June 22, 2007
Back on track again, just not both tracks
It was pretty rough this past week trying to get our bank account to survive until payday. I don’t like all the money going out so quickly either, but the time frame for some of these things put us in a bottleneck. With the money coming back in again it eases the pressure to get things done. I would just like us to have more long term goals beyond the end of this month. At least I am considering December already because car insurance and Christmas always feels like a one-two punch.
This weekend we’re going to have a garage sale to try to hopefully get rid of a bunch of stuff we have taking up space in storage. My wife thinks we should also sell our dining table and the 4 chairs out there with the stuff we wouldn’t miss. I asked her what the intentions are for the money from the garage sale, and sure as I already knew the answer, we would need to go out and buy us a new table and chairs to go with our furniture. The only real positive side to this is we would have the money to pay cash for this new purchase. On the flipside though, why replace the dining table and chairs if we don’t need to? I don’t get it.
My wife is excited for some reason to get rid of our house and go rent an apartment near the city. I’m not sure what timeframe she has in mind that we should move, but the realtor we bought our house with does not want to work with us to sell it. She says that because it has only been a year, the market is soft, and there is not a ton of equity involved, it might be difficult to sell and we wouldn’t make money off it, or even cost us money to sell it. We don’t have the money available at this time if it does cost us to sell. The answer of course is to find a realtor who is willing to sell our house, not considering the cost of course. The house is financed under me alone because I bought it just before we were married, so I could refinance the loans and possibly turn it into a rental that would pay for itself granted I find the right people.
So why is she excited about selling the house even if it costs us money to do it? She has been browsing these rental websites finding various apartments or condos for rent with really nice stuff. Stainless steel appliances, granite countertops, vaulted ceilings, nice view overlooking the Lake Michigan and/or Chicago, and of course these places are near stores, parks, bars, etc. Details of course that I look at are the cost per month, which is lower than what we pay now but only by a few hundred, is that even worth moving?. The other part is most of the time apartments require a security deposit of about one month’s rent. So we would need to have the amount of the rent available just so we can rent the apartment. The money does not have much of a plan so nothing is earmarked to be saved each month. I’m trying to explain to her that we need a budget so the money has a purpose and isn’t spent before we even have it (currently the biggest problem). It is taking time but nothing has clicked yet.
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