Good Deal Scorecard

I love to shop (no surprise). And I also really really love to get a good deal. It's like a game. Can I save more than I actually spend? How good of a deal can I get? Can I get a really nice item for a Target or Walmart price?

This also lends itself really well to the classic "honey, look how much I saved us!" v "look how much I spent."


Ross and I had agreed on a rough budget for my shopping spree, one that I felt like I could enjoy and not have to be a penny pincher, so hypothetically I didn't have to be an aggressive sale hunter this weekend. And when I say weekend, I do mean weekend. In the end I shopped Thursday evening, Friday afternoon and again this afternoon (there were 3 stores I really wanted to go to at the outlets that went unshopped yesterday and I just couldn't have that).

On today's excursion I finally found a purse that I liked. Purses are hard for me, especially if and when I want a small one like I was looking for this time. The criteria was small but big enough for phone, keys and wallet; straps long enough to easily throw over my shoulder but short enough that the purse hangs at chest height; and not a logo print. Coach had lovely leather options but the straps were all wrong. Michael Kors had a good size and strap length option but only in a really over-the-top logo print. Nine West, Banana Republic, Guess and the other stores really didn't meet the size requirements, all too small or too big. Fossil ended up being just right. And though I am usually a Coach girl, I realize the past 3 bags I have picked out have been from Fossil (today's buy, my laptop bag and my diaper bag). Their designers and I are clearly on the same page.

Work blouse, tshirt dress and Banana Republic tshirt

But anyways like I said, I just really really love a steal of a good deal. Walking away from my birthday shopping spree with way more than I expected because of the sales made for that much sweeter of a birthday celebration.

So here's my Good Deal Scorecard if you will. Keep in mind I did all my shopping at the outlets (or DSW) so everything was already lower than the regular store price.

• Tshirt dress: 80% off (clearance)
• Calvin Klein tshirt: 75% off (strangely the blue shirt was on a much bigger sale than the other colors; it is a lovely sapphire so I don't know why)
• Heels: 62% off (DSW + clearance + $5 birthday coupon)
• Jeans: 60% off (I wasn't shopping for jeans at all actually. I just put these on so I could see how the tops I was trying on looked with jeans. They fit great and the sale was so good I figured you can't have too many jeans, especially not in Texas. Also I always buy cheap jeans so there was something irrationally "grown up" feeling about buying higher end jeans.)
• Banana Republic tshirt: 50% off 
• Tank top: 50% off
• Polo for Ross: 50% off
• Purse: 40% off
• Dress for wedding: 30% off
• Work blouse: 20% off
• Cardigan: 0% off but only $8 anyways (I have no idea how The Gap is selling cardigans for $8 even at the outlet but I'm not asking questions. Even if it only lasts a season, who cares.)
• Work out tanks: 0% off (but the Old Navy price is 2 for $15; also not an outlet but Old Navy is easy peasy anyways)

Good Money

I just started reading The Rainmaker by John Grisham. It didn't take much more than a chapter to see it was clearly written at a different time and in a different place. Why? Because the main character is decently pleased with his $34,000 annual salary. As a lawyer.

This reminded me of a question on the radio a few months back: What is "good money"?

I think the question came up in relation to a woman saying she wanted to date/marry a man who made "good money." The male DJs wanted clarification on what good money was. What was the magic figure?

Surprise surprise, I had/have an opinion.

I vote that "good money" is whatever you need to live without (much) debt.

For John Grisham's Memphis lawyer, maybe $34,000 is good money. If he can pay rent, eat, etc and not go into debt, it probably is (granted I doubt any real lawyer would say $34,000 is good money - how would you ever pay your school loans on that?).

Honestly, even if you make six figures, if you have outstanding credit card debt, are financing EVERYTHING and wonder how you are going to pay your bills - does it even matter if you are making six figures?

I hope the lady looking for a man who makes good money is actually looking for someone who knows how to live within his means and not who makes some arbitrary annual salary. She's likely to be much happier with someone who does the former v the latter.

Piggy

Getting our savings on at the bank

1. My son is a porker. Our pediatrician wants to see him gain an ounce per day at this point. Well oink oink, baby Cade has gained 9 ounces in the past 4 days! That means he's at a wonderfully chubby 8 pounds, 2 ounces. And trust me, with his recent feeding habits - my fav being when he wants 2 meals within 90 minutes - it adds up.

2. He has a big boy piggy bank! He's letting us bring home the bacon and put it into his brand new savings account! Hopefully in 18 years there will be a respectable sum saved for the fancy pants college he's going to get into (and/or a respectable sum saved for the car we'll bribe him with if he can get a full ride to college).

Gin Queen

I feel that I should be crowned Gin Queen. Because tonight I beat the pants off my husband in gin.

We play lots of games and generally speaking, I'm not very good at them. Or at least not better than Ross. Tonight he suggested gin which pleased me because it had been months since we played and I really like that game.

We quickly remembered why I like gin: it's the only thing I am consistently better at than him.

And to make it that much sweeter, Ross had us set up with a little monetary incentive. Tomorrow's Starbucks will now be courtesy of my gin prowess.

Approved!

As you know, we've been scouting out a new house. Well we recently got a little more serious about it and applied for pre-approval on a loan. Good news - we were approved!

The thing that made this pre-approval a little stickier than normal is that we anticipate still owning our current home. Which means we needed to be approved not only for a new mortgage, but still be able to carry this one at the same time. We intend to lease this house out (1167 square feet, 2 car garage & a yard can be all yours in October!) but the lender can't take that into consideration since it would ultimately remain our liability. Anyways, long story short, we needed to be approved for a BIG amount.

Step 1: check
Steps 2-100: ongoing

Good Read: ForbesWoman

One of the greatest things about my pro Girl Scouting days was the number of smart women who I was surrounded by and who said things like "other women helped me; now I want to help you." They would offer sage advice, be open to unusual workplace conversations and in general, happily play the role of mentor.

In that spirit, because other women have and continue to help me, I'm sharing this ForbesWoman article: American Employers are Waiting for You to Close the Wage Gap.

Happy reading ladies

Marie Claire & Me on Money

Since I discovered on my flight to NYC that my book. Making It Up, was awful, I splurged on the February issue of Marie Claire for the flight back. I liked the feature on Christina Aguilera, loved the feature on Gov. Nikki Haley and thought the Money Matters section was good enough to share here with you.

Here's a few of my fav tips from Money Matters + my own commentary:

• "Maximize your paycheck. Take pretax dollars from  your salary to ensure you have funds for things you need. A flexible spending account (FSA) lets you pay for health expenses..." The tricky thing about an FSA though the "use it or lose it" clause. For the first year you open one of these, I suggest figuring out your sure-thing expenses like contacts, birth control and other regular prescriptions. Only set aside enough for those and depending on how you spend, consider increasing the next year.
• "Skimp on the small stuff." This is why my college friends associate me with cheap toilet paper...and toothpaste, paper towels, etc. Needless to say, name brand is not always the way to go, especially on daily household purchases.
• "Make small changes at home. Save $33 a month: Turn your fridge temperature up to 40 degrees and your freezer up to 0." You bet I immediately checked my fridge. The other ideas here include surge protectors and compact fluorescent lightbulbs. I'd like to add in variable or low-flow toilets and keeping your home really warm in the summer and really cold in the winter (guilty as charged).
• "Shop solo. Browsing with a friend triggers competition; you'll be more objective alone." I have to admit this one isn't any fun but I know I do by less when I'm alone so there must be some truth to it.
• Take your lunch. OK this one wasn't in Marie Claire but I find it to be one of the best cost saving things to do on an almost daily basis. When we really need to save we take this one step further and instead of buying lunch stuff will make just a little more for dinner and take that with us. Dinner leftovers are especially cheap when it's pasta night.
• Use cash. Again not in Marie Claire but tried and true in the Black household. If you can't pay for it in cash, you can't afford it.

2011 Resolutions

At the beginning of the year I wrote out my short list of new year's resolutions. I achieved 2 out of 6 and partial credit on a few others. That's probably about 50% overall, or in school-terms, definitely an F. I also did no good at helping Lexi achieve her resolution.

Here's my performance review:

• Reading list: About 50%. I read more than this but I just forgot to reference my list.
• Work outs: I have no idea how much I worked out each week but what I do know is that October-December killed whatever average I had going. The good news though is that I actually weigh about 2 pounds less now than I did at this time last year. I think that's a win overall.
• Eye liner: WIN!
• Pictures: I don't think I took more (God knows I didn't take any of the friends I rendezvoused with on business trips.) I probably broke even with 2010.
• Save $$: We saved but I'm not sure we saved as much as we hoped. That said, we did have a LOT of fun and paid out-of-pocket for some important things like wisdom teeth removal. So a win-ish?
• Europe: WIN!

I'm not one to lower expectations usually but maybe I was a bit of an overachiever here. Who has SIX new year's resolutions plus one for the dog?

For 2012, my new year's resolution might just be to have less resolutions.

Thankful XXIV

Health insurance.

We're going a day in advance with thankfuls because I have no intentions of logging on to any computer anywhere tomorrow as it would interfere with my holiday eating, drinking and socializing and we can't be having that.

Today I am thankful for health insurance. A couple weeks ago I got a bill for a dentist appointment because I went FIVE days before the six month mark. Naturally, my angry self appealed - I mean come on, I was clearly trying to make my appointments six months apart.

And Happy Thanksgiving to me because the insurance decided to pick up the tab. To borrow from old Ben Franklin, $90 saved is $90 earned.

Movember is here!

Movember is here!

Movember is when moustaches invade November in the name of awareness for and fundraising to fight prostate cancer. There's some disagreement about when and where Movember began, but in a nutshell it began 7-11 years ago in Australia (either Adelaide or Melbourne, we aren't sure). I first got wind of it while studying in Sydney and interning for the Cancer Council Australia. Last year US participants raised $7.5 million to fight prostate cancer through orgs like LIVESTRONG and the Prostate Cancer Foundation.

Creepy Ross 'stache from earlier this year.
Get ready for more of the same...and then some

As you know, Ross is a lover of moustaches and firefighters worldwide are among the best growers of moustaches. Add into it our strong opposition to cancer and it's only natural that Ross bring Movember to the guys at GFD.

Led by their fearless moustache growing Movember captain Ross, the GFD Mo-Bros are 19 strong for their inaugural year.

And it's a very serious effort, complete with email heckling, posters, business cards and maybe a moustache growth flip book at the end.


If you would like to support Ross and the GFD Mo-Bros, you can donate to him online right here.

Check his "Mo-Space" and my blog throughout Movember for updated pics of the 'stache. It's bound to be epic.

I think in "plane ticket" terms

A little lunch hour blog musing for you...

I'm wearing really cute shoes today (from the ShoeDazzle shoe club) which while my lunch was heating inspired the "Oh I need to go show Jen" thought which then led to "She's gonna ask why I'm not in shoe club anymore" (because hello, look how cute these are) which led to "but that's $480 per year on shoes...that's a plane ticket, actually one and a half plane tickets."

This isn't the first time I thought in plane ticket terms. I recently received some "free money" (you know money you weren't counting on and can use at your discretion) and my first thought was "That's a plane ticket!" My second thought was "San Diego or Boston? Hmmm."

When I was in college I always kept $300 in my checking account "just in case." Just in case of what? Just in case I needed an emergency plane ticket. Food, bills, rent, whatever. I would switch to Ramen for week if I started to encroach on my scared plane ticket fund.

I think I was the ripe old age of 13 when I started asking for plane tickets for birthdays/Christmas as opposed to stuff. Currently I'm trying to convince Ross that we should be in Italy for my birthday next year and sure, that can be my present. It's a plane ticket after all.

The situation manifests itself beyond the actual plane ticket too.

You may have heard me say this before, but my only real complaint about Austin (when it isn't a burning inferno as it has been lately) is the airport is tiny. While this is actually good for swiftly getting through the airport to use said plane tickets, there's a direct negative correlation between airport size and bang for plane ticket buck. To quote The Sandlot "You're killing me Smalls!"

Relocation has also been affected by plane tickets. As in OK we can move to Georgetown but we should move to the eastside of Georgetown which has easy access to the 130 toll road and thus the airport. Airport access is right up there with granite countertops and a double vanity.

As you can see, thoughts like "I'm not buying that! That's X plane tickets!" and "How is this going to affect my plane ticket potential" are pretty stinkin' common. And I gotta be honest, the pro plane ticket side usually wins these debates.

What terms do you think in and how often do you cave to those terms?

Mother Knows Best

Yesterday Ross and I drove out to Houston for a visit with the parentals. It started with lunch with Grandma at Chili's. (She's doing very well, thank you for asking.)

Then on to Seabrook where Ross took a nap (as much as the puppies would allow him to anyways) and I headed over to Brenda's to drop off a small thank you gift for letting us crash their lake house. It was chocolate from the amazing chocolate place Val took me in Seattle. Here's to hoping they like it!

Then a relaxing evening at home with Mom, Dad, puppies, football and surf-n-turf. Usually we have this little predicament of Lexi jumping at TVs and Mom and Dad having a very nice not-mounted flat panel. There's some concern about Lexi tipping it over. We came prepared with the vicious squirt bottle this time and after a few threatening "Lexi! I'm gonna squirt you!" declarations, all was fine.

The boys went to bed kinda early but per the usual, Mom and I stayed up late into the night gabbing.

Lexi, wore out and sleeping on
floorboards on the drive home

Then a lazy morning, a puppy walk down to Pine Gully Park (which is right on the Gulf, it was so good to see salt water) and a little more college football. And the puppies, they just played, and played and played. They are almost exactly the same size and age and a very good match for each other. There was so much puppy play, Lexi was dead tired on the drive home.

Good weekend all around.

Sometime during all the gabbing, Mom told me about the new Southwest Airlines credit card they signed up for. It came with a 50,000 Southwest Rapid Rewards points, enough for two round trip tickets to just about anywhere! There was an annual fee of $100 but when you figure that the free flights would probably equal $300 each...that means they come out ahead by $500.

Mom is a smart lady and I listen to her. She got me thinkin' and tonight at home I applied for a Southwest credit card. The special that Mom and Dad got with the 50,000 points wasn't going on any more but they did offer 25,000 points, enough for one free ticket. I crunched some numbers and I think this works out well.

A ticket to Boston for Jane's wedding will be 21,000 points. And then a flight from San Diego to San Francisco (which I intend on needing in April) is 7,000 points. I'll get 25,000 points from the credit card and then I have 4,000 points just from my current Southwest account. So I think with the annual $70 credit card fee, $5 per flight security fee...I think I can spend $85 and end up with round trip tickets Austin-Boston and one-way San Diego-San Francisco. Add into that the fact that I far prefer to fly Southwest v. other airlines and it's virtually perfect.

Mother knows best and I think Southwest Airlines is about to prove her right again.

How Much Should We Save, Part 2

While the jury is still out on how much we should save, tonight I got some answers on how we, as Americans, do save. (All this fun information comes from the ABC News video clip below.)

I have to say, as a country, we're not there yet, but we're going in the right direction. 

First, the average American family has nearly $4700 in credit card debit which is down for the second year in a row. Now I guess that isn't all that bad. It's certainly more than Ross and I are comfortable with but we're admitted credit card-phobes.

Next Americans are having the least amount of credit card delinquencies in 17 years. Great job everyone! Round of applause!

OK, on to savings. Back in 2001 we were doing miserably y'all. Only saving* 1% on average. Can you believe it - that means a family making $100k was only saving $1000. Dismal! However, we're up to 5.4% now. We are definitely heading the right way but our average is no where near the suggestions of 10-30% that I stumbled upon last month.

Now somewhere I recently heard that the average American household income is $50,000. First, wow. Does that seem low to anyone else? I mean I realize not every household is 2 parents, 2 kids and a pet but many are and I'm sure many of those fall in that $50k ballpark. I can barely imagine how the 3 of us (Ross, me and Lexi that is) would survive on that, let alone support kids. But my point here is, if you are a family of 3 or 4 and you are making at or below $50k, I sure as hell see how saving 1-5% is an achievement for you. In fact, I'd like to congratulate if you just break even; for saving, you get a gold star.

Finally, here's what I find really uplifting in all this. 62% of Americans say even when better times are upon us, they still plan to be leaner with their personal finances. That's great! With any luck, this little boost of personal financial restraint will keep us all out of a boatload of trouble.

So hats off to you America. We may not be straight A students yet but darn it, one way or another, we're passing that personal finance class.



*The story doesn't define savings. If that includes money "saved" and then spent on things like vacation and Christmas, then that's a bit sadder of a story. If it includes net money saved at the end of the year, well, that's a much rosier picture.

How Much Should We Save?

I called Mom today with this question. And you know what? She didn't have a magic answer. (Though after some conversation she did say she thought 20% of net income would be pretty damn good.)

Shy of not getting a magic answer from Mom, I hit the Internet. I really just wanted to know are we saving at a rate that's good, normal or crap? My gut said not crap since crap savings probably would mean we didn't care enough to be asking if our savings was crap or not. I was guessing normal to good.

I found lots of articles out there on the interwebs. Here's some of the advice they gave.

• Spend 60%, save 30%, play with 10%
• Saving 10% sounds good-ish
• Save at least 10% in your 20s
• Needs 50%, save 20%, play with 30%

So we're looking at a 10-30% range for savings. Some of those include retirement (the 40% specifically does) and some don't.

I have to admit, playing with 30% of our income certainly sounds the most fun. A heck of a lot more fun than only playing with 10%. And where do vacations fall in there? We save every month...but then every few months we blow invest some of it in travel.

Also, what about things where you go above and beyond? That first link talks about "committed" expenses. His example is he committed to his kid's music lessons. You could cut or eliminate them but really you've committed. Our big "committed" expense is my school loans. I have Y due but we try our darnedest to pay Yx2 so one day they'll actually be paid off. (Lofty goal I know.)

Math isn't my strong suit and with all those variables (retirement, long-term savings, short-term savings, interest rates, net income, gross income - AH) this feels more like algebra by the minute. But I think I'm determining that at least 10% of our income should go to long-term and/or retirement savings. I can work with that number.

What's your take on smart savings goals?

I'm Guilty

I've always been told to negotiate my salary. When I worked at the Girl Scouts (and thus read lots of gender related studies and articles) I once read that part of why women make less when compared to their male counterparts is that they are less likely to ask for a higher salary. In fact, there's a whole book out there about that.

Today I stumbled upon a blog post that reminded me of this. One manager quoted in that post says "50-60% of women I interview simply take this offer...90% of the men I interview immediately ask for more."

When I had my first paid internship, I negotiated my hourly rate. I didn't ask for much more than the offer but I made an ask, almost just to practice negotiating.

When Girl Scouts offered me my first job, they asked how much I required for salary. I told them $X. Well apparently X was high...so high it provoked a good-natured laugh. But it didn't end negotiations. I was told "$A-$B" was more their range to which I responded "well, then I'll take $B." I mean duh, who wouldn't take the highest value in the range.

But when I moved to my current gig, I didn't negotiate. I was given a figure that I liked and I took it. Now I don't mean to sound greedy or ungrateful or anything like that (I am after all, pleased with every aspect of my employment), but in retrospect, I'm a little disappointed in myself. I know you should always negotiate. Just on principle and as a best practice, I should have negotiated.

On one count of "women don't ask" the jury finds me guilty as charged.

How about you? Guilty as charged or proudly innocent?

Tax Time

In about half an hour, we're heading over to the Turner home to file our 2010 taxes. Now I can't say we enjoy doing our taxes, but honestly, we don't really dread it either.

As long as we've been together, we've always received money back. So it isn't fun to meticulously go through all these documents, but the refund always seems worth it. I mean what else can you do, at home, with a glass of wine for an hour that will wind up with a deposit into my bank account?

Past years we've gone through every single little thing together. Ross will sit at the computer with TurboTax and I'll have a file folder of all our documents. It's like a baseball line up. Ross: On deck, the 1098. Me: Got the 1098. Who is in the hole?

Our little deduction



And then we brainstorm. Can we claim this deduction? How much mileage did we drive that we can deduct? How much were those clothes we donated to Goodwill worth? Do fancy peep-toe-pumps for a special meeting count as a work uniform and therefore a deduction? Can we claim Lexi as a dependent or at least, as a home security system?

(Note: A volunteer I knew from Girl Scouts works for the IRS. He once got a tax filing turned into him where the guy claimed his dog as a security system and to the penny deducted food, vet bills, everything. IRS guy thought this was so clever and funny, that he let the deduction stand.)

Taxes have traditionally been an exercise in good communication for us so I can't say I dread it. I'm just crossing my fingers that this year's tax filing will go as smoothly as past ones and will continue our refund streak.

$$ Tips From Us, 2

You may recall the original $$ Tips From Us post from last year. I actually got a positive comment on it. And I started thinking about that today when my first conversation of the day was receiving advice from financial planner and one of my last was giving advice to a friend.

So I'm here to do a sequel. Here's three money tips from us.

1. Have a misc line item. First, I suggest line items in your budget. They can be as broad or narrow as you like. And I highly suggest a misc line item. For us, "misc" includes gifts, house things (like hoses or dish towels), puppy dog nail trimming, people hair cuts, Christmas lights, etc. It's a big list in our world so it's kinda a big dollar amount. These are things that don't happen every month, but gosh darn it, you know they are going to happen sometime in the year. Just because they aren't regular doesn't mean you can get away with not accounting for it.
2. Spending money. This was originally a Ross idea that I was not into, but as much as I hate to admit it, he was right. This works swell for us. If we're good friends, I've probably told you about this so I'll be brief. Basically we each get a little money every month for crap. For me "crap" is Starbucks and pedicures. For him "crap" is video games and maybe golfing. Frankly, I don't know a whole lot about what his "crap" is because it comes from his spending money and thus doesn't affect me. And that's the beauty of it. In general we define spending money as something that benefits you alone including happy hour (without the other one), pedicures, golf, Starbucks, alone-vacations and the like. (Note: it does not include gas which I've seen some couples do and I have to admit, I just disagree with. You can't help if your job is 30 miles away and his is 3. Or if you take his car everywhere because it gets better mileage. These things hardly seem fair so I recommended having gas as its own line item.)
3. Invest. I knew this...kinda but this is actually borrowed from Erik, my new bff at UBS. Today he told me that we have to invest more. Apparently cold hard cash, while awesome, ain't gonna cover it for retirement. I'm taking Erik's advice and as soon as I can figure out the paperwork associated with my 401k will be increasing my contribution from 3% to 5% in hopes of ending my days in a South Texas beach condo. Confession: This is the tip I know the least about. Investments and I are still a relatively new friendship but I hope to become besties soon.

If you and your honey are trying to figure out your money, I hope this helps. We're not experts but every once in a while we stumble upon something that works really well and I say, why reinvent the wheel.

Imagine if you won the lottery

With tonight's big lottery drawing, the news has done several stories. And the "what if we won" is a conversation Ross and I have had several times...you know, because since the odds are so in our favor we want to be sure we're prepared.

Here's what we've come up with:

• Pay off all debt; ours, parents', and siblings'. We think this should only take a fraction of a fraction of our winnings...unless someone is seriously hiding something.

  

  From worldwideaspen.com

  
• Relocate to a lakefront mansion. But still stay in the Austin-ish area.
• Hire a housekeeper. Or two. Let's be honest, if we started making about $10k more or lived in a house with even just one more bedroom, this would be really high on my list. Like higher than cable TV. We're really crummy at doing chores and are chomping at the bit to be able to justify having a housekeeper.
• Become Oprah's Bahamas neighbor. Oh yeah, we're totally buying the vaca home next door to Oprah in the Bahamas. Our honeymoon solidified the heck outta this.
• Give money to the parents. If they have multi-millionaires as kids, there's no reason for them to work right? Now siblings we haven't decided about... ;)
• Buy a ranch. Guess who is behind this one? Yeah, totally Ross. To go with his ranch I will be buying an airplane and hiring a personal pilot to help me commute from said ranch back to civilization. I mean really, ranch, airplane and pilot are a package deal.
• Travel everywhere. Duh. But I can't even begin to imagine where we'd start. Egypt? China? South Africa? I mean heck, I still need to see the Grand Canyon! I'm not sure where we'd start but I'm pretty sure we'd see it all.

The one thing we've never actually decided on is if we would quit working. I mean probably. I don't need to send my hubby into burning buildings if we are millionaires. But I think we would both get bored which is why it's never the first thing we shout out. I can see us quitting our current gigs and going into one of those fields you have to be rich to even get into - like owning a football team. (Note: in a totally separate conversation we've discussed how the San Antonio-Austin metro area really needs an NFL team. As in we've come up with names [Los Caballos possibly] and decided the stadium would be in Buda. Perhaps if/when we win the lottery, we'll be the owners of said team.)

Or maybe we'd just live on our millions and be professional volunteers. Also likely. At least, far more likely than actually winning the lottery in the first place.

My new mission

As if having a job, puppy, hubby, wedding and buying a home weren't enough. I needed a new mission. This is my personal social media mission.

Today I read a Boston Globe article about the new "dorm" at BU, Student Village 2. Student Village, or StuV as those in the know say, opened while I was at BU and it is a pretty dang sweet residence. But BU, being the good steward of funds that they are, has gone and upped the annie with StuV2. I now am fully confident that I know where my thousands and thousands of dollars in tuition money went - to a 26 story high rise luxury college residence along the Charles River.

Ooo do you hear a tinge of jealousy in my voice? OK sure, maybe you do. But dang it, every month I make a payment toward my BU education/the fancy dorm and all I want is to stay one night in that super fancy residence hall that I helped pay for. Is that too much to ask?

So my new mission is to lobby the heck outta BU til they cave and say "fine Cheryl! Damn girl! Quit hounding us on Twitter/Facebook /Blogger! You and Ross can stay one stinking night in this dorm!"

If BU will succomb then I will be forever sold on the power of social media and might even become a BU donor one day...so that other students can have swanky residence halls and laugh at the kids like me who stayed in the BU ghetto on Ashford Street. Until the swanky residence hall kids realize that despite paying $13K for 9 months of housing, they still have to swipe an ID card to get into their own residence, can't have overnight guests and sleep on twin size beds. Then who will be laughing huh.

PS Poor Ross probably won't even be laughing then since he doesn't know the horror of the BU guest policy and actually just sees the loan payment bill every month...yeah BU, I'm gonna need that free night to appease my soon-to-be-husband. Thanks much.

I swear we aren't smuggling babies

Yesterday Ross and I meant with a mortgage lender at Bank of America. IT. WAS. FRUSTRATING.

As Ross put it, a colonoscopy would have been less painful.

It started off like a doctor's appointment...waiting. Even though we had an appointment time. Do they do this because they can? There wasn't anyone else there; I didn't feel like all of Ausitn was out to get a loan. Sigh, but finally we were in the lender's office.

I had two folders full of financial paperwork. And apparently I still didn't have what we needed. In fairness, I was told to bring two years of our W-2's and could not find Ross' 2007 W-2's so I knew that one was off. But everything else that I was told to bring, I had. However there were things we needed that I was not told about and that was killer. I could have brought them; I have them. I have statements from my retirement plan, if only I was told I needed them. I can print bank statements, no problem. I must have looked as frustrated as I felt because at one point when the lender walked out of the room, Ross made a point to calm me down. (Did practically throwing my pen on the table when asked for yet ANOTHER document I wasn't told to bring give it away?)

However, when it was all said and done, it wasn't my paperwork issues that are holding us back. Here's the scoop - I have bukus of college loans. My mom is co-signed on the big ones with Sallie Mae and I pay those religiously each month. My federal student loans have only my name but my parents out of the kindness of their hearts pay them. But since my parents have no responsibility to those loans, their payments can't help my debt-income ratio. And since I make all the payments on the loans they do have responsibility for, that also can't help my debt-income ratio. Sad huh? I'm 110% grateful that Mom and Dad pay those federal loans, I just wish the bank would be half as appreciative as I am. And because of my crummy debt-income ratio, I can't be preapproved by myself (which was an idea we were toying with since we didn't know if we could get Ross' 2007 W-2's). So that's issue number one.

Issue number two - Ross has been depositing cash tips into our bank account. We can't have any cash deposits into our bank account that aren't documented someplace. This is to keep baby smugglers from buying homes. But we aren't baby smugglers! So because of the cash deposits, the bank won't take into consideration money in our checking account...which is basically half of what we have. And it even makes our savings account questionable because we transfer money from the "sketch-tastic" checking to our savings. We have to have 60 days of no undocumented cash deposits which also means any cash wedding gifts we can't deposit without a cumbersome gift form being submitted. We have 52 days left of "cleaning" our bank accounts.

As we got to the end of this meeting, we felt pretty darn beaten down. How frustrating to KNOW we can afford a house but for our bank not to believe us. And why weren't these things, like the cash deposits, told to us before? Why isn't that common knowledge? When we set up this appointment, why weren't we provided with more complete information? Perhaps all that would have been too easy?

The good news is Grama actually has Ross' W-2's in the Ross file she's kept all his life. So we'll be able to collect those and get him on the loan too. With his income added to mine, our debt-income ratio is fine and won't hold us back. We also have time to do 52 more days of bank account cleaning and still reach out closing goal. Also the lender said that while we can't count the income from two part-tme jobs (sucks) we can submit paperwork from Sam Bass Fire Dept. to help show how we're a young couple with goals and that Ross' time in school is paying off.

Anyways, I think its all going to be OK, but folks, I'll let you know, if you are looking to buy a house, get ready for these loan meetings. Maybe you should ask if a root canal would be an acceptable trade off...