.... and things continue to progress. I still have several small balls of stress throughout my body (currently; stomach, back, and neck) that are mostly attributed to money (or lack of).

We have a closing date. May 30th. The hope is that we can start moving before that, but if not, that will still give us two days. MW and I finally screwed our courage to the sticking point and went next door to speak with Nancy, our manager. I don't know why, but she has always intimidated us a little bit, and we were very worried that we would have to be out on our original date of April 30th. As it turns out, staying an extra month isn't a problem at all, so that's one less thing to stress about. It is probably for the best because it will give us that extra month to save, save, save.

...Which leads me into our financial situation. I mean, dudes. We literally did all this in like.. two weeks. We're totally flying by the seat of our pants. I think regular people actually plan ahead, build a little nest egg and then start the slow process of home buying. But no. Not us. We were like "hey? What's on TV tonight?" "Nothing?" "Okay, wanna bye a house?". Seriously. That's pretty much how it happened.

People say that buying a home is so much better than renting. And one or two years from now, I might believe it. But right now, we need to come up with minimum $4000 for all the closing costs, not including the deposit of $3000 we need to make on the house. By May 30th.

Breathe.

So, if we manage to overcome that hurdle, we will now face our monthly payments. We haven't finalized the terms of the mortgage yet, but it will be comparable to what we've been paying in rent. But wait, there's more! Mortgage insurance, maintenance fees, etc, etc, etc. At the end of the day, we're looking at at least $200 dollars more than what we are paying in renting. And we haven't even heated the place yet.

Breathe.

Based on our incomes, we should manage it, but we are both essentially grounded from any spending for the next year or so. There will be a lot of sacrifices we'll both need to make for this to work. That'll be hard when our patio faces the liquor store.

So.... We're are actually very, very close to BUYING A HOUSE.

And I am FREAKING OUT.

(do you remember that guy? He was hilarious).


Things are moving very fast, and I feel sometimes like vomiting all over the place. But, you know. It's good. I feel good about things. Except for the money. That we will owe. For decades.

Actually, it's not really about that. Debt is debt. I accept that. It's all the upcoming costs that scares me. I'm so afraid we'll get to a point we are going to be completely broke for a few months. But, I trust MW. Speaking of him. Holy shit. This kinda is a commitment, isn't it? I've talked abstractly about our apathy towards marriage, etc, but there's this really weird, wonderful feeling one gets when signing your life over to a bank for the next 20 years - together.

We are still trying to keep options open as much as we can within our limited time frame. We may see a few other places, but we are pretty sold on the place we saw on Saturday. It's a townhouse, and is still being built. We walked through with my father, which gives me a lot of confidence - if it meets his approval, we're good to go.

But, c'mon. Holy Shit.

For You-Know-Who, so she doesn't get fired.

I do actually have some interesting news, though I'm afraid if I actually talk about it, it will all fall apart. Here goes nothing.

MW and I are awaiting the verdict on our Mortgage Application. We went to go see a financial planner, who looked at our financial information, said "You have $50,000 in debts, and no assets". And then I threw up all over his executive office.

Well, half that is true. I'll let you guess which half.

(but seriously, though, I totally made the "gglaaaggbbfffghkkkk" noise when he said that.. he didn't really think it was funny)

So, he gave us two pieces of advice to get more "positive debt" and less "negative debt". Essentially, positive debt is debt that can build your wealth/assets, and negative debt is unnecessary debt. Between us, about $35,000 of that $50,000 is student loan debt. There is really not much we can do about that, but we can tackle the other debt we have (credit cards, lines of credit, etc.).

As a public service (unless you already know), here are the two piece of advice:

• Get an RRSP Loan. I always knew it was a good idea to invest in RRSP as soon as possible, but I didn't know that you could loans specifically for that purpose. There are two good things about this strategy. The first is that, dude, you're totally investing in our retirement, and that's always good. The second is the tax benefits. So, let's say you take a $10,000 loan. You put it into RRSPs and then BAM, your tax return comes back with $3000-$4000. So, BOOM, you can take out one of those credit cards, removing that payment. Now, you still have to pay back that loan. We were quoted (for a 24 month term) around $500/month (back to that later). So, instead of making payments to VISA, you're making monthly payments to yourself.
  

• Get a frickin' mortgage already. In the past 2 years we've lived in our apparently, we've basically pissed away $20,000. I think everyone knows the logic in this. But, ya.

So, after some number crunching, etc, we decided to, right now, get the mortgage training rolling. I love the idea of an RRSP loan, but we are expecting, since we intend to buy a condo rather than a house, to spend a little more in mortage payments/condo fees than we are now in rent. If we coupled that with a larger RRSP loan payment, we'd be eating Mr. Noodle and cat food. In the long run, it is better to do both, but we decided to just do one at a time so we don't overwhelm ourselves.

My parents are coming up this evening to talk with us about how to actually go about this whole home buying business. I'm just impatient to get a real estate agent and get things moving. Our lease is due in May, so we really only have until the end of March to work something out. My gut tells me this ain't going to happen, but how hard do you think it would be to get out of our lease? It's a very popular building, so I don't imagine it would be all that hard? Anyone?

What is the big fucking deal?!

Have you ever clicked on the "next blog" button up yonder there? It seems the Christian Conservatives have taken to blogging like Romans to crucifixions. They are everywhere. Jo-Bob talking about doing God's work by making lots of babies, or Ms. High-Waisted-Slacks talking about her mission work in Kenya. And those blogs that aren't written by (as Dan Savage would say) "Jesus-Freakies", are typically porn.

Anyway, other news. Well, where to start. This weekend was probably the worst weekend ever. It started badly on Friday afternoon, and continued to get worse. I don't think I'll quite get into the details just yet (one event deals with issues of confidentiality as it relates to my volunteer gig, the other has to do with current legal issues my family is going through). This weekend would rival the worst weekend in November, and that was pretty bad. But, no one is dead, and I still have MW, all my friends, and my family. And that's good enough.

And so, in these times of need, I like to refer to my dear, headless piece of poultry. Mike, the Headless Chicken:

Our TV, so graciously donated to us several years ago by this lady finally gave up the ghost (whatever that means). For the last year or so, the first few inches of the screen rolled over on itself. Actually, if you just read this, it explains it all quite well. If you do read it, you'll note that the repair is inexpensive. But, in the ultimate act of laziness, I never quite got around to fixing it. So, we watched over a year of TV with the first inch of two of the picture doubled over on itself. We got by. Until about a week ago, when Mr. Wonderful turned on the set to hear a pop, fizzle, zzztt, and then: Nothing.

So, for the past few days, we've been watching our TV on this beauty. Seven Inches, people. That's a size of a PENIS, not a TELEVISION. But. We get by. My eyes tire after an hour, which isn't a bad thing. My Itunes library has gotten a lot of attention lately, so I suppose I've been productive in the end.

Now, MW conned me into forsaking Christmas gifts for each other this year, with the promise of getting ourselves a new TV and some other household furniture. Although I held up my end of the agreement, our TV is still yet to be bought. Hopefully, by tomorrow, we will have our new TV and TV stand.

In other news, MW and I have decided to move again. Our rent will be going up another $40 in May, and since we feel we are already paying quite a bit, we decided to find something cheaper. A few months ago, I suggested we 'explore our options' in terms of housing, but it appears it has snowballed into 'we are absolutely, positively moving in May'. On the upside, we will hopefully be saving money in the long run. But on the downside... day-uhm... I hate packing. And moving. And we have been spoiled with the high life now. Two bathrooms, air conditioning, washer and dryer in the unit, dishwasher, patio, and gym. And now it's all about the timing. Where we move is completely dependent on what is available for May 1st. I can't help looking at the current listings and feeling anxious. I will find a seemingly perfect place, but then know that chances are it will not be available for when we need it. And let's just go back to the packing for a minute. We have a LOT OF SHIT. I have no interest in schlepping it around again. It only now seems that we've gotten comfortable here. And my god. What if we have to share a bathroom? That makes me sad, especially since 1) MW spends a good 80% of his day in the bathroom, stinking it up beyond comprehension and 2) His bathtub looks like it's been used for the past 2 years as a mud room. I don't know how I feel about relaxing after a long day with my Lush products in a tub like that. Blech.

But, as much as I protest "Ooooor, we could just stay here.. ", I don't think I'll win. I think next time, I'll just keep my mouth shut.