Refi Fever

They announced the mortgage limits for our county the other day. For King, Pierce & Snohomish County, the new limits for conventional & FHA mortages is $567,500. Looks like our housing market will get a nice shot in the arm. While it hasn't fallen like many other areas across the country, it certainly has slowed. So I'm gearing up to get the paperwork done.

I was chatting with a mortgage broker the other day and she indicated that lenders might tighten their credit requirements along with the limit increases, which isn't entirely unexpected.

Luckily, I signed up the other day for a monitoring service called True Credit . It costs 14.95 per month to view your credit report and scores from the three bureaus. I don't plan to keep it long, I just wanted to monitor my progress as I prepare to refinance prior to Dec 31st when the loan limits are supposed to expire. So I have had a look at my credit scores. Suffice to say, I'm not doing bad at all. I've cracked 700 series for two of the bureaus and 695 in the other. My plan to pay down the debt should bring the scores up to the desired range.

Based on what the broker mentioned, she expected lenders to require a score in the 700-teens and above range. I've achieved that already for 2 bureaus, I just need to raise the other one, which I definitely think is doable without more effort than writing checks.

All of these efforts will have significant impact on my budget and lower my monthly outgo by approximately $550-650. Talk about having some cushion each payday...I've already squeezed many of of my expenses until they screamed, so I was able to create a pretty nice cushion each month, which is currently earmarked for debt payment. This additional amount will make the checkwriting easier and faster! I can't wait until the debt payments are done...Finally, the money will be able to work a little more productively for me.

Missing in Action

Sorry I've been pretty quiet lately. The problem is I'm fighting this cold that won't quit. It came back with a vengeance just when I thought it was getting better.

Anyway, I'm on this mission to lower my expenses. So far I'm doing pretty good. I've cut back my cable and phone bills as well as my credit card bill. I've replaced all of the lightbulbs in my house with the energy saver bulbs. We put a timer on the porch light to prevent it from staying on all night and day.

Installing insulation is also on the list of things to do soon to try to keep more of the heat in the house.
So one other step I plan on taking is refinancing my mortgage. I was putting that step off for awhile given all of the problems in the mortgage market. However, the recent rate cuts have me thinking about how much I might be able to save. I think that I may take it slow and see if the recent stimulus proposals will help sweeten the deal and make my decision to refi even easier.

It's tough but I'm making it happen...

There are a few things that I have implemented recently to help me get on the right foot financially. Truthfully, this is a financial transformation plan that I set into motion couple years ago. It has taken awhile to get into the groove because I retired from a previous profession during the. implementation phase. I know, you're thinking..you are too young to have retired! You're right I am, but I had already put more years in and become fully vested far earlier than most of the peers my age. So I feel like I'm on my second career, when most people my age are beginning to hit their stride in their first career.
That transition slowed down my progress, but allowed me to get more focused, better at living within my means and budgeting.

So what am I working on now? I quit smoking cigarettes for starters. That's like trying to pull out of the war in Iraq. The hardest thing ever! Anyway, I had been planning it for a while. I figured I would monetize the effort by planning a vacation with the money saved by quitting. I spent roughly $100 per month on cigarettes. No, I didn't really smoke that much, roughly a half a pack a day. But yes, I spent money like a fool. I never bought cigarettes by the cartons because I was in denial about how long I would continue to smoke. My logic was that I might quit tomorrow (which was lie, most of the time) so I shouldn't buy a whole carton and waste the cigarettes.

So my new year's resolution was to quit and am 17 days smoke-free! What else have I done? I have severely cut back on my daily Starbucks habit. I buy coffee maybe once in 2 weeks or more. I've switched to hot tea. I spend $4 per month now versus $45 per month.
That's not all...I've turned over a new leaf and made peace with my dinner leftovers. Previously between my boyfriend and I, we spent enough money on eating out for lunch, dinner and breakfast on the weekends that we could have carried another mortgage or two luxury car notes.

So what is the "new me" doing now? Bringing my lunch and even breakfast to work.
I haven't crossed over to the everyday lunch-bringing world, but I'm getting there. So what am I saving? I was spending almost $75 per WEEK on breakfast, coffee & lunch! That's a plane ticket to a vacation spot. My spending is down to about $30.00 per week at this point. I've decided to slowly cut back, partially because my cooking skills suck and I have limited time in the evenings. However a fellow blogger has turned us all onto some simple recipes that work well for lunch and breakfast at work. Trent at the Simple Dollar has a flare for freezer cooking. Check it out..The Simple Dollar

So I forsee some white sandy beaches in my future paid for in advance using my expense budget savings

Expense Shakedown

So I'm on a mission to lower my expenses so that I can free more cash up to pay off my credit cards and other assorted debt. Ever since I got my credit card company to lower my rate, I've been calling up companies that I do business with and threatening to leave unless they cut me a deal.

Unfortunately this won't work on every company unless there is adequate competition in the industry. So for example, my electric and water companies would laugh in my face if I threatened to leave because they have their industries "on lockdown" a.k.a. monopolistic grip. My only defense is to lower my consumption in order to lower my expense. So it looks like I need to put a sweater on and get some low flow toilets...

The latest target in this shakedown? My cable company, Comcast. I called today to see if they could lower that crazy bill otherwise I would be forced to put them on the bench for awhile.
I didn't even have to argue. One bargaining chip that I used was my local phone service. I currently use Vonage because it is cheaper than the local phone company service. Anyway, Comcast, like other companies are chomping at the bit to grab customers from other providers and therefore were more likely to give me a deal to earn my business.

So how did I do? After the deal, I was able to shave $65.00 per month off my bills for phone, internet & cable. It only cost me 15 minutes of hold time...