With the current home values dropping record lows, it’s an obvious fact that you should stay in your current home unless it’s absolutely necessary to move. While I may not be 100% content with this, I’m going to follow my own advice and stay put for at least a couple more years. I have decided that since we’re staying, I’m going to do some more home improvements to make us happier with our current home and increase the value as much as I can. Here’s our list of things we’d like to do in the next 1-2 years: Finish installing the hardwood floors in our hallway, master bedroom, and living room. Redo the kitchen flooring. Right now it is vinyl flooring and we haven’t decided if we’re going to do tile or hardwood. Paint the office and hallway (easy). Redo master bathroom. We’d like to rip out the shower, install a new one, along with a new vanity and light fixture. I’m going to tile the bathroom floor myself to save money. Install new carpet into our extra bedroom and [...]

A few days ago I opened a new checking account for a very nice lady that came in asking about our free checking accounts. As I was talking with her about her lending needs, she asked me about “the loans that let you make flexible payments”, AKA home equity lines of credit. I was telling her about how they work; the minimum payment is interest only, so if you only pay the minimum payment you won’t get anywhere, but if you pay the amount you pay now on your mortgage, everything above the minimum payment goes towards principal. She thought it was a great idea, she’d be paying less than she pays for her mortgage payment each month, and it would free up some money for her and she’d be not as strapped for cash each month. I put an application in for her. Declined. I was a little taken aback, until I looked at her credit report. Her credit score? 494. That is the lowest credit score I’ve ever seen! I took a look and realized why it was [...]

It’s another post related to the price of gas. Today I debated on whether or not I would drive to the gas station that had gas for $3.99 a gallon. While this is still outrageous, it’s the lowest that I have found recently. The only problem? It’s a 12 mile round trip to get the gas from my work. I have been him-hawing around on whether it was worth it to go out and get it when, lo and behold, a light bulb went off! and I decided to calculate it. I am a numbers kind of girl, anyway. I estimated my gas mileage to be around 23 miles to the gallon, which seems pretty good for my 1994 Oldsmobile Achieva. I found out that it supposedly gets around 18 mpg city, 26 hwy, and 21 combined. I wasn’t that far off. Here are my calculations: At 21 miles per gallon, it costs me roughly half a gallon of gas to drive the 12 miles there and back to get the gas, so $2. My fuel tank capacity is 15.2 [...]