Sunday, September 14, 2008

It's Been A While

Change of jobs + change of location + change of just about everything = Very few posts.

I must admit that I started this blog while I was working at a call center which had many slow periods, thus allowing me to post when work was down. I enjoy posting as it helps me put my ideas into words, so I am going to try to keep it up despite the fact that I'll have to do it on my own time.

As I mentioned before, a lot has changed. I still work for the same organization, but I live in Arkansas now and perform a completely different job. It gave me about a $4,000 a year pay increase and I'll get another pay increase in January and then a promotion in August. Not bad at all.

My wife is also an official pharmacist now. This of course has helped us dramatically. She got her first full paycheck a couple of weeks ago and we are looking forward to more. There are some indications that by this time next month, she'll be a pharmacy manager which will also include a nice pay raise and bigger bonuses.

And now an update on our finances...

We bought a new house (obviously) and we are very happy with it. During its construction, the builder had to declare bankruptcy, so the bank took it over. They finished it and owned it since March 2007. So, you may imagine, they were anxious to unload it. The asking price was $189,900, so our initial offer was $169,900. We also asked for a fence for our dogs as well as gutters. They countered with their initial asking price and the fence and the gutters, but they said they would give us a mortgage at 5.25%. I did the math and over 30 years, we would save a pretty decent amount of money than if they accepted our asking price and we got a mortgage even one percentage point higher. The closing went very smoothly, and now we own two houses.

The first house will hopefully be rented soon. We still have to tie up some loose ends on it, and the two hour drive it takes to get there is making it difficult. We can stand to pay the mortgage for a couple of months, but not once my wife's student loans enter repayment.

Also, we've paid off the first of our credit cards. It was the smallest of them, and the rate was not terribly high, but it feels good to get started.

My car loan is finally below $1,000, and should be paid off in 5 months.

That's about all I can think of for now. Hopefully, the next post won't take as long as this one did. If you read this, please post a comment. I'd like to think that this is reaching someone.