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.

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.

Sigh.

Interior -- General Condition? Good
Exterior -- General Condition? Good
Curb appeal (lot/landscaping)? Good
Staging (cosmetics, updating)? Excellent
Appropriately Priced?
If no, what would be appropriate? No Response
This buyer is considering
another showing of this property? No
General comments/suggestions:
It showed very nicely my buyer liked it but preferred the view on the other side of the building. Two other units we saw. No where's near the condition of this one but she knows she can fix the interiors. Thank u so much for the showing.

No further interest in our condo from buyers, but there are other positive things happening, so I'm trying to focus on those.

- The HUD finally signed off on everything, so we are officially cleared for the mortgage, and our closing next week is assured. I was starting to sweat the closing date a bit since other people were dragging their feet on providing info, but it all worked out. So glad we started the process ASAP!

- I'd set aside $300 to get our stuff out of storage and into the basement of the new home once we close, and found a mover to do it for $302.50. I didn't do an exhaustive search, but I checked two others and the rates were higher, so I'm cool with this and glad it's close to what I budgeted.

- Tomorrow I find out details of the contractor position that will replace me so I can move into writing. I wonder if I could have a higher paycheck as early as Aug. 15! Still haven't had time to discuss money with anyone, so I'm not sure how much I'll get.

- AS is getting $300 for the small writing job she's doing for my company, and she's heard back from another prospect who sounds like they're going to start sending her work immediately. It would be awesome if we could stockpile some money, or at least be sure it was coming, before her last regular paycheck!

- I spoke with our contractor to see if he handles electrical work (there is some wiring that needs to be fixed as soon as we close on the new place) and he said yes. I'm glad we have someone who is reliable and reasonably priced that we can call on from now on!

- Our DVR has been messing up more and more lately, so we've agreed to get rid of it in a couple weeks (as soon as we can get out there to drop off the box). That will save at least $18 per month, and every dollar is sorely needed, so I'm happy about that!

- My friend's finances are going great, and she has offered free babysitting as payment. Being that we pay $60 a pop for 4 hours of babysitting on a date night, this is no small payment! Not that we have money for a date, but maybe we could take her up on it and just go for a walk together or something.

We already got some feedback from one of the realtors (she's with the same company as ours so maybe they try and make sure to do that?). All good except the fact we don't have a downtown view. Still, it was comforting to think that we've done all we could in terms of staging.

Here it is in full:
Interior -- General Condition? Excellent
Exterior -- General Condition? Excellent
Curb appeal (lot/landscaping)? Excellent
Staging (cosmetics, updating)? Excellent
Appropriately Priced? Yes
This buyer is considering another showing of this property? No
General comments/suggestions: Condo was in perfect showing condition. Well done considering there are 2 cribs! My buyer is still looking. She has decided she prefers the units with DT views. Thanks for the showing. Cute unit.

So, there you have it. There are basically two places with downtown views; neither looks as nice on the inside but it seems like that's the deciding factor for people. We can only hope they sell and no more come on the market until ours gets some interest.

Answers to questions on last post:
- Realtor does seem to be pushing it, since she had a showing before it was on the market! They're not allowed to do open houses in our building though.
- I've got plenty of PTO so taking time for moving won't be a problem.
- AS decided to leave her job back in May or so. She gave them a ton of notice because she felt loyal. Reasons? Way too much work for way way too little money, and a new corrosive co-worker who is making the entire atmosphere toxic. A drastic lessening in diversity (AS is the only holdout in what used to be a very diverse staff, and she's the only one bringing diverse authors to the table too). She's paid at least $10K less than people IN HER OFFICE of the same rank who haven't been there as long. She still doesn't have her own office, as does everyone of her level. She has to share one with the eccentric founder who comes in and out without notice.

Our home was listed Friday night, and it's been worryingly quiet since then. But today, two showings scheduled! I know it can mean absolutely nothing, but I feel encouraged that someone at least wants to look at the place. Fingers crossed!

One is during our usual dinnertime, so I'm going to pick up something cheap and microwavable at Target for the kids, nuke it in the party room of our building, and then us adults can eat later than usual.

***

My boss has suddenly gotten more urgent in his talk of transitioning me to a writer position! This is good news, but first we need a quality proofer/editor who's willing to take on a part-time, contractor, on-location gig. Got some feelers out! We'll see how easy it is to find that. I've got an email in to a friend who would be a GREAT candidate, but we'll see if she's interested.

Whenever that happens, there should be an immediate boost in pay; how much I'm not sure, but any bit will help at this point.

***

AS is getting some promising leads for freelance/contract work, so it looks like that may be the direction she takes after her full-time gig ends. She's already working on an article for my company! I'm hoping we can stockpile some freelance income before she leaves at the end of August, since we'll have to replace her take-home pay as well as get her some health insurance.

***

NT's transition to a new role at his job has already begun; no word on a raise yet, but he's definitely expecting one and will ask if they don't bring it up.

***

A friend asked me to help with her budget, so I got her set up on (a simplified version of) my system. It's been about a week, and so far we've messaged every day to update the spreadsheets, talk about strategies for not overdrawing and for paying down debt, etc. She says it's stressful to see how tight things are but really empowering to see that she can take actions to change it. I'm trying not to get too excited, but I'm hoping this will be a permanent change for the better for her!

***

Small positive snowflakes/money matters:

- NT's UK rental income went up a bit as promised, so we'll save a little faster for those renovations.

- Chase SW refunded our $99 annual fee even though the card was open more than 90 days before I canceled it. Got the check in the mail yesterday!

- Was thinking we'd have to pay for our own dinner at our friends' post-wedding celebration last night (since it wasn't a traditional reception), but it was on them. Feels like a bonus that it didn't have to come out of my carefully hoarded spending money!

- I noticed that on AS's $1400 medical bill, there was no line about it being sent to the insurance company. Hoping it was an oversight and that insurance will cover some of that bill! I already have a plan to pay that off this fall, so it would be great if that money could go toward home expenses instead!

We came home expecting paper and equipment and half-done floors, but instead we opened the door to a gleaming dream home! I called the guy and asked if he had more to do (he said it would take at least 2 days), and he said nope, he managed to finish all in one day!

There is a definite LINE between the living areas and the bedrooms, so clearly the bedrooms need to be done. But I've asked my realtor if we can just say in the MLS listing notes that the bedrooms will be done exactly like the main floors as soon as we move out. Would be so much easier (and delay the expense) if we could do it that way. So we'll see what she thinks.

The even better news is that this portion cost $1400. We had $2500 budgeted, but we now reckon the bedrooms will only cost about $800, so we'll actually come in about $300 under budget! That's awesome because we needed money for movers to bring our stuff from storage to the basement of the new home once we close.

We can't move our stuff back into the main areas until Saturday since the floors need to cure, so I've asked the realtor if we can list on Friday and be available for viewings on Saturday. I hope that works out.

We're all crammed into our bedrooms for the next two days, but it'll be worth it to make sure the finish on the floors is perfect.

I think my running tally of expenses is pretty accurate, and so far we've spent $8002 (including renting storage and moving van). With $800 for the rest of the floors and $300 to hire movers, we're on track to go just about $100 over budget. I'm sure there are a few piddly things we need to get, but considering our original budget was $13,500, I'm feeling pretty good about an estimated $9102!

Forgive the following little dime-store self-analyzing (not to mention self-aggrandizing) session. I just needed to work something out of my system and get to a happy place.

All of the wrangling that's been going on as a result of the home purchase and attempt to sell the condo is starting to take its toll on me. I've even started resenting a bit how our friends who are moving in are so blissfully happy about moving while I stress and sweat over getting this mortgage deal done and condo reno funded, are going out to eat and drink constantly while we scrimp and break our backs and watch the summer slip by, and who are planning to move in at their leisure in August, when we agreed rent is due Sept. 1. (They couldn't get out of their August rent at the old place and can't afford to pay two rents that month.)

Everything is so easy and there's only upside, whereas I feel like I'm panicking several times a week, constantly getting hit with more financial blows, like $7K in PMI added to the mortgage, potentially $10K-$15K to lose when (if) we sell the condo, and dealing with agents and brokers who, while not bad people, seem to always be asking for more, taking time and money and peace of mind at every turn.

(Granted, our friends have helped a ton: They loaned us $5K to help make the down payment and have said we can pay it back whenever. My friend's lawyering and photography skills have saved us tons of money and/or uncertainty while wading through negotiations and getting the condo staged and photographed. And my other friend helped get the first huge load of things into storage.)

But despite all that help, I started to feel resentful because I felt my share of the stress and work was so high, and I wasn't getting to feel any of the joy of moving into the new home. And I was starting to get a bit worried. Resentment is not a good place to start a new cooperative living situation from. So today I did a little soul searching while I was working, and I decided that the only thing I can change is how *I* choose to view this situation.

So I decided not to externalize my stress, nor resent those who aren't as stressed. I'm doing that by viewing myself as the hero in this situation, vs. the martyr (or victim).

I mean think about it. My friends killed their credit when they walked away from their underwater condo years ago. They've been renting a nice place since then, but starting to feel unmoored, like they wanted a "real" home again, but would not be able to qualify for a new home purchase at least for a while. They wanted kids and were planning to have one with a friend a few years ago, but that fell through; they are our kids' godparents and would love to have more of a role in their lives.

Then we gave them this opportunity: a chance to at least have a rent-controlled space, with the possibility of buying their share if things go well. A chance to see their goddaughters every day and help raise them. A sense of home and a project that we can work on together.

So I may be going through some fiscal pain and anxiety/fear now, but the end result is not just about getting a new home. I hereby declare myself a hero. Heroes have to overcome difficulties, and bear burdens for others, but they don't resent the people they help. I can be this person and kill the seeds of resentment before they grow.

Last night we had to move all the furniture out of our living, dining and hall/foyer areas to clear the floor for refinishing. It wasn't too bad: the dining room table fit on the kitchen island (upside down), the floor lamp and TV table on the balcony, TV on the built-in by the window, couch and rocker in our room, dining room chairs divided between our room and the kids', foyer cabinet in the front hall closet.

Today the floor guy is working on it. Not sure but I think it will take 2 days. I do know he says the floors will be ready for foot traffic by Friday, so that's when our realtor will list our place.

We have $2500 set aside for floors. I didn't get an exact quote from him on how much it will cost to do this; I know his usual rate is $3 per square foot. Our entire condo is 963 or so, but he's not doing the bathroom, kitchen, balcony, closets or (for now) bedrooms. I haven't thought to measure the remaining areas to see how much it is.

He also vaguely said that he'd "give us a good deal" because we had to wait so long for him to fit us into the schedule. No idea what that means either.

I know it sounds shockingly lazy of me, but the truth is, this is the guy my realtor uses for all the units she fixes up, we've seen the work he's done on them and he's very good, and he's familiar with the buildings, the front-desk attendants and the rules. There's just no way I'm going out of that comfort zone to bring in an unknown contractor, so price is really irrelevant. The only thing it will really affect is whether we can afford to get the bedrooms done too, or if we see if someone can just buff and polish them for a lower rate. (They're not nearly as scratched and damaged as the main living area floors.)

I am just trying to cross off tasks and keep things moving, without obsessing or stressing too much. Things will happen, we will survive, eventually (hopefully) our lives will settle down again.

The project I've taken on to distract myself -- helping my friend fix her finances -- is going really well! I've got her started on my spreadsheets and she's excited to see how she can arrange and adjust things to make sure she stays on budget. Right now her account is in overdraft and she's bleeding NSF fees as automatic bill payments post, but tomorrow is her payday and I hope to help her ensure that she never pays another NSF after that.

So I've been really really trying not to spend any of my fun money lately, so I have something saved for our slew of visitors starting in about a month.

I went a little crazy this past weekend. Friday I bought Chipotle for the family for dinner ($21.60), Sunday I spent $34 on drinks and food at a festival and $8 on a temporary tattoo for AA, and yesterday I bought a box of wine for $16.53. Phew!

I'm trying to get back on the frugal wagon. At least buying food while at work hasn't been a temptation -- until today, when I forgot my lunch while dropping the kids at daycare. (At least I Facebooked the daycare lady so she'd put it in her fridge and I can have it tomorrow!)

I had $6 cash in my wallet, so I thought I'd try and be strategic and keep breakfast and lunch under that. I stopped at a convenience store and bought a container of cereal ($1.50) and a pack of peanut butter crackers (55 cents). I had 2 cents in my purse and took three from the take-a-penny tray, so I only spent $2.02 on breakfast!

For lunch I figured I'd feast on Taco Bell for about the same price (2 bean burritos at 99 cents each). Unfortunately, the nearest location has closed! I had a new co-worker tagging along and didn't want to drag her around looking for another $2 lunch option, so I went to Au Bon Pain right next door. My sandwich was $6.97 and I only had $4 left in cash, so had to use my card. (Sandwich tasted meh, but much healthier than Taco Bell would have been.) Oh well. I did find a penny on the way back to work!

I still have $900 of fun money that will have accumulated if I don't spend any more between now and the end of August. Of course I *will* spend some, but hopefully I can keep it to a minimum and still have a lot left for hanging out with our visitors.

Well, the showing didn't work out today; the person decided to go with another place with the city skyline view. At least that's another condo off the market and I haven't seen any new ones pop up yet.

I called the floor guy and he's going to do our main living area floors starting Wednesday. Could be a two-day job. We need to figure out where to stash our furniture. It'll be like tetris, but we don't have to do it until tomorrow.

And, our realtor isn't going to officially put our place on the market until the floors are done, since everything will be in disarray and the floors won't be walkable while the guy is working on it.

So that means we can relax somewhat tonight. I'm still going to tidy up everything in the morning to keep in practice for when we may have viewers at any time while we're gone. But we can leave blankets on the sofa (the new cover is white and we don't want kids/cat/us messing it up), which saves a bit of hassle.

So how do I relax? I started helping a friend with her budget. I made copies of my main spreadsheet and started inputting her numbers. Even though it's going to be a hard road, it was nice to be doing something that felt simple and straightforward compared with the madness we've got going on right now.

Had a good moment at work when a VP walked by and said my boss was singing my praises about a quick-turn project I did for him Friday. I haven't felt as focused at work, but I think I'm focusing on the right things, mainly getting extra work to prove to my boss that making me a writer is the right thing to do. Could really use a nice raise starting in August or September.

I managed to connect AS to a writer in my company who gave her a freelance assignment. We don't know how much it pays, but I think any money AS makes I'm going to try and stash as a hedge against September-December, when things will be super tight and she won't have a guaranteed income. (Starting in January it won't be as big a deal because NT's and my income will cover the budget, but those three months, we really need to replace her paycheck income to make the budget work.)

Any raises NT and I get next month, I'm going to stash the extra to help get out of this mortgage (hopefully); our realtor says we can list at $155K, but that we may have to take less. And then she reminded us that we need to pay 6% commission, plus about $2K for something else I can't remember. So it sounds like we're definitely not going to break even on the mortgage (currently at $152K, pays off $480 per month) and are going to have to cover the shortfall somehow.

But, that's something I can worry about another day. Tonight is (sort of) a "night off."

Before-and-afters, continued.

BALCONY
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(The main differences are the closet door was replaced and the floor scrubbed. You can't tell from this pic, but the floor was FILTHY. I scrubbed it for about an hour today.)

KITCHEN
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DINING AREA, VIEW FROM LIVING AREA
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LIVING AREA, VIEW FROM DINING AREA
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You ready? We're done! I know it looks a bit blank-slate, but we didn't have much money for staging so we just focused on decluttering and updating what we could.

KIDS' ROOM
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OUR ROOM
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FRONT HALL
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BATHROOM:
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Worked hard tonight. Kind of keyed up but trying to start to get sleepy because we have another busy day tomorrow.

I hope to have before-and-after shots to share with you tomorrow!

OK, the promissory note is almost sorted out, so we should be able to send to HUD Monday. They need about a week to review.

I found out, or rather probably was told and totally forgot, that the mortgage will actually be $7K more than I thought because of prepaying mortgage insurance. I don't get it, because it's not going to be $7K a year, but it's not worth worrying about. It brings the all-told price a bit above what it was listed for, but in light of the $85K more appraisal, it still feels like a good deal.

Today we made a lot of progress. NT put handles on most of the kitchen cabinets and AS painted the other closet door and the kids' room. Together they painted the bathroom; it will need one more coat but it's getting there. I did two coats in the kitchen and I think it's only going to need some slight touch-ups. AS put runners on the rocking chair so we can pull up the carpet squares.

Tomorrow morning NT will finish up the painting while we have the girls at swim class. Then it's haircuts and grocery shopping. Saturday evening/night we'll box up more stuff and move furniture into the hall for putting into the storage space. We'll use a carshare pickup truck for Sunday morning since we don't need a full moving van for this haul.

Now for the too-good-to-be-true part. Our realtor called tonight. She wanted to know if she could bring someone by to look at the place Monday, even though it's not officially on the market!

She has friends moving into town, and they've lived in this building before, so they're considering living here again. She said they'd understand if everything wasn't quite done; they've bought a place in really rough shape before and fixed it up, so they're not going to be turned off by imperfect staging.

So, um, wow! She's showing them the other 2-bedrooms as well, so I'm not getting my hopes up too much. But I've got my fingers crossed that our great layout and view will stand out in comparison to the others.

NT pointed out that if they made an offer that same day, we might have time to give the renters 45 days notice for a Sept. 1 move-in to the new place! That's far-fetched, but also exciting to contemplate!

Thanks for the sympathy on my last post. It did help to blog and get some encouragement.

Progress made today:
- Received promissory note. Need to haggle over a few details; hope to do that tomorrow and hopefully have the note ready by early next week to send to HUD, who needs up to a week to review.
- Decided on our bathroom color, a nearly white cool light blue.
- Taped bathroom and kitchen and applied primer.
- NT measured cabinets for where he needs to drill holes for handles.
- AS and NT each painted a door of the closet, leaving just one more.
- Got some staging accessories in the mail: shower curtain, throw pillow covers, table runner, cabinet handles.

It looks like a wreck, with all the patchy primer on the walls and newspapers lying around and everything, but we made progress. We may be able to finish the bulk of painting tomorrow. AS will tackle the girls' room and I'll try to finish at least one coat on the kitchen and bathroom. (We were running out of primer so we'll need at least two coats to cover the vivid colors.) Maybe NT can do the last closet door too. He will definitely drill all the holes for the cabinet handles.

Then, Saturday will be just boxing up stuff for storage, and doing finishing touches on painting etc.

Sunday we move some stuff out and probably get our real estate photos done.

So glad we're almost to the listing stage! I found a few more 2-bedroom listings; there are 4 active ones total right now. There's a high-end, 16th floor one listed at $175K, one that's about on par with ours on the 9th floor for $150K, and the two I mentioned before (2nd floor one, $145K, and 11th floor but crazy colors/flooring, $155K). We'll be watching closely to see if any of them sells, but I don't find the "rival" condos daunting or underpriced, so I'm hoping we're in a good position. If nothing else, we're the highest-floor 2-bedroom in our complex right now!

I'm having a little bit of a panic attack this morning. I'll be OK soon, I know. I don't have much to do at work to distract me at the moment so I thought blogging would help calm me down.

The contractors are nearly done; they may have finished up the last little bits already. I left a check on the kitchen counter and borrowed $2K from our reserve line to cover the check; I'll pay it back on the 15th.

We're happy overall with their work. Some of the choices were not the ideal we had in mind, but we gave them free rein to choose materials and asked them to work quickly and cheaply, and we can live with it all, so we're OK with it. At least the one expensive thing they did, the kitchen backsplash, looks aMAZING. I think it'll be a big selling point. The kitchen counters and floors are nice, and the regrouting has just made the bathroom look brand new.

The mirror they installed in the bathroom is kinda blah, but I like the light fixtures. The bedroom closet doors are good, but they're positioned so that you can't open the drawers in the closet. So we'll probably just try to remove the drawers.

The closet doors need to be painted, so that's another item to add to the list. Also, it's going to be a bit tricky to paint the wall behind the mirror and light fixture they installed. Just need to tape carefully and use a small brush to get under the edges so you can't see the different color of the wall behind it.

It does make me wonder if we'll really finish everything by Sunday afternoon. Ah well, we'll just do our best. If it takes a few more days, so be it.

Our friends (the lawyer/photographer and his partner) who are moving in with us are getting officially married in a week or so. We knew they were planning it but had let it fall off the radar. They're doing it on the anniversary of their original ceremony (which they did before marriage was legal for them), so it's on a Monday evening. Probably only one of us will make it and we'll join them for dinner to celebrate afterward.

I did have my "mysterious" news from yesterday turn out to be good news -- I get to do another writing assignment probably starting this month. This one will be a test of how well I can write catchy, cool, brief little messages. Hopefully I can pull it off; I'd like to demonstrate I have range. However, as you all know by now, brevity is not my strong suit.

So, all of that is why I'm feeling a bit stressed and discombobulated right now. Just have to buckle down today and get as much done as I can. Tonight's possible tasks to check off:
- Put two test colors on the bathroom wall and check them against the accessories we ordered to see which looks better. Tape it off to prepare for painting.
- Tape off the kitchen to prepare for painting.
- Paint one or two of the bedroom closet doors so they can dry and we can do the next one (there are three that overlap somewhat).
- Put padding on the rocking chair runners and pull up the carpet squares in the living room.
- Box up more stuff that we can put into storage on Sunday.
- Apply primer on the bathroom and kitchen walls.

What a confusing couple of hours! I was checking our main credit card's last statement to try and see when the next period closes, and I noticed our interest rate on purchases is 0%. I called customer service to make sure that was the case; yep! We're apparently in an introductory period and there's 0% interest until Oct. 31. This means we can make minimum payments for the next few months without incurring interest. Woo hoo! Oh, and looking at my budget I realized that since we put off haircuts for a week, our December appointment will be moved to January. I'm counting that as an $80 surplus (which I'm sure will be eaten up by something, but at least I have it)!

Then I got my carshare invoice and was shocked to see we were charged $55 for miles when we took it for a day trip a few weeks ago. I thought mileage was unlimited when you had a 24-hour reservation, but I checked the site and you only get the first 100 miles free! Darn. We'd paid for the initial rental out of spending money, but I'm going to try and cover this extra charge with our carshare line item. We'd already used up our July budget, so this wiped out most of August's. We're going to have to try and minimize carshare usage for the next couple months. We already have at least 2 trips planned, and the weddings and showers will probably require a few too. So we'll just have to try and use the bus/bike whenever possible, but some of the trips may be out of range of anything but carshare. Darn.

Then my boss comes by and says he wants me to talk to him tomorrow. I hate when you can't tell if it's good or bad, but my hope (and strong suspicion) is that he's going to give me a writing assignment or discuss the transition further. Fingers crossed! If it's something bad, it can't be terrible or he would have just confronted me right there, probably, so I'm not too worried.

Then my old boss came by randomly and said he's going to try and get me an office with a door! At first I thought I'd get a window office but it sounds like it'll be one of the interior ones. Still, a door! Awesome!