The Move is Complete

Finally! We're in our new house and starting to get settled. We have a lot more work to do, but for the past couple of days we've just been enjoying our home and relaxing a bit. The downstairs bathroom needs to be completely redone, and right now it's still torn apart, and the living room and foyer still need to be painted. Things will be a little slow until after Christmas because there are a lot of uncommon expenses that come with the holidays, but after my wife's birthday (New Year's Eve), things will start to get back to normal.

All My Money is Gone

The big move is this weekend. I'm really excited about it. It's our first house, and most importantly, we can stop spending so much money on fixing it up. For the most part, it's finished. Let me rephrase, it's move-in ready. The new carpet is in, the new flooring is down, and the inside has been re-painted from top to bottom. Our house appraised for $207,000 when we bought it a month ago. I wonder what it would appraise for now since we put in so many upgrades?

Still to come:

• New lighting for the kitchen, foyer, dining room, upstairs hallway and 3 bathrooms
• Pedestal sink for the downstairs bathroom
• Quarter round to complete the look of the flooring and the hide the imperfections
• Stainless steel dishwasher
• Window treatments for the entire house
• Guest and master bathroom painted
• New family room furniture

Is that all??? I need a second job.

Bi-Weekly Mortgage Program

Last night I officially signed up for the bi-weekly mortgage program through my lender. Actually, it's semi-monthly with a little added to the principle at each draft, so it equates to the same thing as a bi-weekly draft. It will cut 7 years off the life of the mortgage and over $60,000 in interest savings, and that's if we decide to not put any additional payment toward the principle. After our cars are paid off, I'll be looking to tack on an extra $100 toward the principle per month. Most importantly, this program will build equity in our home 3 times faster than making a regular payment! I recommend everyone do this. Not only because of the reasons above, but because it will make it MUCH easier to budget our money and it lightens the one time monthly hit on your checking account. It cost us a one time setup fee of $195 to enroll, and it'll be worth every penny!

Mortgage Protection

This is something I never thought I'd consider: mortgage protection. The purpose of mortgage protection is to pay off the remainder of your mortgage if you die, become disabled and can't work, and in some cases, make your mortgage payment in case of unemployment. The reason I'm considering this is the latter. I've only been working in the private sector for about 10 months now, and it's much different than working for the government like I used to. You could probably kill somebody on the job and not get fired working in the public sector. Luckily I was able to land a job with a higher salary and much more potential, but there are plans in place to start outsourcing 90% of IT in my company starting in 2010. Now I know I still have 3 years, and it's not a guarantee that I'll be laid off or even be with the same company when that comes, but I'm a bit of a worrier when it comes to supporting myself and my family. I don't know if it's a great idea to pay a premium on mortgage protection when I could be putting that money toward the principle, but I sent the form in to get more info anyway.

Updates on this will follow...

Wall Art for Sale??

When I calculated my net worth when I started this blog I purposely left out about $9,000 in savings because we were planning on using that money specifically for purchases on things for the house. We had (and still have) a lot of things we needed to buy:

New carpet for the upstairs: check.
Flooring for the downstairs: check.
Paint and supplies: check.
TV and stand: check.
Refrigerator: check.
Family room furniture: check.

Not a bad start. What I didn't count on were all of the re-visits to Home Depot and the paint store because we were constantly running out of supplies. All those little purchases really add up, which is yet another reason I can't wait to finally move in. Out of our approximately nine grand that we had, only about $500 remains. That's cool and all because we are very fortunate to be able to have all these things, but it'll be nice to get things back to normal once we're settled.

Still need: pedestal sink for downstairs bathroom, 220 volt connection for our electric stove, miscellaneous plumbing repairs (nothing serious or very expensive), probably more paint, miscellaneous home decor.

All that being said, I'm looking to buy some inexpensive, yet cool and contemporary wall art if anybody has any laying around. Keep in mind I'm not looking for expensive stuff here, but if a nice piece is collecting dust in a closet I'd be happy to work out a deal.

House Update and New "Toys"

Unfortunately we were only able to work on our house one day this weekend because of a family wedding. Dont' get me wrong, I enjoyed the wedding (and by wedding I mean the reception) but my mind was on getting our house up to "move-in" standards. I got the wood flooring down in the dining and living rooms, and my wife started priming the family room. I'll get some pics posted a little later. If you want to make some money in the stock market this month, try buying stock in Home Depot because I seem to be spending all my money there making a half dozen trips every weekend.

The new toys for the house include a Craftsman lawn mower and wet-dry vac, and wow does that thing suck! I highly recommend investing in one of those, especially because you can get a good one for around $35. It was a pretty successful weekend, and I'm already looking forward to the upcoming weekend in continuing our quest to making our house a home.

Our New House

Here are some pics of the new house. I'm so proud to be a homeowner. This house will contribute to my net worth significantly, and with appreciation I should get a good return on my investment. These pics came off the MLS listing. The new 1.7 mile commute to work is a pretty cool perk too! Inside pictures to follow...



Specs:
1906 square feet
818 square foot finished basement
210 square foot 3-season sun room
10,123 square foot lot size