS3 + Netflix, The Future is Now

2009-11-10T05:28:00.000-08:00

We've had Netflix on our Tivo for a while now, and it's solidliy OK. The selection of Netflix on demand isn't exactly stellar, but it's OK. On our Tivo wireless, it's a little glitchy, doesn't look that great, and takes forever to load.

And then we got a red envelope with out PS3's Netflix disc. Apparently, Netflix has a software deal with Xbox, so I have to get around this with a silly CD. Senor Dog even signed up for it right on time. Priorities, you know. Anyway, I'm not Xbox, so I don't really care whose toes it stepped on.

We fired it up, and wow is it gorgeous. It's exactly the same as the Tivo content, in theory. But it is fast, the streaming is so fast, it looks like a million bucks, and the pause/rewind/fast forward are all perfect. It's just perfect.

I mean, I am streaming practically HD over my home wireless. Wow. That's incredible to even think about.

I didn't even know I needed this until I got it. This is definitely the future for "renting" movies. We could even downgrade our Netflix membership (currently 3/time) and rely on the streaming, maybe. It's just fantastic.

Foreclosures

2009-11-08T13:24:00.000-08:00

We got a new realtor, and she's a lot better than the old one (not that it would take much).

Our new realtor seems to actually know what is going on, and she has gotten us into two foreclosed houses the day before they list. So far, we've put in two offers, and lost both. One was a cash buyer for about the same amount. The other offered 290 to our 280. At least in foreclosures it's all over in a couple days, you move on, you don't have time to get attached.

We've got our heart set on a neighborhood or two, we're just trying to make it work.

The thing about Texas real estate is that you have to remember the crippling tax load. You pay about 1.5-2% taxes on the APPRAISED value of your house. It is really a lot of money. So, even if you could get a 1M$ house somehow, you have to be able to carry 20K in the taxes.

So, we're still working on it.

Christmas Already?

2009-11-07T06:18:00.000-08:00

Can it really be Christmas already?

Last year about this time, I got the Neiman's Christmas catalog. I guess I didn't make the cut this year. Or maybe they just found that in bad taste in Great Depression II.

Last year, we scaled Christmas back some, but not much. The year before was INSANE.

One thing I am defintely going to cut is the Secret Santa. Now that I spend every working hour actually doing good, I no longer feel the need to quiet my corporate guilt by blowing $500 on crap for the less fortunate. So, that's good.

But we still have to buy for all of these people. Ugh. I think we need more name drawing. More name drawing!

The DWI

2009-11-05T18:21:00.001-08:00

My friend who got the DWI is making us all learn the hard way how this goes. I was really surprised by the comments. I guess I'm the only one who has driven when I shouldn't. Got it, everybody. I guess my readers who are all magically fertile in their 40s also have never driven after a couple drinks.

Anyway, my friend doesn't even go to court until next week. She has to be there all morning, and she has to stay there until noon, so she has to take a whole day off work/school. Pretty much nothing is going to happen. They still have to get all the evidence and so on.

The lawyer said she should expect to go to court for 4-5 more times until anything happens. WTF?

It looks like the total bill will be more like 10K. Holy crap. How is anyone supposed to afford that?

The whole process is very scary, and boy I have never been more happy to blow $15 on a cab.

Business Doing Well!

2009-11-03T13:57:00.000-08:00

So, my instinct was right on, and October was a bad month for the business. But things are looking good for Senor Dog in 2009!

He has some good clients and some more stuff going on. We now have four part time contractors, plus an accountant. By the end of the year, Senor Dog thinks he can have 30K coming in after taxes. Insane.

Sometimes I am so proud of him, I just well up. I like to think I'm smart, but doesn't really matter how smart you are if you don't have something useful to sell and the skills and the hard work to get out there and sell it. He is so good at what he does.

I am so proud of my sweetie.

A DWI

2009-11-02T07:25:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine got a DWI on Halloween night.

She spent a whole day in jail, which was pretty much a cell with the toilet in the middle. After she got bailed out, she put down 1K in cash for her lawyer's first set of fees, 3K. She has no idea how much it will end up costing. She had to install a thing on her car to blow into. It's very scary.

I feel so bad for her. You know what, I'll admit it. I've driven a few times when I shouldn't have. Maybe a few too many times. When she was arrested, the first thing I thought was that it could have been me.

That said, in the last couple months, we've really felt our age when it comes to liquor. So we've been cabbing it quite a bit (which is difficult, expensive, and inconvenient in Texas). I'd say we've spent about $50/month on cabs. Suddenly, that seems like the smartest $50 I've ever spent.

My friend is a grad student. I feel so bad for her. It's one thing to hang on to your job in a bad situation like this. It's another to have a freaking DWI going on in the worst economy ever when there are a billion other people just like you when you apply for the only job in the state.

So, don't drink and drive, kids.

Net Worth October 09. Wha Happened?

2009-11-01T08:14:00.001-08:00

Net Worth, November 1, 2009. $166,610, -$946, -.05%
For 2009, +91K, 119%

* Market flat.

Other than that, I don't know what happened. I wasn't watching the money this month, and I don't know what happened to it.

We still haven't done the business accounting, and I think that's probably the problem. I don't even know if it was a bad month or not.

Working in a Team

2009-10-29T19:03:00.000-07:00

I've never seen anything like my current job before. We're actually a team.

I mean we are an honest-to-God, not competing with each other, work to make each other's lives better team. If you have a problem, you ask and somebody knows somebody who knows how to fix it, and they drop what they're doing and help you.

A couple reasons. In profit world, you compete with your colleagues. You might share the solution, if you feel like it. You might share it with your work buddy. But would you stop work on that client to show some random noob how to do it? Hell no.

When your workload and your MISSION depend on how well you work, you have no choice but to work together. You have a MISSION.

Your profit company probably has a mission too. It's probably something about delivering the best value and ethics and blahbity blah. It's not the same. When you are in the trenches of the non-profit, you see the value of your work every day. Your values are your work.

It was hard to express it because I hadn't really figured it out yet, but this is it. In a true teamwork environment, you belong to the team. But you have no way to outpace anyone... You sink and swim together.

Business Accounting

2009-10-27T18:17:00.001-07:00

When you own your own business, it's a lot of paperwork. A lot. And then there's some more. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying or doesn't fear the IRS.

The problem with me being so busy is that I haven't had time to do the accounting. Every month, we send the statements (one bank account, two credit cards) to the accountant. We match up the receipts. Sometimes we have to find invoices and so on, and sometimes the receipts are in email. We also have to put notes on some of them, like the more expensive items or the meals or the travel expenses. So, it's not just sending a box of receipts to the accountant.

I was trying to just get him to do it, since I don't have time. Problem is, he's a creative type. He can't (won't?) pull the statements and match up all the receipts -- it drives him crazy.

From my point of view, the whole thing takes an hour, and it's a cost of doing business. I feel like he just puts it off until I get so mad I have to do it, and then I feel like he doesn't take his business seriously.

We had a huge fight about this, and I just can't think of a better solution. We don't have a sustainable system here. Anyone done this before? Ideas?

No Passports?

2009-10-24T10:26:00.000-07:00

I heard a stat this week that something like 10% of Americans have passports. I've heard this before, I'm sure you have too, but I don't know if it's true or where in the heck it comes from.

Growing up as close to Mexico as I did, I find it really hard to believe. Even before you technically had to have a passport to go to Mexico, everyone had one. Even if you were on food stamps, you had a passport.

So, let's say the poor never leave their neighborhood. Heck, let's say the bottom 50% of the U.S. never leaves their neighborhood. That still leaves 40% of the U.S. that should have passports and don't.

Can it really be only 10%? Can it really be that 90% of us will never leave the U.S?

Losing Faith in People

2009-10-23T09:19:00.000-07:00

Between my job, my horrific real estate transaction, and the trolls, I think I'm losing my faith in humankind.

I like to think of myself as a generally optimistic person. I give people the benefit of the doubt. I assume your heart is in the right place.

Every day, every single day, I see the bad in people. I see people suffering at the hands of others. It's easy for me to accept problems that are your fault. I can even accept random misfortune. But it's hard for me to wrap my head around nastiness in mean people.

I don't know what is happening to me at my job. It is changing my whole perspective. Sometimes I'm not even sure I live in the same world anymore. I don't get paid enough to deal with this. I wonder if I stay here long enough, maybe I will just be numb. I don't think I can ever get my optimistic innocence back.

Lay Offs Still Coming

2009-10-21T15:05:00.000-07:00

I still seem to see it on Facebook, every day. I mean, Dow hit 10,000. Recession is over, right?

Every day, somebody posts their lay-off or begs for job leads or something. Today, a dear friend with a job an awful lot like my old job fell. Ouch.

I felt so bad for him. It was like reliving my lay-off again. I could feel the sting again. It had been a while since I thought about that pain/humiliation/fear/depression.

Today, I was little more happy for my thankless, emotionally draining non-profit job.

About Temporary Credit Card Numbers

2009-10-20T18:01:00.000-07:00

I've always had a card that let me make temporary credit card numbers.

You log in to your account, click on the right link and tell it what you need. You can make it only good for a certain amount, or you can make it expire when you want. It gives you a unique credit card number that just bills back to your regular one. The merchant never sees your real number.

I used to use this all the time, well, at least back when I shopped more (like in this post No More Stupid Crap). I'd use them to buy at sketchy websites, like a one-off magazine subscription or something. I've also used them for subscriptions I don't want to continue (make it expire soon).

Temporary Credit Cards

2009-10-19T18:19:00.000-07:00

I thought I had done so well, simplifying us to only two credit cards. One Visa, one Amex. I canceled the Fidelity Visa, it was the last to go.

I didn't realize one of those critical features was so rare. The temporary credit card numbers! We used it all the time, and neither of the cards we have left have it! I even called customer service, and they tried to convince me that I can just rely on the fraud protection.

That was a really important feature, and I don't think I realized how much I needed it until it was gone.

So, what cards have temporary numbers?

Dealing With Unethical Realtor

2009-10-15T18:34:00.000-07:00

I left a vague message for Unethical Realtor, and he actually called me back five hours later. That's probably a record for a realtor.

I chickened out and didn't answer the phone when I saw the caller ID. I was still been thinking about my choices about how to deal with Unethical Realtor and Unethical Seller. I was unsure.

Then, Unethical Realtor sent me an email, riddled with poor spelling and grammar. (He had my email from all those unethical emails to me when he couldn't find his client for five days on end, and I was fed up.) The email said it was unethical to contact him (HA!) and that he still had my check to pick up. He said there was nothing I could possibly need from him at that point. And that pissed me off all over again.

So, I just did it in email. I made the threat. It probably would have been more effective over the phone. But if I'm going to file a complaint and such, I should at least give a warning shot. It is, after all, the only way to get my money. And who am I kidding? -- I'll take the $600 to walk away and avoid the hassle.

But, I'll file if I have to. I'm right, she lied, it's just wrong. I could deal with stupidity or incompetence, but not straight up lying. Maybe, I'll lose at the board. I don't really care. It will cost him a lot more than it will cost me.

To Move On?

2009-10-14T12:09:00.000-07:00

I got a strange email just now from the realtor from the house we totally got burned on.

He wants me to go by the office and pick up the escrow check he never deposited. Ah, lazy until the end. Realtors...

So, now I have three choices. The first is all the inspector's idea.

(1) The house is, in theory, under contract. We can send a certified copy of the 65-page inspection report to the seller, and then the sellers has to disclose it to the buyer. I can also file a complaint with the real estate board (TREC for the trolls) which would cause all kinds of problems for the realtor.

(2) I could threaten to do the things in (1) to get the money back.

(3) I can forget about it and lose my $600.

Help!

Getting Back on the Wagon

2009-10-14T11:48:00.000-07:00

After getting seriously burned in our last almost-house-buying experience, I haven't even browsed online for a new house.

I'm generally an optimist. I like to believe that people don't lie, and that 10 year old houses should be in pretty good shape.

I've told the story of our house saga a few times in real life, mostly to people who were waiting on housewarming invitations. Every time it broke my heart to tell it, and every time, they had some story they thought would be comforting.

Usually, the story went like this: You know in our X years old house, there was X, X, and X wrong, and boy was that a lot of work. But that's what you get in old houses.

But sometimes the story went like this: Our house had flooded and we didn't know until after closing and we tried to insure it. Or... Our house had asbestos removed, and we had to get it re-inspected before we could get it insured.

Those kind of stories have made me even more wary. I can't believe how much people LIE. I mean, seriously, how could you not disclose a flood? Or SHAVING THE DOORS DOWN? I could deal with some work, but I just can't handle more lies.

The Flu

2009-10-11T15:34:00.000-07:00

I have the flu, and I should know on Monday whether it's swine flu or not.

Work doesn't know what to do because I technically don't have any vacation or sick time yet, but those bean counters can kiss my swine flu.

The powers above are working on the red tape to let me stay home, and they haven't figured it out yet. I'm guessing nobody wants me at work next week. And I don't really care if they do want me there because I can barely change the channel on the Tivo.