Dance Dance Dance!

I'm sitting here watching the Obamas dance for about the millionth time. They somehow make it look endearing each time, but I'm sure they are completely exhausted and that Michelle's feet are KILLING her. I don't remember all this dancing at previous inaugural balls. They have to go to ten of them, make a little speech (a different speech at each one!) and then dance a little dance, then pack up and go to the next one. Who on earth thought of that tradition?

Also, I wanted to comment on how heartwarming it was when the Bushes left Washington and the Obamas escorted them to the plane. Despite their many differences, they seemed genuinely respectful of each other. I'm so glad that I live in a country where there is a peaceful transfer of power. No matter what your political views are, you have to be proud to be an American tonight.

I bet the Obamas and the Bushes will both sleep well tonight.

Side Note: "Obama" is not in the Blogger spellcheck program. I bet that will change in future versions.

Craigslist!

I sit here waiting for a guy to show up to buy our old couch. He's 15 or so minutes late. Yesterday, a lady was supposed to be here at 4 to buy a table. She never showed and left me a voicemail saying that someone broke into a house in her neighborhood aournd 7pm. Um... okay. She says that she still wants to buy the table, but this is the 3rd time that her coming to get it has fallen through. I'm not sure if I even want to fool with scheduling a fourth pickup. Someone else wrote me about the table last night and I responded this morning, but haven't heard back from her yet. Craigslist is such a waiting game... for buying and selling!

Update! The guy paid for the couch and he's going to come back later this week and pick it up! Yay!

Refinance?

I've been crunching the number on refinancing the house.  We're right at the spot where it's almost worth it.  We have 24 years left on our 30 year fixed, and with current interest rates, we could refi for 20 years and only add about 20 bucks to our monthly payment, taking 4 years off our loan, but we'd have to pay loan fees etc, that would pretty much make us break even, meaning that it we paid what we'd pay in refi fees on our existing mortgage and then added $20 to our monthy, we'd pay the house off in 20 years, so there's really no point in refinancing.  The other option is to refi for 25 years, adding a year to our loan, but reducing our monthly payment for a little over $100, but we'd rather have it paid off a year earlier than pay less a month, I think.  Ideally, we'd like to refi for like 22 or 23 years, keeping our payment the same, but taking off a couple of years thanks to a lower interest rate, but you can't get loans in those time frames.  Maybe interest rates will continue to go down and I can relook at it in the next couple of weeks.  I'm checking bankrate.com every day.

Bankrate.com is a great site for figuring out financial situations.  They have a variety of calculators for playing around for money nerds.  You can figure out how extra payments will affect your loan, figure out what your monthly payments should be on credit cards to pay them off in a particular amount of time and lots lots more.  I used the credit card payoff calculator when we were paying off our cards several years ago and it was dead on.  We were out of debt just when the calculator said we would be, and thank goodness we paid off our debt, because if we hadn't, we would not be able to survive in our current one income situation.  

I'm totally ready to go back to work.  Not only for financial reasons, but also because I need to feel like a productive member of society.  There are many things that I enjoy about staying at home, but I would also enjoy shopping and remodeling my kitchen, which we've put off until I find a job.  We worked really hard to get completely out of debt so that we could have more financial freedom and now my lack of income is preventing us for reaping the fruits of our efforts.  

Junk Update

The lady showed up and took away my 32 cans of partially used paint.  She was happy to have it and I was happy to get rid of it.  Just the way recycling should work.

I was also able to find a place to take the computers.  I ended up talked to PC Trade Recycling, which is just a few miles from here.  I'm going to take them the computers tomorrow.  They will pick them up for a fee, but there's no charge if you drop them off!   

I'm so glad to be getting rid of this stuff that's been taking up space in my basement since forever.  I'm also getting up quite the yard sale pile and I can't wait until spring so I can have a major blowout.  Plus, last week's closet cleaning netted two bags of clothes for the next time the American Kidney Fund comes.  Actually making progress on this stuff has really gotten me inspired to try to get everything in order before I go back to work.

And speaking of, I hadn't heard anything from the school system where I applied to be a substitute, so I checked my status on their website today and it seems that they haven't received one of my reference forms, so I called the reference and it turns out that it had slipped her mind, so because I have to fill it out and sign my portion before she does her portion, I'm meeting with her next Friday so that she can fill it out for me.  After that, I should be good to go for substituting, which would be awesome because I could really use some money.

I also need to look into what to do with my retirement savings.  I don't have much, but what I do have is just sitting around losing money right now in a 403(B), so I need to find an investment advisor and find out how to roll that into a Roth that I can keep contributing to even after I get a new job with a new retirement plan.  It's strange how not having any extra money makes it so much clearer about what you should be doing with it when you have it.  Plus, I've heard that the stock market is having a huge sale right now!

Also, now that we know for sure that we can live off of Paul's income, that means that whatever my income is in the future should go right into savings without ever hitting the bank account.  

Now, I just need to get a job and then I'll be all set...

Paint-O-Rama

Good Gooley Moogley! I posted the paint in the free section on craigslist and had no less than 15 calls in the first 5 minutes. My phone was ringing off the hook! It was so much that I could barely manage it all. I had to take the ad down within 10 minutes of putting it up. I ended up telling some lady that was nice that I would hold it for her until 7, but after that, I'm calling other people back.

So, if you're trying to get rid of paint, post it on the free section of craigslist. Like hot cakes!

Junk Recycling

I've been working on cleaning out our basement, which is quite a task and I've found myself at a loss on a lot of items. The first is paint. Googling has returned nothing in terms of paint recycling in Atlanta, outside of Rockdale County. All I've found is other people looking for a solution.

The second is old computers. Technically and legally, these can go by the curb for garbage pick up, but that doesn't seem environmentally responsible. We have a ton of old computer and computer parts due to my husband's career, and I have no idea what to do with them

This site: www.earth911.com has a nifty search feature where you can type in what you want to recycle and your location and it gives you a list of recycling centers, but it hasn't been able to provide a solution for my situation.

Bromance

I accidentally watched Bromance last night. I like that Brody Jenner, but only kind of. First, I hated him on Princes of Malibu, then I liked him as Lauren's possible love interest on The Hills, but I never felt right about him exactly because how could he possibly be friends with that asshat, Spencet Pratt? Then, I saw Brody on Keeping up with the Kardishians and he was a jerk, so I didn't like him for a while, but last night, I kind of liked him again. The trouble with him is that somehow he has weaseled his way onto 4 reality shows. What kind of egomaniac does that? I mean, how interesting does he think he is?