Ceejay74's Personal Finance Blog

My work friend died Saturday. I knew it was coming with absolute certainty, so the pain has been kind of diffused over several points: when I found out what she had and read about the survival rates online; when I heard she'd gone into hospice, and then when I heard she'd died. But it still hurts. Hard to believe such a lively, constantly moving, super-bright woman could decline so quickly and be gone from my life. The workplace is subdued, but luckily it's being faced head-on: the office is closing early Friday so we can all go to her funeral.

The second maybe-interested buyer backed down from making an offer. This time the reason was association dues too high in the city, going to buy a place in the suburbs instead. Can't argue with that. There have been two more showings, Saturday and Monday, both from a single agent but can't tell if it was one buyer coming back for a second look. No feedback from those.

No word on the WV deal. The option expires Saturday. No idea what they're going to do.

No word on NT's raise. He's bugged his manager again to talk to the person she needs to in order to get the promotion and raise made official. She tends to drag her feet for ages, so who knows if/when this will happen. But she's lost a good worker by ignoring his needs, so hopefully she's learned somewhat of a lesson and won't try to play games with my husband.

Other than that, things are steady. Just some really sad news and some frustrating lack of progress on some fronts. Nothing we could control. Everything we *can* control is working out nicely. We've managed to hang onto about $600 of the $1200 that NT's mom sent us, so we have some for must-have repairs and urgent wants. The rest was spent pretty sensibly on equipment repairs and various winterizing and storage type things.

NT's mom's boyfriend sent us some lottery tickets he'd bought in the U.S. and we cashed them out; $15. We spent $9.50 on a buy one get one free costume deal at Target.

AS has $25 gift card coming from MyPoints that she gets to keep or trade in for cash by giving it to me for grocery money. I've completed the pedometer challenge at work and will get a gift card for it. NT used some Pinecone money to offset a pair of used boots from eBay. I'm going to try and make do with all my winter stuff from last year, and we'll see what we have for the girls before we buy them anything from a thrift store. I'm close to earning $100 in CC rewards from USBank, which means we'll also get an extra $25 for waiting until we'd accumulated $100. All the little stuff adds up and helps us stay on track during this very tight time. That means I've been able to hold onto $2K from my raise, and that NT's raise (if/when it comes) can go toward helping us get out from under the condo mortgage.

AS has less than $5000 to earn to finish making up for her paychecks and healthcare through January. Once she's done I can start saving up for taxes and putting some to her retirement. She's got three or four prospective and/or definite jobs that will probably put her over the top; we just don't have exact dollar amounts so I can't count them yet. So far it looks like freelancing will pay way more than the job she left; not sure how much more after SE taxes and self-funded healthcare. But at least she's happier and doesn't work quite as much as she did, so that alone makes it worthwhile.

So things are going pretty well. Even though I'm feeling sad and stuck, we're actually doing OK.

The people who saw our condo Thursday expressed some interest! They asked if we'd consider a $135k offer. It's listed at $145k, so I asked our realtor to say we'd take $140k. Still waiting to hear back, but their agent thinks they'll be interested. Here's hoping!

I ran a 1-mile fun run with my 4-year-old today. She struggled some but had a good time. We got medals for finishing so she liked that, and there were people in animal suits. Her favorite moment was high-fiving a rabbit.

Had a family meeting with our friends/tenants. Happy to report everyone is pleased with the arrangement so far. They really want to buy a share of the house at some point. One is a lawyer so he'd be able to draw up the papers for that. They don't want us to pay back the $5k they loaned us for the down payment, so if we do this deal that can go toward their share of the home. We agreed to wait a while and make sure we continue to all agree it's a good idea. I love it myself but don't want to rush into it.

All five(!) of our mortgage payments hit:
US (condo): $483 to principal
US (duplex): $625
UK1: $221
UK2: $46
UK3: $49

All told, we paid down $1,424, with $126 to go on the October debt goal.

AS got another promise of on-site work from my company next week. Not sure how many hours it will be, somewhere between 8 and 16 I believe, at $40 per hour. She's closing in on fully funding December and it's just turned October!

Since we didn't sign up for swim lessons in time, the nice thing is our Saturday mornings with the kids are free. I signed up for a fun run with AA this Saturday and to clean up streets with the neighborhood association next Saturday. Now to think of some fun activities for the younger one as well ...

Another tooth appointment tomorrow. Fingers crossed this is the last one for my implant! Take care of your teeth, folks. Replacing them is a real PITA.

One more quick entry for today!

My goal for October is to pay off at least $1550 of debt.

Starting balance of all debt: $680,503. Goal balance: $678,953.

AS's student loan hit, with $136 going to principal.

Also, we got a call from Sallie Mae about NT's loan a couple days ago. I logged on and saw that we'd missed a payment in August and had one due for September too! I hadn't even been checking his account because he's in school until mid-December and they shouldn't have come due. I quickly paid both (a little over $100 total) and will take it out of the money I've been hoarding for getting out of the condo. Then I called Sallie Mae and it turns out they'd been waiting to hear from the college to confirm enrollment but payments had started up anyway. They've put a hold on future payments pending confirmation from the college.

So long story short, I paid off some interest that had accrued plus $25 on NT's student loan. Annoying that we had to make a payment now, but I'm always happy to reduce debt!

All told, that's $161 put to principal. That takes us to $1581, exceeding the $1500 goal for September. I'll post an October goal soon.

Other news:

- One of my favorite co-workers, probably in her 40s, is dying. Stage 4 lung cancer. She just found out a couple months ago but probably won't last many more days. She started chemo and planned to keep working, but it was progressing way too fast, so she's in hospice now. Healthy woman, full of energy, smart-alecky and hardworking. Two tween-aged kids and a husband and parents. This will be the second unbelievably vibrant woman I know this year to die of cancer. It is awful. Especially knowing there's no hope of her survival at all.

- Beyond aching for her and her family, the suddenness of it makes me evaluate whether I've got a good balance of delaying gratification while allowing some. I think I am. We allowed a big gratification -- moving into our new house -- in exchange for delaying a lot of little things. If luck continues to go our way, we'll be able to start introducing those little pleasures early next year. Doesn't seem like that long, except when I think that if my co-worker had found out about her cancer today, she'd likely have died by early next year. But it does make me glad we moved into the house. Couldn't imagine putting all that effort, money and mental anguish into buying the place and never getting to live there.

How to live your life to its fullest while keeping mind that you have anywhere from three months to 60 years left? That's the financial balancing act. Those who don't have that many wishes that take money are lucky. A good deal of the things I want to do, have or see will cost me money. But it's not all that. Some of what I want to do is just not work as hard and spend more time with family and friends. That doesn't take money, really, just good money management and work/life balance. And we're all actively trying to achieve that. It's gotten a bit better for me and AS; NT is still stretched way too thin, but if he can hang on through mid-December, he'll at least get college off his plate, and that's a biggie. And hopefully his new managerial role at work will eventually mean more delegating and less long hours, but only time will tell with that one.

OK, sorry, I had to write about that. I know it wasn't too cheerful. It's been weighing on me and when I heard about her going into hospice yesterday, I had to get it off my chest.

Other stuff:

- AS now has enough freelance work to fund November and part of December. She's got some potential work that will finish off December if it pans out. If she funds through January, I'm going to start allocating future jobs toward 2014 taxes and AS's retirement, which have both been neglected since the end of August. After that I would start socking away money to get out of the condo.

- No word from the people interested in the condo, so we're going ahead with getting the rest of the floors redone. Should be about $800, which I've already got set aside.

- We got through our third and final set of visitors (just Friday through Saturday). My sister and two of her kids (adults, really). My sister generously paid for all meals out, so we just paid for carshares to/from airport, a haircut for my niece, an ice cream cone for my nephew and a few other little things. Came to about $75 which we all helped pay in. A cheap visit! I have no money until Friday, but that's quite all right.

- I have my final(?) dental appointment for my implant this week. I hope no adults in my household lose teeth for a very long time! It's been nearly a year-long process and would have cost about $5000 if I hadn't used pretax money and credit card rewards to offset it.

- Living in deliberate frugality again, I've noticed the same reactions as the first time we did it, when we started our debt-payoff journey. I'm not ashamed at all to say I have no money for a new winter wardrobe, that we can only get new furniture if it's free, that we have no money to eat out, that I'm not going to replace my sneakers with holes in the heel until they actually become uncomfortable, that we've cut our haircut visits in half, etc. I feel good about these decisions because they're helping us to carry two mortgages and move into our big new house. Some people seem to react positively, but others kind of get quiet and look embarrassed or sad. I just think it's funny now, because I know I'm working toward a place where I can easily afford those things again, and I'm not feeling deprived by putting off these purchases. In fact I feel smart, free and empowered by these decisions. It's not like we don't have some money in the bank and tons of available credit on cards; I just don't want to use any of those things until we're in a better position with our debt and monthly budget. If we absolutely need something, there are ways to pay for it.

I started to write something yesterday but didn't get far enough to save it. Life is busy and full! Maybe part of it is now that I write in my daily job, I feel less need to blog as often.

I don't have any huge pieces of financial news, but the bits and pieces are piling up, most of them good. I'll get the bad news out of the way first:

- No offer on the condo. The people who seemed interested have stopped communicating suddenly with THEIR agent. She has no idea why. I think if I haven't heard anything tomorrow, I'm going to call and get the floor job scheduled. I think it will show better if we do that.

On to the good stuff:

- NT's mom sent us over $1000 as a housewarming gift! Instead of hoarding it like I have any other windfall money, we're actually using it for house stuff. So far we've used it for furnace repair, wireless internet router & Chromecast, kitchen trash cans, picture hangers, and vacuum cleaner repair. We still have about $800 left.

- NT found out he is getting a promotion next month to a managerial position. He should get a decent raise but the main benefit will be in a larger bonus in December. Either way, great news!

- AS's $2300 editing job fell through but she's more than covered it with lots of smaller jobs from different places. The work is flowing in steadily, so she's still replaced net pay plus health insurance through mid-November.

- Can't tell if it's for real or not, but the contact at the WV gas company said he thinks we'll get payment for the right-of-way on or before the option expiration date, which is Oct. 12. At least we should know something by then, whether it's full payment, letting the option expire or renewing the option for another 6 months.

- My new job is going very well overall. I've had some difficult moments but have also received some nice compliments and good feedback, so I'm starting to feel more confident.

- I transferred $8500 of CC balances onto the 0% card. I figure I'll leave it there for a while in case we sell the condo at a loss and need to pay to get out of the mortgage. Maybe we'll have enough money to cover it when that happens (especially if the WV deal happens or NT's bonus is really big) but since the card is 0% until end of 2015, might as well leave the debt there and keep the money in the bank just in case. I also have NT's last semester of tuition sitting on a loan ($4500) with the money to pay it off sitting in checking, and an extra $2K in checking. And I could put another $2500 at 0% on the credit card if needed to get out from under the condo. So we'll see what happens, but at least I have options.

Lots of other bits here and there, but I think that's all the big stuff. Onward and upward!

Assets:
NT's UK pensions:
#1: 17,105 pounds ($27,368)
#2: 19,653 pounds ($31,445)
#3: 4,452 pounds ($7,123)
NT's 401(k): $31,883
NT's Roth IRA: $7,381
AS's 401(k): $13,842
AS's trad. IRA: $1,682
AS's Roth IRA: $19,809
CJ's 401(k): $75,028
CJ's Roth IRA: $7,381
NT's flat: 140,000 pounds ($224,000)
CJ & AS's condo: $145,000
CJ/NT/AS house: $440,000
---
Total Assets: $1,031,942

Total Debt: $680,664

Current Estimated Net Worth: $351,278

August 2014 estimate: $346,493

Change in net worth: +4,785

Summary: Some decent gains to retirement despite the fact we aren't contributing as much right now. Also some nice debt reduction helped.

I'll update the Individual Net Worth page shortly, breaking it out by person.

Notes on the numbers above: House value estimates are approximate. I don't have a way to check NT's UK pensions or flat value, so their values stay static for the purpose of this update (unless I happen to get some info by chance). UK asset values and debt amounts are calculated figuring $1.60 for every British pound..60 for every British pound.

Well, the feedback from the third showing was promising but not definitive. The mom (who would be living there and was seeing it for the first time) loved our view. They feel it would need lots of updating, but the other place they're considering is much more expensive, so they're still considering. They might schedule a FOURTH showing before they decide.

If they don't, back to the drawing board; we'll get the rest of the floors refinished and clean the appliances really well, and hope it appeals to someone else soon. We had a couple other people see it last week but no feedback so not sure if any are interested.

Meanwhile at our new home, we haven't heard from the boiler repairman we called Friday, but we're likely getting a reprieve in the form of higher temps for the next week, so no hurry. They've got tons of good feedback online, so we'll give them a chance to contact us Monday.

We have an annoying problem upstairs with circuits shorting if too many things are on at once, but we're learning to work around it until we can get it looked at.

I did some yard work today; very light stuff, just mowing grass with a push mower, raking up clippings, and sweeping these dry pod things that are falling from our tree onto the back patio. I felt like an imposter but enjoyed it! This morning I took the girls to our local park, three blocks away, and we had a good time there. I also got to walk our friends' dog while they were away, and that was really fun too. Tonight we might light a fire in our friends' little portable fire pit.

Our cat is learning how to rattle our new bedroom door even louder than he used to the old one at the condo. We need to scheme ways to keep him away so we can get some sleep! We have a few plans to try out.

Since we have so much CSA veg to use up, our grocery shopping was way under budget. And we have money left over from last week too! We're getting $29 back from canceling cable, and Monday I find out whether I underestimated the net raise I'm getting.

On the down side, a gift snack box subscription AS and NT got me for my birthday sneakily renewed and charged us $72, and refused to refund it. Ah well. We'll get another box or two, which I do enjoy getting, and AS and I are going to gradually pay it back in to the budget from our spending money. Annoying, but not a huge deal.

We're getting back on a menu plan and it feels great! I kind of OD'ed on junk food and restaurant food. Home cooked meals are so comforting and good for the digestive system.

Someday I'll feel like I can sit down and write a leisurely well-thought-out post again ... hopefully.

The second set of UK visitors left yesterday. Although we're eager to get more settled into our home and that was difficult with visitors, we're very sad. The first set are some great in-laws that I've only met in person about five times, and the second set an amazing couple of lifelong friends that I've only seen in person about nine times (though each time was for weeks or even months).

Another bad thing? While we had visitors, I could attribute the disorganization and unsettled feeling to having visitors. Now I'm having to face up to the fact that we have a lot of work to do before we feel fully unpacked, organized and comfortable in our new home!

First thing we need to do is figure out the boiler/furnace/water heater stuff. We have hot water but are having trouble getting the heat going, mainly for our friends' unit, but apparently our heater was making a weird noise today. Trying to decide between a monthly plan or a one-off service call. I think they're nearly new heaters, so I'm leaning toward one-off, since I don't think they should need too much maintenance for a couple years (once we get them up and running, that is). Right away something has exposed our ignorance as homeowners, after being spoiled by condos and landlords taking care of things for us!

We have a THIRD showing on the condo tomorrow. Apparently they are down to either ours or another place (more expensive but more updated). So we're holding our breath. They don't mind spending the money to update ours since it's cheaper than the other. The main strike against us is the location of our parking spot in the garage; too far away from the condo for their taste. Hopefully they can get over that.

Tonight or tomorrow morning, though, NT has to go deal with a clogged sink there. Apparently we masked it well enough that they want to see the place again, but it was pretty backed up a few days ago and NT says he needs to get deep in the pipes to clear it out completely.

Meal planning is completely messed up, but we hope to sit down and create a meal plan tonight for the first time in about three weeks! I'm sure we've let some CSA veggies go to waste in the meantime; we used some of them, but the visitors were mostly meat eaters and wanted to eat out or get carryout a lot, so we didn't cook much.

At least we stayed on budget for vacation spending! I'm really excited about that! I have one week of regular spending money to enjoy and then next week we've cut ourselves down to half the amount for the foreseeable future until we get out of the hole somewhat.

There are other bits of news, I'm sure, but I need to get home (I'm at work), so I'll stop there. Fingers crossed for tomorrow's showing to lead to an offer!!

We're halfway through our second set of UK visitors, so I still don't have much down time to post. I'm having lots of fun, but busy busy!

Friday night was our first night in the new place! Everyone slept like logs, surprisingly, even the kids. Cat is still hiding for the most part, but eating, and accepting strokes, and coming out occasionally to explore, so I think he'll be OK.

The place is a little dingy and run down in parts, but basically functional. We don't really mind, because there's so much space, and trees outside our windows, and our friends living downstairs from us. Everyone in the family seems more relaxed. AS is just over the moon, and she's the one I really wanted to be happy, because she's still a bit mentally banged-up from leaving her stressful job and finding freelance work.

The Brits are very impressed, of course; one said you probably couldn't find a home this big in Oxford for under a million pounds ($1.6MM)!

We've moved 90% of our stuff out of the old condo. The only thing that's left is some stuff in the front hall closet (strollers, etc.) and some things for staging: the sofa, dining room table and chairs, lamp, bathroom accessories. We moved most of it Friday, stirring up a ton of dust and cat hair, and then had a showing Saturday morning. We did a frantic session of cleaning and decluttering and actually got interrupted by the realtor and buyer because they came early! (They saw I was in the middle of it and came back at the agreed time instead.)

Now that the beds and dressers are out, we can get the rest of the floors finished, The floor guy is calling on Monday to set that up.

But then, the feedback was that they might be interested! The main concern was the parking spot is pretty far away (it's in the garage of the next-door building). Our new realtor (so great) called promptly last night to let us know that she'd called that agent to tell them more great things about the unit. She wanted to know if we had any response to the parking spot concern. We let her know that there was a chance the buyer could swap with someone, or rent another spot from someone, and she called them back with that.

This morning our agent called again to say they were interested in coming again this week, and asked if we still wanted to do the rest of the floors or wait to see if we got an offer. It was a toss-up, but we decided to wait and see. It sounds like they are communicative, so if that was a deal-breaker hopefully they'd tell us and we could offer to do the floors at that point.

So I'll call the floor guy and have him hold off until we hear something. I have $800 set aside for the floors, so that would be a real boon!

I got some more good news: approved for the 0% (for 15 months) 0 balance transfer fees credit card, with a $9400 credit limit. So if I transfer that much in purchases that I was planning to pay off, that gives me $9400. If I don't do Roth catchup contributions in December, that's another $2250. If I keep the new NT student loan instead of paying it off in February, another $4494. Total: $16,144.

If we sell at the listing price we'll need to come up with $16,469 to get out of the mortgage. So we could pretty much cover it without having an onerous unsecured personal loan. Especially if we save $800 by not having to redo the floors! (Since some of the above money isn't coming into the budget until later, we'd probably have to get one for about $6K or $7K temporarily, but we could pay it off quickly and not pay too much interest.)

If we get a lowball offer or they ask us to cover closing costs, we wouldn't be able to avoid a personal loan. But with the money freed up by not paying mortgage and association dues, we might be able to pay one off pretty quickly.

I know I'm counting my chickens before they hatch, but I just want to make sure I know what we'll do in the event of an offer. It'll be some juggling but I think we can get away with low or no interest on the remaining condo-related debt until we can pay it off completely.

Other bits of money news:
- Vacation spending appears to be on track. I don't think I'll have to go into future spending money, which is good since our spending money is being cut in half to help afford moving into the new place so early! Grocery spending is actually down since we've been eating out using our vacation savings, so we might have a nice grocery cushion when this is all over.
- We spent a bit more than planned on van and car rental during the moving process, but I think only $20 or $30 more. I think I can get some credit from both our car share companies: one for downloading their new app, and the other if I report that we had to fill up the car we rented recently. So those credits may make up for it to some degree.
- We got some unexpected bonus items with the house: two wall-unit air conditioners, a bag of pretty nice clothes and accessories that got left by the garbage probably by mistake, a rake and a snow shovel, and some nearly-full cans of paint. These will definitely save us a bit of money in the short term.
- AS saw a great kitchen scale on deep discount on Amazon.com: about $16 for a $45 item. We figure if we bought this for our next wedding gift instead of the $50 Amazon gift card we were planning, we'd have more Amazon credits as a result. I need to see if it's still on sale and get it ordered! If not that, maybe we could find a similarly valuable sale item.
- We'll be getting a free date night in October; the daycare lady is planning a sleepover!
- A friend gave us a bag of really nice clothes she found on her free table. We've had a couple other good scores lately, including the big propane grill and a couple chairs from another friend, a coffee maker and two cute trays from the condo free table. Whatever we don't use I'll try to sell on our local Facebook garage sale page, or throw into storage to do a garage sale in spring. There's a big annual neighborhood one two blocks from our house that we could participate in if we didn't want to throw our own.

Overall I think it's going to be easier for my family to strive for frugal choices now that we're living here. Whereas it did feel like just deprivation with no reward, now the reward is all around us, a tangible reminder of why it's important to spend little or no money.

I'll check in when I hear more about the showing!

I figured out how to log in to my new mortgage account, and it looks like principal reduced even though the payment hasn't officially been taken out of my checking account yet. Odd, but at least I can post my debt payment progress on all mortgages:
US (condo): $482 to principal
US (duplex): $624
UK1: $218
UK2: $46
UK3: $50

All told that's $1420 down, $80 to go on the September debt repayment goal.

OK, I'm not really sure what the new mortgage will pay off each month, but I did an online calculator and hopefully I'm in the ballpark.

The goal for September, hopefully a conservative estimate, is to pay off $1500 of debt.

I'm also not sure when I'll learn the balance, but I just got the info for the provider that bought the mortgage, and they seem to have online access, so I'll try to log in tonight or tomorrow.

I'm sure our other mortgage payments have all hit the accounts, but it's been such a whirlwind that I haven't had a chance to check.

Our first wave of UK visitors left this morning and our second crew arrived. The first set -- NT's family -- were wonderful guests, but the second round is just two good friends so it'll be even better.

They all went out tonight and I stayed home with the kids, so I splurged on $10 delivery food. Our grocery and meal planning are in a bit of a shambles. I'm sure I could have scraped something together but was feeling lazy by the time I got the kids fed and off to bed.

We managed not to go over budget with the first set of visitors, and we have more money set aside for this lot, so I'm feeling OK about staying on budget.

Other news:

- First the washer went out at the new place. We convinced the seller to give us $100 to help offset the cost of replacement since it happened on their watch, and our friends/tenants covered the rest. Now our dryer is on the fritz. We've got $180 saved and a Home Depot $100 gift card lying around somewhere, and we should be able to cover the rest pretty easily because ...

- I finally got my promotion and raise! It's a nice raise too, $10K more per year. That's an almost 20% bump! I'd already factored $100 more per month into the budget but conservatively this is another $400 per month, which means $300 more than I have worked into the budget. It hits on Sept. 15 so we'll easily be able to cover the cost of the dryer.

No word on NT's potential raise, and AS has had only one more quickie $20 job (though she had to turn one place down and they said they'd check in again with her after the 15th, and she has four jobs already accepted that she'll start working on soon, including the $20 one). I'm still feeling very good about her potential for having a lucrative contractor career! One place has been REALLY quick about paying her, which is awesome because she's waiting on another check and soon to start a third job with them.

With all the stress of the purchase process, I was afraid our relationship with our friends would be strained, but it's actually been quite wonderful. We let them start moving in early without paying rent in August, and they provided air mattresses, bedding and furniture/kitchen supplies for our visitors. We don't move in officially until this Friday but I'm already feeling SO good about living in close quarters with them. They had expressed interest in buying their share of the duplex, and I want to wait a few months before committing to that, but so far I'm feeling good about that prospect.

The renters left Aug. 31, and despite being 2-3 hours late moving out, they left the place in good shape! They did put a ton of large items by the trash pile, so I'm going to see if the city takes them on the regular trash day. If not, we may have to pay to get them hauled away and I'll take that out of their deposit. Other than that, no complaints about how they left things!

In other news, we dropped our realtor (gave her one more chance to give us a discount and instead got a rather emotional, insulting and unprofessional email back), got a great professional new one, and dropped our price on the condo by $10K. We had a showing today that was a no-go and we have another one tomorrow morning. Fingers crossed we get this puppy sold!

With the new price, if we sold this month we would suffer about a $17K loss -- and that's IF we got an offer for the full amount with no request to cover closing costs. I was thinking personal loan to cover it; the interest rate wouldn't be great and the monthly payments would be big but it would be out of our hair in 1 to 5 years, depending on what term we chose.

But then we got an offer from Chase Slate for a 0% interest until Dec. 15, 0% balance transfer fees card, and I started thinking. We've got about $7K on credit cards now that we're budgeted to pay off in October. We also have the new student loan for NT for about $4500. We're budgeted to put $2250 into Roth IRAs for catchup contributions in Dec. or Jan. I have another $1600 I'm going to put on CC for my dental implant and most of it is going to be reimbursed by flex spending, so I was planning to pay that off right away. Between spending money, a new dryer and groceries we'd probably spend up another grand or two in the next month and plan to pay that off by CC.

So I thought: What if we don't do any of that? What if we transfer the CC balances to a 0% card, keep the new student loan (which doesn't have great interest rates but better than a personal loan), and not do catchup Roth contributions? Then we could get out from under the condo with barely (if any) personal loan debt. We'd still have the new debt, sure, but it would be lower interest, which would mean less of a monthly budget burden and more of an ability to pay extra since we wouldn't be wasting as much money on interest.

So it's an idea. In the past I would have said it's dangerous for me to play around with shifting debt from place to place, but I am determined to pay it off at an accelerated rate regardless, so maybe it would be a smart decision.

Of course we need an offer, or the whole point is moot. But I applied for a Chase Slate card just in case. We'll see if I'm accepted. (It wasn't instant approval, I think because I used the new address instead of just putting the condo address.)

Any other news? I think that's all of the big stuff. I'm feeling pretty good about things, with or without WV windfall. I think we're going to make this work.

I'll try to write a proper update this week -- there haven't been any huge changes but some bits of financial and/or house news -- but with family in town of course I spend way less time online.

Just wanted to check in since AS's student loan payment hit. $137 went to principal, which takes us to $928 of debt paid this month, exceeding the $900 goal.

I'll try to set a rough goal for September soon, though I'm not sure how much principal will get paid in our first mortgage payment. And since the initial company doesn't do online billing, it might take a bit of time to find out.

I'm on staycation! First set of UK visitors got here Thursday night. Besides making them feel welcome and showing them a good time, my main concern is not spending much. Luckily they are both cost conscious and fair minded, so they have made sure to ask about costs and put in for everything so far. So I think we'll be OK. We have to be, because we would need to cut elsewhere if we went over, and we don't have many more places to cut.

Went to a city open house about accessory dwelling units, because one of my long term goals is to turn the garage into a tiny home and rent it to our friend. The city plans sound promising, though I need to see if our yard size is sufficient. Should be voted on this fall, so we'll know soon whether it's feasible to start planning.

Meeting with realtor didn't go as hoped. She refused to lower her commission. We didn't threaten to cut her yet; we have a showing tomorrow and will see how that goes. If nothing comes of that we will give her an ultimatum. NT knows a realtor we could talk to as a replacement.

Got the first few utility bills and they were reasonable, but still waiting for our first water/sewer/trash/recycling bill. That's the one that could be big, I think.

Got a small ($140) refund on our homeowners insurance! That was welcome. Will pay for our moving van and a medical copay with a bit left over.

AS's last day at her job was yesterday. The day before that, she got another freelance job, a small $300 writing assignment from my company. They loved the first one she did! She's now partway through funding November.

My latest writing assignment at my job is not going great, but there are lots of external elements causing confusion. I'm pretty confident my boss will realize that and not have doubts about completing my transition to writer. I'm going to push for the official change to happen once I get back full time after my time off, Sept.12.

AS got some dollar amounts on the two projects she's been offered: $2300 and $1400. With that, her paychecks are replaced through October, and it's not even September yet!

I'm feeling much more relieved and relaxed and hopeful that this freelancing idea could not only be feasible but maybe lucrative!

(Explanation of replacing paychecks: Even though AS is leaving her job after this week, I've left her take-home pay in the spreadsheet so we know how much freelance income she needs to bring in to stay even. When she gets a freelance job, I can reduce the amount of take-home pay she needs to substitute.)

Our goal for this year is just to stay afloat, which means replacing take-home pay and the cost of funding her own healthcare. Basically $2750 a month.

So she just needs to make $5500 more by Dec. 31! She's decided to shoot for replacing January's income as well this year, since February is when things will really start to loosen up for us. So $8250 more is the goal.

Next year (or sooner if this does turn out to be a lucrative thing) I'm going to start focusing on also replacing the tax and retirement portions of her paycheck. But if she can at least make enough the rest of this year to make up for the regular paycheck she's not getting anymore, it will get us to next year, where things are looking a lot less tight.

I'm so exhausted; had a dramatic couple of days with a family member seeming to have a mental break of some kind. After we lost contact, I had my sister check on this family member (whom she doesn't really know, but she was great about doing it) and it seems she's doing better.

Monday night we were supposed to have a free date; I had bartered babysitting from my friend I'm helping learn to budget, and there was a movie and music in the nearby park. We cooked and packed picnic food and headed over, but found out it had been moved indoors because of the threat of rain and that it was full to capacity. So we decided to just have a nice leisurely picnic. Unfortunately soon after we finished eating it did start to rain. We didn't want to cut our date short, so I treated us to wine and snacks at a nearby bar. $56 coming out of what I'd saved for the UK visitors, but felt like the right thing to do given how much stress we've been under.

Unfortunately I drank a bit too much wine and had a mild hangover-y feeling all day today. I also didn't sleep very well probably for the same reason. So with the drama plus the hangover plus the poor sleep, I'm pretty wiped today.

I got a free lunch at a nice Indian buffet near work today; my college sent out a planned-giving representative, and I have my college in my will, so they courted my favor a bit. It was a nice treat! I also got a nice big tote bag out of the deal.

Well, the tenants found somewhere to go Sept. 1, so that means they're moving out the end of the month! The budget will be that much tighter but it'll be so worth it to be in our new place and not living in staged-world anymore. We've reserved a moving van for Sept. 5, but we might move a few things in before then. We'll see how busy we are with family -- this is a rare visit so we definitely don't want them to feel neglected in any way. NT pointed out they're all mellow and somewhat introverted, so they might appreciate some quiet down time.

The latest viewer of the condo didn't express any interest to our realtor (she was the one showing it), so we've asked to talk about lowering the price -- and about her giving us a break on her commission. Based on advice from a couple of realtor-savvy friends of mine, we're asking her to reduce her commission on the sale from 3% to 1%. (If she came back with 1.5% or 2%, that would be fine too.) So just waiting to hear what she'll say.

NT is in promising talks for a raise at his job, so hopefully he'll know something this week. He's taking on official managerial duties, so he's going to try and push for a larger bump.

My supervisor is working on getting my raise straightened out, but I don't know what it'll be yet, not even a ballpark. I'm working on a writing project already, and it's really out of my comfort zone, so I'm just trying to stay calm and focus on that and try to learn quickly what I need to do for this type of writing assignment. Our temp proofer is working out well and learning quickly, so hopefully I can be fully transitioned after my vacation.

I'm on vacation this Friday through Labor Day, and then from Sept. 2 to 11 I'll be working half days while our second set of UK visitors is here. Then, hopefully, full speed ahead into my writing job!

AS got some really good job news: another proofing job coming her way next week, plus potentially an even higher-paying editing assignment. If both come through and she gets the rates she hopes, she could have all of September, all of October and maybe even part of November's paycheck amounts replaced! And this is just the work she's drummed up while working full time. I'm starting to really feel good about her trying to be full-time self-employed.

Overall, things seem to be going well, though I'd like some of these potential good things to turn into ACTUAL dollar amounts!

So we'll be moving into the new place Oct. 1 -- or possibly sooner!

We checked on the private student loan I applied NT for, and they're just waiting for confirmation from the university that the amount is right and he is enrolled. We have a month before tuition is due, so I'm not concerned about getting it in time.

Therefore, we decided to give the renters 45 days' notice to vacate by Oct. 1. Things would be tight financially, but we would all be dedicated to finding creative ways to make it work.

The renters got back to me a couple days later, asking if they could vacate early, by Sept. 1, since it might be easier to find a new place vs. waiting until October.

We talked it over. It would be an extra $2175 out of the budget, which is a lot, but not much more compared with what we'd already taken out of the budget by deciding to move Oct. 1. We figured out a way to make it work -- cut back a few more budget categories, and dedicate part of NT's bonus toward making up the shortfall. (He always get a couple thousand every December, and this has been a particularly profitable year for his company.)

And we just can't wait to get out of this staged living situation -- it's very wearying.

So we told the renters that would be fine, but that we would need to know for sure soon. We'll need time to reserve the elevator at our condo and hire a moving van.

If this works out, it will happen in the middle of our spate of UK visitors. So a little additional chaos, but on the up side, we'll have a bigger space (albeit only partly furnished) in which to entertain them.

On the condo selling front, we didn't have any showings for over a week, but now we've got one scheduled for this afternoon. Fingers crossed! If we don't get an offer in the next couple of days we're going to talk to our realtor about lowering the price. If we do that, I also intend to ask her for a discount on her fees. If she refuses, I'll probably tell her that we're considering taking on a realtor who has the ability to post to Realtor.com, Zillow and Trulia, and see if she relents then. Hopefully it won't come to any of that!

If we do sell, even at a great loss, it will be easier on our budget than what we're currently prepared to do, which is carry both mortgages (plus association dues on the condo and utilities in the new home).

Meanwhile, I'm preparing the budget (and my family members) for the worst-case scenario. We have a plan to deal with any eventuality.

Assets:
NT's UK pensions:
#1: 17,105 pounds ($27,368)
#2: 19,653 pounds ($31,445)
#3: 4,452 pounds ($7,123)
NT's 401(k): $31,263
NT's Roth IRA: $7,292
AS's 401(k): $13,520
AS's trad. IRA: $1,682
AS's Roth IRA: $19,572
CJ's 401(k): $73,157
CJ's Roth IRA: $7,292
NT's flat: 140,000 pounds ($224,000)
CJ & AS's condo: $145,000
CJ/NT/AS house: $440,000
---
Total Assets: $1,028,714

Total Debt: $682,221

Current Estimated Net Worth: $346,493

July 2014 estimate: $379,845

Change in net worth: -$33,352

Summary: I decided to go with Redfin value minus 6% for the value of the new home, which means the debt we took on is greater than the asset value we took on. So that meant a large drop in our net worth. Also, the markets were flat to slightly negative and we didn't put as much into retirement as usual, so there was no help there to our net worth. And we didn't pay down much debt either.

Assets are up over a million dollars in worth! But that will drop back down once we sell our condo.

I'll update the Individual Net Worth page shortly, breaking it out by person.

Notes on the numbers above: House value estimates are approximate. I don't have a way to check NT's UK pensions or flat value, so their values stay static for the purpose of this update (unless I happen to get some info by chance). UK asset values and debt amounts are calculated figuring $1.60 for every British pound..60 for every British pound.

It's almost net worth update time, and I'm scratching my head trying to figure out how to value our new house. Which source would you trust?

Zillow says $369K
Redfin says $467K
Listing price was $469K
We paid $465K
But with closing costs it really cost us $473K
The bank appraised it at $550K
Taxable value according to city is $381K

I'm tempted to go with Redfin, because they showed the houses they compared it with, and they all sold for $460K-$500K. Our bedroom count is one less than the $500K sales.

Now that my family and I have discussed the cutting things to the bone idea, our options have simplified considerably. We've taken a temporary apartment off the table, as well as living with our friends for a couple months. Now we're down to two options:

- Giving the tenants notice and moving into our place whether or not we sell the condo.
- Giving the tenants notice and moving in once we sell the condo.

We're 95% set on the first of the two options. And that one has two options as well: Give the tenants this week so we can move in Oct. 1, or give them notice next month so we can move in Nov. 1.

Again we're leaning toward the first option. Being at the new place but not being able to get into the unit that will be our home makes it so tantalizing to get started in our new place, even if we have to watch every penny to afford it.

The only reason I'm still hesitating is I want one more piece to fall into place. bluesfemme had the excellent idea of getting a student loan for NT's last semester tuition, so we don't have to shell out all that money ($4500) right now and can have a little cushion. As soon as I read that I applied for NT, and we're just waiting to see if the loan is approved. Tuition is due 9/15, but if the loan covers it, we can hold that money and pay the loan off later. I'd like assurance that the loan has gone through before I commit to kicking the renters out. I need to give them notice by 8/16, and it should be sent a day or two earlier so they get it in time for it to be 45 days notice.

If we get confirmation in the next day or two, I'm going to ask the seller's agent (who is offering his services free for the first half of the month to help us transition) to give them notice.

If we decide to hold off, I'll have to give them notice myself, but the seller said he'd send me a form letter I could use.

Either way, I've looked into the rental license change-of-ownership and renewal, and I am going to have to do that anyway since we'll be renting to our friends. So I'm going to get that going, and I'll see how much it costs to get both units approved or just one. (Seller's agent said it would be about $20 more to get both, so I might just do that, especially if we decide to keep the renters for an extra month.)

We had one showing of the condo last week and none this week so far. So I think it would be agony to wait for the place to sell before we moved. (We wouldn't want to kick the renters out in the dead of winter, so if we stayed, we'd need to take the condo off the market if it didn't sell by 9/15.)

Also, living in a staged place is no fun, for the grownups or the kids. My makeup routine that I started in March and really enjoyed has fallen by the wayside because I run around in the morning doing finishing touches to the condo (vacuuming, dusting, wiping surfaces, rearranging things).

And, the budget would only be this tight until about February, when we can try to refinance the mortgage and get rid of PMI. Several raises are imminent and several expenses will be done with next year. Six months of watching every penny vs. six months of watching every bit of dust and clutter? They'll both be challenging, but we're really good at tightening our belts when we need to, so hopefully it'll be less stressful.

After all the creative wrangling and trying to come up with different solutions to keep our budget on track with the new house, I'm starting to think of going back to our original idea: kick out the upper tenants, move in, and carry both mortgages until we sell.

The last straw was that last night, the seller's agent and I were going back and forth about how to get the rent to me. He also mentioned that the rental license was up at the end of this month and would need to be renewed if we planned to keep renting, and that it would need a change of ownership application and inspection. $500-plus, all told.

OK. I was willing to swallow that. But then I thought, wait, do we get the inspection for the upper unit, and then what happens when we kick out those kids and start renting the lower unit officially to our friends? Another inspection/application/set of fees?

Coupled with the strain of living in a staged home, and the stress of knowing we aren't fulfilling our FHA obligation until we move into the new place, it felt like too much.

So I talked to AS and then NT about just kicking the renters out ASAP and moving in. What would it mean?
Cons:
- Monthly expenses would increase by $2000. This would mean we'd have to cut our spending money in half, not do Roth makeup contributions this year, and cut back on other discretionary spending (what little we have left, carshare and groceries basically).
- This plan would depend on AS getting enough freelance to equal her take-home pay from her old job through December. After that she wouldn't have to, but we would have virtually no fun money until she did.
- The UK savings would need to come back into play as our actual emergency fund, because we wouldn't have that small budget surplus that I'd managed to keep throughout this. Any UK money we took out would need to be replaced by June of next year so the UK reno could happen and the UK flat could stay rentable.
- Any necessary home repairs, medical emergencies or other unavoidable expenses would need to come out of the UK EF, or else get put on a 0% credit card and paid off next year.

Pros:
- Not having to live in the staged condo; much less fretting about every little bit of clutter and dust and whether our finishes would get messed up.
- Not having to worry about what the tenants are doing to our unit.
- Not having to mess around with living with our friends, or renting a short-lease apartment, when the condo sells.
- Fulfilling the HOA mortgage commitment.
- Being in our new place!

I am still working out the money details to see if I really am comfortable enough with the plan and confident that we could get through to next year that way. I'm not sure where we'll end up on this whole thing.

I did end up having to leave work right after I last blogged; AA threw up her breakfast and really wanted to come home. The showing was done by then, so I just brought her home.

I had an interview with a job prospect in the afternoon, so NT came and relieved me. AS came home early in the evening so he could get to class on time. Sometimes it's so great to have 3 parents for the kids!

Once I got AA home, she started asking for snacks and drinks and managed to keep them down. She seems a lot better tonight, just a little tired.

I was interviewing a prospective candidate to replace me at work and really wanted this one to work out. She seemed really nice in the interview but kind of bombed the proofreading tests. :/ Back to the drawing board. Every time someone doesn't work out is another couple days I don't get my promotion and raise.

We got feedback from today's showing. All good, but they decided they wanted a 1-bedroom. Sigh. At least we seem to have gotten rid of the cat smell.

Overall a decent day. AS's proofreading project was the big win! Feeling very good about her prospects as a freelancer.

And it's only 10 am!

The promising: There was a showing today, 9-10. Fingers crossed.

Worrisome: Our older kid (AA, 4) woke up complaining of a stomach ache and sore throat, and threw up right before we left for daycare. We took her anyway, and the daycare lady just messaged to say she hasn't thrown up again, so hopefully just a little bug or indigestion.

Awesome: AS just got a third proofreading job, this one for $1160! With that, she's replaced (what would have been) her 9/15 take-home pay, made enough to cover September healthcare, and started chipping away at the 9/30 take-home pay amount. Also, my co-worker just told me the client had no changes to the article AS wrote for us, so that's a good indicator she'll get more work from my job!

Also great: I checked Paypal and NT has accumulated $15 in Pinecone payments.

So overall more ups than downs, though I'm worried about my little girl. Let's see if this day continues to be a rollercoaster.

I checked NT's account online to see if the fall tuition amount had posted. It had, and was about $400 more than I'd estimated! And it's due two weeks earlier this year! Ouch!

One bright spot in the day, though, was discussing with one of our friends who's moving into the lower unit of the duplex whether we could potentially move in with them if the condo sells this year.

Even if we didn't have them pay any rent while we were there, it would be cheaper than kicking the upper-unit tenants out, and about the same cost as renting a whole different place for a few months. Plus we wouldn't have to come up with a security deposit.

He still has to talk it over with his husband, but he was open to the idea. There's a big room in the basement that's the size of an efficiency apartment, and a three-quarter bathroom as well as space/hookups for a kitchen. The main floor unit where they'll be living has two bedrooms and a bathroom. So it's a possibility.

It would be a bit cramped, and complicated if we had to be in the basement while our kids were in a main-floor bedroom, to avoid our cat being in the main unit (our friend is allergic). But it would only be for a few months at most. And it would give our friends a break on rent so they could use that money for other things. And it might not even come up if our condo doesn't sell this year.

It just feels nice to have several different possibilities for getting through these next few uncertain months!

I checked NT's account online to see if the fall tuition amount had posted. It had, and was about $400 more than I'd estimated! And it's due two weeks earlier this year! Ouch!

One bright spot in the day, though, was discussing with one of our friends who's moving into the lower unit of the duplex whether we could potentially move in with them if the condo sells this year.

Even if we didn't have them pay any rent while we were there, it would be cheaper than kicking the upper-unit tenants out, and about the same cost as renting a whole different place for a few months. Plus we wouldn't have to come up with a security deposit.

He still has to talk it over with his husband, but he was open to the idea. There's a big room in the basement that's the size of an efficiency apartment, and a three-quarter bathroom as well as space/hookups for a kitchen. The main floor unit where they'll be living has two bedrooms and a bathroom. So it's a possibility.

It would be a bit cramped, and complicated if we had to be in the basement while our kids were in a main-floor bedroom, to avoid our cat being in the main unit (our friend is allergic). But it would only be for a few months at most. And it would give our friends a break on rent so they could use that money for other things. And it might not even come up if our condo doesn't sell this year.

It just feels nice to have several different possibilities for getting through these next few uncertain months!

Nothing big has changed over the past few days, but I feel like blogging anyway.

We went over to the new place Saturday and I meant to take pictures, but it was raining pretty hard by the time we got there and didn't clear up until it was dark outside.

I'm sure we'll be over there a lot, so I will get some pics to share at some point! Of course I can't take any of the unit we'll eventually live in since it has tenants, but I can take some others.

Our friends have our contractor who renovated the condo coming to look at a few things, such as poor electrical wiring, installing a ceiling fan in their bedroom, and faulty drainage (going to ask if the gutter can be rerouted). Since we're not charging our friends for this first month but are letting them move in whenever they want, I figure they can pay for the equivalent of a month's rent, and we'll help pay for any amount over that.

Being over there really makes us want to start living there. But no matter how I squint at the numbers, it just doesn't make financial sense to do so yet.

We're still open to various scenarios, but one thing we're agreed on is that we can't move until we sell the condo. Even if we moved and rented the condo out instead, we wouldn't be able to make as much rent money as we do on the upper unit of the duplex, plus we'd have to worry about whether the renters would keep the place staged for sale.

Right now our condo is listed at $155K. After Sept. 1 we'll owe $151K on the mortgage, and the realtor has said she'd get $9K plus we'd need to fork over about $2K more in fees. So even if it sold at the current listing price, we'd have to come up with $7K for the privilege of getting rid of it.

We'll see how we feel if we get a lowball offer. I'll have to crunch numbers and feel it out. I did figure that if we lost $15K on the place (so sold it for $8K under listing), we'd have a $450 monthly payment on an unsecured loan. We couldn't afford to take that on PLUS kick the renters out, so if we took a lowball offer like that, I think we'd have to find a short-term-lease apartment to move into temporarily until we were on better financial footing.

So I have mixed feelings about whether I even want an offer on the condo this year. Next year will be a different story; by March the mortgage will be down to $149K, which means we'd only lose $5K if we sold at the current listing price. Our incomes will probably be way up and our expenses (tuition, dental) way down.

But staying in the condo isn't ideal either, since we spent $1400 getting the main floors redone and now have to carefully tend them. And a short-term rental if we do sell isn't a fun idea either, both because we're so eager to move into our new place, and because we wouldn't be fulfilling the FHA commitment to make the duplex our primary residence. (We are declaring it as such, and do intend to make it so when we can afford it, and will be over there all the time visiting our friends, so it's really a technicality, but it still doesn't feel right.)

Ah well. Enough meandering. Other updates:

- We took LF's advice and are keeping the litter box in the bathroom when we're home, only moving it into the closet when we're out.

- We have a showing scheduled for tomorrow.

- I'm finalizing interviewing candidates to replace me tomorrow, so hopefully we can make a hire soon and I can move into my new role/office/salary!

- The coin-op washer in the duplex isn't working, but it broke before we took ownership. The seller's agent tried to put it off on me but I wrote back making it clear I expect them to repair or replace at their expense. Haven't heard from him yet.

- He gave us the tenants' security deposit but still waiting to receive August rent. Apparently all 5 people write separate checks so he might be waiting on one or two.

- Less than three weeks until the first set of UK visitors arrives. If I don't spend any money between now and then, I'll have $800 saved up. Not a ton, but better than nothing.

All our mortgage payments hit:
US condo: $480 to principal
UK1: $218
UK2: $47
UK3: $46

All told, that's $791 down, $109 to go on the August debt goal.

Well, we closed on the new home yesterday!

Considering how hellish this process has been compared with the last time I bought, the closing was entirely routine and the least stressful thing that has happened so far. I had already internalized all the dollar amounts, so I didn't have any freakouts about the debt or the huge cashier's check we gave them ($27,000).

We went over yesterday to celebrate with our friends who will be living with us. Although I don't feel jubilant -- there are way too many other huge hurdles to clear before I can be relaxed and happy -- I'm glad to check another thing off the big list.

We had two more showings on the condo but no bites. One of them gave us a negative review because of "cat smell in unit." We used to keep the litter box in the bathroom, but unfortunately the only place it makes sense to keep it for staging is in the front hall closet, where the smell can kind of build up and, if so, will be one of the first things someone experiences when walking in. NT cleaned the box thoroughly, I Febrezed the heck out of the closet and everything in it, and this weekend we'll move the litter box onto the balcony whenever possible to give the closet (and box) time to air out. Hopefully that will help.

I've kind of accepted that we might not sell the condo this summer. If we don't, we'll take it off the market for the winter, get some cheap carpeting to put over the refinished portions of the floor, try to keep everything else in decent shape, and relist in the spring. It wouldn't be our favorite thing in the world, but we'd be in a much better financial place next year, so we could afford to sell it for less if need be.

Anyway, on to our new debt totals and goals. It's a huge leap, but I'm feeling pretty good about it.

Old debt amount: $237,390
New debt amount (breakdown):
US Mortgage (condo) $151,955
US Mortgage (duplex) $414,122
Promissory note (duplex) $26,500
Loan from friends (duplex) $5,000
UK Mortgage 1: $52,239
UK Mortgage 2: $11,013
UK Mortgage 3: $11,595
Total home debt $672,424
EDUCATION DEBT
AS SM $7,382
NT SM $3,206
Total student loan debt $10,588

TOTAL HOUSEHOLD DEBT $683,012

Really high but, for owning three homes with a combined worth of about $870,000, not depressing. Even without selling the condo we could be rid of all that debt by the time I'm 63, and when we do sell the condo it will be less time than that.

Since the new mortgage doesn't come due until Sept. 1, the debt paydown goal for this month will only be $900, as it has been for the past few months. So the goal balance will be $682,112.

We have now reached our lowest level of debt that we'll have for a long time!

AS's student loan hit, with $137 going to principal. That means $932 went toward debt in July, exceeding the $900 goal.

Debt snapshot at this nice low point:
US Mortgage: $151,955
UK Mortgage 1: $52,239
UK Mortgage 2: $11,013
UK Mortgage 3: $11,595
Total home debt $226,802

AS Student loan $7,382
NT Student loan $3,206
Total student loan debt $10,588

TOTAL HOUSEHOLD DEBT $237,390

It's gonna be a crazy debt ride for the next couple months (or years), but I know I can pull out my bag of tricks and get us to a decent place soon.

I've been in a terrible mental place ever since our realtor told us we absolutely wouldn't break even on the mortgage if we sold this place. The thought of having to take out some sort of loan just to get out from under this place, on top of all the other nasty financial surprises that have come up during this process, was just one too many bumps in the road for my psyche to really take.

I kept trying to stay positive and focus on the staging and selling, but at the back of my mind was the feeling that we'd be much worse off financially if we DID sell than if we didn't.

I tried working the extra loan payment into our proposed budget and it made me feel even worse. Yes, we'd be able to cover the expected bills, but there would be nothing left for UNexpected expenses. So anything unexpected that happened would result in debt. We wouldn't be able to do a single thing to the new place beyond the absolutely essential. It was exactly where I DIDN'T want us to be, which is why we'd ended up making a lowball offer in the first place. (Thank goodness we did, because if we'd made the higher offer and all this came up, we'd probably have had to back out of this deal and lose our earnest money.)

I finally broke it down to AS and NT, because I didn't want them to think I was stressing over nothing. There are things we'll be able to do to bring our housing costs to a reasonable level eventually, but initially there's just no getting around it: They're crazy high.

Finally AS proposed something I hadn't directly thought of myself: What if we took the condo off the market for the time being? Next year her future income will be more solidified, NT and I will probably both be making more money at our positions, and we won't have his tuition, AS's medical procedure or my tooth implant to pay for. Plus, the condo mortgage would be about $3K lower and the housing market might be a bit stronger.

It immediately appealed to me. Financially it would make so much more sense than selling at a loss, kicking out our upper-unit renters and moving into the new place.

The only things I didn't like about it: constantly worrying about keeping all our renovations pristine during the long and dirty winter months, knowing we would have to start the staging/listing process all over again in the spring, and just basically feeling stuck.

For a second I thought "What if we move into the basement of the new place?" It's got a largish living area, a kitchen space and a 3/4 bath. But I quickly recognized that just wouldn't work for five people and a cat for six months or more, so I dismissed it immediately. (It would be really cheap for us because both units' rental almost cover the housing expenses. But it would make us crazy.)

But that crazy impractical idea did lead to another: What if we do sell the condo this year, but instead of kicking out the renters, we rent an apartment for six months or so?

I did some math, and if we could find a place for $1200 or less, it would basically be the same cost as staying in the condo. I looked around and there are lots of options well within that price range; don't know about month-to-month or 6-month options, but I bet they're there. Heck, we could probably get the seller's agent to find us a place, since he's angling to be our property manager on the new place and/or help the current renters find a new place when we kick them out.

We talked over all the ideas, and agreed that while they all have pros and cons, they are all doable and shouldn't be taken off the table. So for the time being we're keeping the place on the market, but we might not take any super lowball offer that comes along; we now realize that staying here would be smarter financially than doing that.

If the WV money comes in we could probably take a lowball offer, pay off some of the loans that are making housing costs so high, and move into the duplex right away. But if we don't, it's good to know we have other options besides just moving into the duplex and being really really house-poor for an indefinite period of time.