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House Musings, Engaged, the Usual ...

August 22nd, 2009 at 02:25 am

I have been gone for far to long but I have been keeping up with everyone's blogs. Too much has happened since my last post. My boyfriend proposed to me on July 4th and of course I said yes! We have also taken the leap into homeownership. We made an executive decision to buy through Quadrant Homes (they build highly-known developments in the Pacific Northwest). They have lowered their prices by 25K, offered us 10K towards closing costs, and we will also (almost positively) close in time to receive the 8K credit. Not to mention my real estate agent was just able to negotiate another 2K from them to use towards our dream refrigerator in the showroom. We have financed at zero down, no PMI, and locked our rate in at 5.375%.

We bought at zero down because we feel ready for homeownership, have the financial flexibility to afford a mortgage, and seriously, who can pass up 45K? They have just poured our foundation and we should be in before Thanksgiving. They have an extremely rigid process of building these homes (exactly 54 business days).

I was talking to one of my colleagues about a month ago and she said that she and her husband went into debt about 15K with each house they bought. I was incredulous. We have basically all of our furniture. We will be buying a 3 y/o used washer and dryer for $200 from my boss' family. We will need to build a fence but fiance does contracting for a living so that will be cheap. the only major thing we really need is a sectional. seriously. the little loveseat thing we have smells like pee, beer, and other bodily fluids. it used to reside in fiance's bachelor house so that HAS TO GO. it is gross. our families will be helping us out with gift cards, etc. to help defray the costs of getting our home up and running.

I have been without health insurance for a couple of months now. I work for a VERY small employer who can't offer health insurance due to the way it would have to be set up. Basically we would have to insure her daughter who incurs half a million dollars in medical bills every year which would increase all of our premiums to around 2K/mo. I'll pass Smile So my employer gave me my raise a few months early which completely covers my premiums for dental, vision, and health. it also leaves me about $8/mo. Big Grin So now I am making almost 40K. pretty good if you ask me! I am very, very thankful.

Since paying off my car in April I have been diligently working to increase our emergency fund before our first mortgage payment (early January). It is up to 6.5K and we are currently adding 2K/mo. so we should have close to 14K come end of year. I'm going to make a separate post for our projected budget and I would love for some of you to look it over and let me know if it looks realistic.

Glad to be back! I'm hoping to post on a more regular basis now that we are going to be going through ALOT of changes and upheavals!

2 Responses to “House Musings, Engaged, the Usual ...”

  1. whitestripe Says:
    1251007418

    are you saying that the builders build the ENTIRE house in 54 days? i would be quite worried about that, if i were you. please be careful, as there are things that take time in house bulding that a lot of so-so companies rush, such as curing time for slabs and settlement of framing etc.

  2. Jerry Says:
    1251472766

    That is part of the problem with tying health insurance coverage to employment, in my opinion, because it leads to unfortunate situations like with your boss' family. That is really sad, but I have to respect that they try to make it right with their employees. That is impressive.
    Jerry

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