We got an offer!

It is from the family. I'm excited, but I don't want to get too excited, since they have a bad credit history and anything could come up.

I use to work at a bank in the payoff department and I saw many loans that fell through on the day of closing, so I think this will keep everything in prospective.

Until the check is in our hands, I won't start jumping for joy.

But.... Yeah!!!!

Tata for now.

Oh bother....

We were all excited about finally getting an offer. The meeting was for 3 pm, but at 7pm I called our realtor, since he hadn't called.

He said that at 3:30 he called the guys shop, and was told he was on a job call and didn't know when he would be back. Neil (realtor) tried calling his cell numerous times, but got a message saying caller was out of range. Neil had not heard from them at all when I called.

I do realize things come up, but unless it was a death (or something else bad), I would think someone "so" interested in the house would at least give a call to let everyone know what's up.

I'm sick of this. I want my house back in order. Or I want to move and put that dwelling in order. We are losing time and money by being in limbo. And that does not fit into our plan.

I am annoyed, so I will say Good Day! And concentrate on making my day a better one.

We had our first meeting with the town planning board. They voted against our proposal. Yes we are very upset.... For everything that they thought would be a problem, we had a counter that would very well relieve the problem.

So our next step is to go to the town meeting next Thursday. The worst part is Spyros having to take off from one of his jobs on the days of the meetings, so he can get enough sleep, but we are loosing out on money that we need for closing and/or deposit on an apartment.

But some good news... The family who applied for the FHA loan was approved and are meeting with our realtor around 3 pm today to make an offer. So hopefully it's a good one, and we won't even have to worry about the rezoning. Although we would keep at it anyway, since it would benefit the family. And if the offer fell through we would still have it rezoned.

I finally finished typing up all the recipes. Now I just have to put them in the binder and organize them. This will probably be my project for today.

We also need to put an ad in the paper to sell the kiln and for a couch, desk, and 2 minivan seats to be given away. We also have a neon Tattoo (the alcohol, that I think they no longer make) and a PS2 game that we're going to take to a Pre-played place to sell.
And we have the Atari 5200 with 7 games that we will be putting up on eBay this week. So hopefully this will make some money to offset the time Spyros needs to take off.

I'm just really excited about an offer coming in. We really want to sell the house, move into an apartment and take care of our debt. What a nice free feeling that will be.

We had a pleasant time yesterday. Didn't end up going to the tattoo convention, but we spent the afternoon with TJ, running some errands that she wanted to do.

We ran into a past co-worker of mine at Border's, and chatted for a few minutes. That was a pleasant surprise.

We also bought Ratchet and Clank for PS2. I've been watching eBay, but after shipping charges they were all going for the same price, or more than a new copy. We also looked at various pre-played stores, but none of them had it in stock.

Then we had dinner at our place with TJ and Erik (a guy DH works with). We dinked around with some of the games and the boys played on the computer. A very enjoyable low-key evening.

Frugal Thought for the day: Make sure to comparison shop. There are very few (if any) items that you need right this second.

I know, I know... it's been awhile.

If you've been checking out my other blog, you need not do that for now. I'm not going to be working on it, but when I do I'll let ya know.

DH had Sunday night off from Kwik Trip since he worked Friday night, so we had a longer Monday than normal.

While our house was being shown on Monday, we were out and about running errands.

Took another load of garbage to the dump. It costed an extra $9 this time since it was heavier than the last two trips. It said that we had .69 tons of garbage. Don't know how much that is in pounds, but I'm sure it's a lot!

We also spent about $100 at Target. (Ugh...) We had to get printer ink, cat food and litter, so that was about half the cost. Plus some other things we needed like toilet paper, etc....

We went to JoAnn Fabrics too, and I finally spent my $25 gift card that was a Christmas present last year. We got four candles. Two are lemon (DH current favorite smell) and two candy corn that smell like some delicious dessert baking in the oven.

Talking about yummy smells from the oven, I'm baking chocolate chip cookies today. I made a double batch because I know DH will eat a lot of them and I want to still have some left for the weekend when Job and his girlfriend come down and stay at our house, so they can attend the tattoo convention down here. (We met Job through Kevin and Amber, and we've since came to enjoy his company.)

We still haven't decided if we're going to the tattoo convention yet or not. I think Spyros wants to, so we probably will. But I'm not one to go up to people to look at their tattoos, so I think it may get boring. Unless there is lots of people from Wisconsin Rapids coming down that we can talk with. So we'll see.....

We (Mainly DH) fixed a bad repair spot in a wall in one of the upstairs bedrooms and also put up new drywall on a section of the wall that had had peg board glued to it. We need to put one more coat of mud on one seam and sand it down. Then we get to paint.

Neil (Realtor) called yesterday. Jim (guy who wants to turn it into a duplex) is still working on his refinancing, but is getting closer. Family with four kids is trying to get an FHA loan so they only have to put 3% down (Application process can take up to two weeks). Another investor never called back, so is most likely not interested. And another investor is interested, but doesn't want to look at it until after the rezoning goes through.

Ugh.... Buy our house people.

Part of me almost doesn't want to sell it though, since we're finally getting the garages clean and the house painted, etc...

But I know it will be a lot easier financially if we do. And I would like to see my husband more and not have him working as hard or as much.

I've been typing up recipes found in various magazines that I've collected through the years to put into a binder. That's why I've been neglecting the blog! We're trying to eat healthier, so I want to have a variety of recipes so we don't get bored.

I won the Yoga DVD, so I'm excited about that. It should be here next week, so I'll only need to renew the one from the library one more time. I was going to bid on a Richard Simmons exercise tape, but I'm not going to since you can find them cheaper at garage sales. I'll have to wait until next May, when the sales start up again, but I'll just borrow other ones from the library and keep doing the Yoga.

Spyros started doing Yoga two days ago, and is enjoying it. I got up this morning earlier than normal so we could do it together. Then we ate breakfast and read afterwards. I think that will be an enjoyable morning ritual to keep doing.

Frugal Thought for the day: Bake and cook from scratch. There are so many cookbooks out there (stop by your library first, and when you find one your really like look around for the best deal, or save recipes from magazines and make a binder.), that finding recipes is not a problem. Or just hop on the internet.
This will save you lots of money, instead of buying cookies, cakes, etc... already made at the store.
Many things really do not take long to make. And with oven timers making sure nothing gets over-cooked is not a problem. A lot of things freeze well (including cookies) so make a double or triple batch and freeze the extras.

We're going to start working on the house again. We did a flurry of activity for about a month, trying to get the house more presentable, but since we've started the process of selling, we've just maintained the cleanliness.

But we figured what harm will it do? And we'll be that much closer to renting it out if after the rezoning permits go through and our contract with Neil runs out, the house still doesn't have a buyer.

We're going to repaint one of the upstairs bedrooms today, since we already bought the paint for it.

The linoleum we'll lay ourselves. Those areas will be the kitchen/dining room, hallway leading from dining room, all 3 bathrooms, and back hallway.

We have new carpet in one room upstairs so that would stay. We would just have it professionally cleaned, along with the stairs.

That means the living room, our bedroom and two bedrooms upstairs would need carpeting. If we stay here and live in the back part, we could wait before doing flooring back there. Otherwise we would need to carpet one room and either linoleum or carpeting for the other.

Spyros thinks we should have the carpet professionally laid, but I think we would do a good job. So I don't know.... Plus my father has laid tons of carpet so he could either give us pointers or come down and help. The only room that I think may be a good idea to get it done is the living room, but we may be pros after doing the other rooms.

We would do the one valley of the roof that needs replacing ourselves in the spring. Spyros would have vacation time from Kwik Trip again, so it would only cost materials. We would keep an eye on the sales and buy when the supplies were a good price.

We filled up the 1 1/2 ton van yesterday with more junk from the garages. (Keep in mind, most of this junk was still from when DH family lived here.) This will be our third such trip, but after this one all that is left is wooden boxes from the DJ business (which we'll put by the side of the road if FIL doesn't want or break down and put in the garbage.) and boxes of FIL's stuff. (This too can be put in the garbage after he goes through it.)

We may have to take one more trip if whoever buys the house doesn't want the various shelving units in the garages. But I doubt people would want them gone, since they're nice storage units already in place.

We emailed Rawhide about donating our van, but they haven't got back to us yet. We're still waiting on the guy that comes into the Post Office to bring the information. So if neither one of these places want the van, we'll have to pay a little to a junk yard to take it. Or possible put an ad in the paper selling it ($50 or so) for parts.

On other news....

We finally got a Playstation 2. I've never been a big video game player, but DH enjoys it. But there's some mystery type games out there that I think I would really enjoy.
We paid $160 for the unit, 3 games, 1 controller and a hard plastic case. (The guy we bought it from had worked at Blockbuster and they were throwing away cases for the regular Playstations, so he asked if he could take one.)
We're going to sell two of the games, so the price will go down even more.

I'm going to start up on eBay again. I haven't been wanting to because my email is acting up, and the last time I did auctions it was a pain having to remail people because they weren't getting messages.

I want to put up the Atari with 7 games, my dollhouse from 1980, and the two PS2 games, along with some other stuff. I think the Atari and dollhouse will go for a good chunk, so that will be helpful for fixing up the house.

Frugal thought: If you haven't sold or bought on eBay, what are you waiting for? It's easy to set up, and a great way to get rid of unwanted items. Or buy items you need at a wonderful price.

The joys of trying to type with a cat in your lap. Everytime my sweater brushes her back it crinkles up. Not long before she gets annoyed and goes to look out the window.

Horror and Action movies are my favorite kind, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre comes out today, so....
Spyros has never seen it! I think it will be fun to see it in the theatre with the loud sound and the scared tension in the air.

Spyros donated $40 to the public radio, so he gets to go into their gift closet and pick out a CD or something. He's excited about getting a gift. We've been wanting to donate more, so this worked out well since we enjoy listening to the station.

I donated to Habitat for Humanity the other day. I'm looking forward to when we have less debt so we have more money and time to donate.

I could donate my time right now, and I have been thinking about spending some time at either the elementary or middle schools, but I want to spend the time volunteering along with DH too.

I read in a magazine that Affleck and Lopez spent $16 million on their mansion and with that money they could have built 20.000 (yes that's the right amount of zeros) low-income houses for Habitat for Humanity.

I think everyone deserves some enjoyment from the money that they work hard to make, be it actor, senator or your average Joe, but it really does bother me when it's in excess. Who really needs a mansion? Think of all the resources you're wasting to keep it running (electricity, gas, etc...), space that it takes up, and what could be done with all that excess money.

It really does sadden me. I wish more people that had time and money to give would. I truly believe whatever you give comes back threefold. Although you may not receive more money for the money you give, you'll get friendships or other tokens of wealth.

So Frugal/Simple thought for the day: And I've said this one before. Volunteer and donate all you can comfortably do so.

We moved the computer into the living room and put it in front of the window that faces the front yard. Because of this, I can see people slowing down as they drive by.

I imagine some people haven't stopped because they saw me sitting by the window. So unfortunately in the later afternoon I'm going to close the blinds so people won't be afraid to stop.

I made spaghetti squash for the first time today. Spyros liked it and I thought it was okay, but needs more flavor. Next time I make it I may add red sauce or more garlic. This time I added Parmesan cheese and some garlic powder.

Frugal thought for the day: Don't spend any money. While this is a no brainer, I like to challenge myself to see how many days we can go before we spend any money.

Spyros borrowed a Yoga DVD from the library and I used it today. Very enjoyable. So enjoyable that I bid on a copy on eBay. I've been wanting to try Yoga for awhile, and this program fit me perfect.

I also started a new blog today. It will be about my healthy lifestyle changes: exercise, healthy eating, etc... I was going to ad it to the end of this blog, but decided to start a different one instead. If you're interested go to Healthy Lifestyle Blog

Some bad news regarding the couple with four kids. Their credit is really bad since both of them are currently going through a divorce. They are doing a credit program, but it will take 5-6 months. They really want the house and are going to try other avenues, but we're not getting our hopes up.

Ugh....

Frugal Thought for today: Check out eBay before you buy anything. The prices can be amazing, and as long as you check the seller's feedback and it's good, chances are the transaction will go smoothly.

As much as I complain about rainy days on laundry day, I really do love rainy days.

Rainy days and Autumn are my favorite combination, so today is the perfect day.

Didn't hear back from our realtor yesterday, so hopefully today we'll have news on an offer.

I'm going to keep it short today, so I can just look out the window and enjoy.

Hope you have a simple, peaceful day.

DH didn't have to work at the Post Office today since it was Columbus Day. So that was a nice treat.

We had a showing today at 10 for the people who have four kids between them. The woman had come here before and this time she brought the fiance. They really liked it and are meeting with financial people today, so if they can get the financing perhaps we will have an offer soon.

The good thing about their offer is that it would most likely not be based on the rezoning going through. Perhaps things will begin to move along quickly!

We went into town during the showing to drop off more at Goodwill. I think this may actually be the last load, until after we unpack. Then I'm sure there will be more because we both want to downsize more.

We saw Kill Bill. It was amusing. Whenever people were sliced and diced (which was often), the blood would spurt out in torrents, just like the classic B horror flicks. Definately not something I would let a kid watch, but....

I made a pork steak with apples in the slow cooker while we were gone, and when we walked in the house we were greeted with a wonderful smell. Such a comforting autumn smell.

Simple/Frugal Thought: While many kitchen gizmos can just take up space, a slow cooker may be a very good investment. Just put the ingredients in the pot in the morning and let it cook all day. How easy is that. **According to the owner's manuel you should not leave any appliance unattended.**

After we sell the house and save some money, the thought of living in an RV and traveling around the U.S. is very appealing to me right now.

Just thing of how much we would have to downsize!

The biggest deterent for me though, would be all the gas we would end up using.

Has anyone out there done this? Or is still doing this?

We went out to Durward's Glen yesterday for DH to take some photos of the fall foilage. It was a nice hike, and I found some pretty leaves and mushrooms for him to photograph.

But the hike once again, reminded me how out of shape I am. So after I get over this nasty head cold I am going to begin some sort of exercise regiment. We've already been eating better, but of course there is always room for improvement.

I think I will add it to the end of my blogs as an on going journal for myself. That way if people don't want to read about it, they can just skip the ending part.

I think I may join a online community of dieters/exercisers for a sort of support system. See if that makes it any easier. I've been reading some Weight Watchers magazines (wonderful recipes and inspirational articles) and it's amazing how some of these people lose 70 or more pounds in less than a year.

My interest in weight loss is more for when we do start going on more photography hikes, and such, so I can endure them. And so my health stays good to keep down those medical bills. But of course I won't say no to the added benefit of being able to find more stylish clothing at cheaper prices!

Simple Living thought: If you, or anyone you know has every tried the RV thing I would love to hear about it, and any advice that may be had!

I just finished reading You Can Afford to Stay Home with Your Kids by Malia McCawley Wyckoff and Mary Snyder.

For anyone who is just beginning to think about going from a two income family to a one income family this book can be helpful and inspirational.

The chapters are not really long, there are personal anecdotes along the way, and they briefly cover the more relevant issues that you would need to consider.

There is a Continuing Education section with resources so you can go futher in depth with certain areas, such as; Cooking, Home Care and Money.

I am constantly amazed at all the books out there that are about frugal living, and how similar they are, but yet they continue to sell and more are always coming out.

I wonder who buys all these copies to keep the editors publishing the books. Any one who is truly into frugal living after buying a book or two, will most likely continue their search on the internet or with their public library, since it's the more frugal thing to do.

I continually think about writing a general frugal book, but I feel as though it's been done so many times that there really is not more to say.

But maybe with a shiny cover and a spiffy title another frugal book could be worthy.

Hmmmm......

We have another showing today at 11:30 (someone different). The realtor called and said the people who looked at it on Friday are interested, but they want to talk it over more. Their realtor will be calling them today to see what's up.

Neal (our realtor) is meeting with Jim today and we will hopefully see an offer from him today.

It would be so wonderful if it wasn't contingent on the rezoning of our house. One can hope.....

DH talked with a guy that comes into the Post Office about giving our minivan to (ugh... can't think of organization). Where you donate vehicles to be used to teach how to be fixed and then the people use them. So hopefully when the person brings the information we will be able to donate the van.

One less vehicle around here. And we will be trading our big 1 1/2 ton van to FIL for a minivan, so that is wonderful. We'll do that after the house is sold and we're done using the big van for moving and hauling garbage to the dump.

I want to fill the van up with garbage and take it to the dump this week. And we have three boxes and two bags of clothes that need to go to Goodwill along with a box of glassware and knick knacks. More stuff out of the house, woohoo.

We cleaned out our clothes closet more yesterday, and that's where the two bags of clothes came from. The top shelve is now 80% empty and the clothes hanging on the bars are much looser now, so you can actually see what is in there a lot easier.

Plus this past Friday we brought over a director's chair and a king sized feather blanket to MIL, so more stuff gone. She may be taking one of our wooden desks also. Depending on if there is room in their storage area and as long as we don't move into a house right away (if the offer is huge).

Frugal thought for the day: Give when and what you can, because you never know when the favor will be returned.

It came to me last night, like most good thoughts do, the idea for a book.

As of present, I have about five different books started, but this idea has a great potential to actually get finished.

I don't want to mention what it is yet. First, because I don't want to get jinxed and second because I do believe there are muses out there and if you don't us the idea they pass it on to others.

Case in point: For the longest time I wanted to write a movie and have Van Morrison music be the entire soundtrack. Well one day I walk into the video store and see a movie called Moondance. I think cool, that's a VM song title, so I read the description. The soundtrack is all by VM. Needless to say I have never watched the movie and my muse gave up on me and passed on the idea.

This morning DH brought the desk into the living room, so now I just have to bring the computer and stuff from the upstairs desk downstairs.

The house was showed again last night, to someone different. Hopefully Neil (realtor) will be calling today to let us know about any offers, and perhaps how the showing went last night.

Frugal thought for the day: Keep a calendar and make sure to write down whenever something needs to be cancelled by, so you don't end up having to pay for it.

We had our big van insured because FIL was using it to haul stuff to his new house. It had been well over a month before I realized the van was still on the insurance, but not being used.

So if you sign up for those free three months of cable or free magazine don't forget to cancel it at the right time. It's a lot easier than trying to find the money to pay for it when you get the bill.

We had a very nice weekend. Lots of yummy food, a fire outside on Joe's patio that he made, and lots of playing with their dog, Willow.

We told Mom and Joe about our decision, and Mom was very sad, but who knows....maybe the house will sell for a lot more and then we will be able to move up right away.

They are letting us borrow a TV. There are three shows we like to watch and now we'll be able to see all three.

Simple/Frugal thought for the day: Try cutting down on your TV time. There is so much more you can be doing. But if you have some show you must watch (and I do understand!) then try taping them so you can fast-forward through the commercials.

This will help save you time and hopefully cut down on your spending because you won't see things you never knew you needed.

Or if you can't tape them, get up during the commercials and do some light exercising or cleaning. Wipe down the outside of the fridge, dust, take all that stuff piled up on your stairs and at least put it in the room it belongs in.

Mom and Joe's today. Yeaaaa!

Another reason I'm excited, besides the food, is they tape Charmed and Angel for us. Ah... Life's simple addictions.

Well I'm off to back for our weekend (be back Tuesday). I may find time this weekend to visit a computer, but one never knows.....

Blog, blog, blog, blog. It's funny when I look at the entry and see I missed a day of posting I feel guilty. Only for a second, but still....

We have another showing today. Perhaps this person will want to buy the house as a single family unit, and we won't have to go through all the rezoning. One can hope....

Our upstairs (4 rooms) is all closed off except for the office. I keep telling DH I want to move it down into the living room, but it hasn't happened as of yet. Definatley next week after we get back from Mom and Joes's

I also brought the cat litter up from downstairs and put it in the laudry room, so the basement is now closed off, along with the bathroom and one other room in the back hallway. So hopefully this will cut down on our heating bill. (By closed off, I mean vents closed, windows locked and doors closed.)

I think I'm going to roll up towels and put them in front of the doors. It will just be a minor pain to have to pick them up before a showing, but if it saves on the heating bill....

So Frugal thought for the day: Make sure to go through your house/dwelling and close up for the winter. Caulk, use those plastic window thingys, lock windows (if you wash them before doing this, it helps by letting more sun in to warm the room), put up blankets in front of doors you don't use often, put draft dodgers in front of outside doors, and keep any rooms closed that you may not use.

For some more tips on winterizing click on the link below.

Winterizing

Ugh... I feel heavy today. I slept later than usual, by about 30 minutes, but I still feel tired. It feels like I've been crying for hours (I haven't , but...) You know that feeling? Where you're head feels heavy and you are lethargic.

Anyway....

Another road on your house hunt is going to be ventured down. We've thought about it before, but we're going to stay in an apartment down here for awhile (1-2 years??) before buying a house. We'll have all of our debt paid off with the sale of the house and then be able to save $1500-$1700 a month. (Yes that is after living expenses and fun stuff. Probably a lot more fun stuff than now!)

That is of course if someone buys the house. Still haven't heard from Neil, but he's coming over today at Noon, so hopefully.

I know Mom and Joe will be sad, but this is something we need to do. Plus since DH will be working for us to save money, not just to spend it on living expenses, he should be able to take off more time so we can visit parents and friends more.

Plus in a year or two we'll have money for a down payment, and then we'll be able to move to Stevens Point.

We're going up this weekend to Mom and Joe's. I don't know if DH still wants to look at houses in case we find one that we must have, and then our whole living in an apartment is out the window, so I'll have to ask before I confirm with the realtor up there.

I'm excited about seeing them. Mom is a wonderful cook and she always makes yummy things. And Spyros can help Joe on the computer, if he needs any.

Simple Living thought for the day: Call your parents at least once a week and try to help them out as much as you can. ( I know there are people who do not get along with their parents, and if you have truly tried, then unfortunately that's how it is.) And if your relationship with your parents is like that, try finding an older adult and call or visit them once a week instead.

You'll feel good and they'll feel even better!!!