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So today I asked myself something I had not. Which was probably a mistake. Not to do it, I mean. Sorry, not super eloquent today. It's been a weird few days. Battling some depression. Trying to work it out.

Anyway!

I was watching some of these home improvement shows on Netflix, like Love It or List It. Then I got sick of that and instead looked at some new construction websites, then some homes on Trulia and whatnot, and just got more and more kind of sad about the whole mess and how impossible it seems, not to get a house, but to get a nice house. Something pretty, and done, and livable. Something that feels like forever.

But then I look at the homes that are in our price range, and I look at my current apartment. Which is pretty, and done, and livable. Not super big, but also not super expensive. And while it doesn't feel like forever (since it's never going to be mine permanently), it's a great place to be for now. And it just made me wonder... what is it that I want out of the whole home buying experience?

Part of it is standard consumerism. It's jealousy, and wanting something that other people have, and wanting something that I can show off as a standard of class and well-being. Something that proves to other people that I'm doing okay. And honestly, I think that's going to be the case for a lot of people.

Part of it is also a way to play the long game, of course. Owning a home is a very concrete step toward financial independence and a comfortable retirement in the distant future. Because if we can get a 30-year mortgage now, we can own our home outright by the time we retire, if not before then. But as far as the house itself, apart from an investment, why do I want it? What do I want? So then came the actual question:

What is a realistic vision of my "perfect" life? Because maybe I should work backwards from there.

So, okay. Not to toot my own horn, but it is a good question, and one I haven't thought about in a while. It used to be one thing, and to be honest, it probably hasn't changed much. But who knows? So... here we go.

Wake up early, get my workout out of the way, shower, get dressed and beautiful. Make coffee and breakfast and eat with the family, plus do the bills and budgeting. Then get cracking on childcare (for the time that they need it) and writing, afternoon errands just after a nice lunch, back to writing, clean up before dinner, make dinner, eat dinner, clean up, hang out with hubs/the fam and do game night, long-distance family skype night, date night, plus homework or whatever, and then super comfy snuggly sleeps. And also, two adventures a month! Concerts, library trips, museums, festivals, comedy shows, etc. And a mimimum of two hosted weekend dinners/brunches for my writing group, my family, etc., per month as well.

So! What do I need to have a shot at that clearly idealized life?

• 3 bedrooms for hubs&I and our two (currently nonexistent) kids
• Room for the treadmill
• A home office
• A clean kitchen to cook in
• A dining table for eating breakfast together (and to host D&D...)
• Standard cleaning & storage stuff like laundry and dishwasher, because I'd rather do less cleaning and more family time
• 2 bathrooms, non-negotiable
• Enough money to live on

That's... is that it? Maybe that's it. So yeah, for a house, that's what I need. But here's the thing - a lot of what I described is what I could be doing now. I could get up early and work out, which I was doing temporarily before the miscarriage. I already have coffee and pay bills/check finances in the morning, which is an oddly calming ritual, and I should probably make breakfast and eat with the husband. Corey and I already have a kind of date night on Thursdays when we watch Critical Role, we have a weekly D&D night on Fridays, and I generally try and call my Dad and Gramma on Monday evenings.

But yeah, I could be doing better. I could be writing more, going on more adventures (especially the free ones), etc. So... yeah. It's time to live the life I want. To work for it. Even if I get it wrong along the way. More than a pretty house, more than a million dollars or a fabulous car, that's what I want. That little package of perfect.

Rae's Random Thought

You know what would be kind of cool?

Well... there are game streaming channels like Twitch, right? And real estate, well, people are almost obsessed with it. As proven by HGTV. And myself+people I know.

Wouldn't it be cool to set up kind of streaming real estate website with live-stream open house tours including current pricing information? Even if it's just like you get a GoPro and take house tours, then edit out anyone's faces. Heck, a real estate agent could make a killing by advertising houses that way if it got big enough.

Just a thought. :)

Rae Talks to a Lending Agent

Okay, so things are going okay. Mentally, I'm still a little out of it, I'll admit. Work is going well, but I'm still stressing myself out thinking about all this stuff. Last night I couldn't sleep from thinking about just how impossible everything feels right now, even after the progress I have made. I ended up freaking out and crying (the hormones probably didn't help) and got up with husband to watch Bob's Burgers and eat juice pops we got at Costco. It was nice to just regress a little bit.

And you know, I'm okay with being weak like that here and there. It'll probably happen again. I'm human, and intensely fallible. I'm no fantasy blogger with only good habits sharing her wealth of knowledge with the world. I'm just some schmuck with an internet connection.

But things really are going okay. I've got a 3-day streak of practicing my harp (and doing my back stretches right afterwards because short arms = back pain when you're reaching forward for a half hour plus), and I'm working on my callouses. Here's the main plotline for this post, though: today, I actually went to go see that lending agent I was planning on talking to.

It was an interesting conversation. The most interesting piece, I think, is that he ran the numbers and based on our combined income, husband and I could afford a monthly payment of $1313 if you include principal, interest, taxes, etc., which would allow us about a $150k house. That surprised me, tbh. Like it isn't all that bad, and there are actually more options than I realized.

1. We could take our time and save up more money. Which we should probably do anyway. I really need to settle down on the house goal and prioritize setting up a better emergency fund and getting it into a high-interest online savings account.
2. We could apply for down payment assistance from the city. The only issues are that we would just need to stay in the house 5+ years, and to be honest we'd probably still need more income to get the size of house that we want (3 bed/2 bath, single family home with separation from neighbors is $200k+ around here). And higher income probably = less chance to qualify for that grant. Unless we had a larger family and the same income levels. Hm.
3. We could move way out to BFE and go for a 100% USDA loan. We're still at low-moderate income levels for this metro area (I think we just now hit the "moderate" level with my raise) and there are some eligible areas in some parts of north Austin that we were considering anyway.

The guy also let me know that if we want to move out of this unit in April, we would want to apply for pre-qualification in November/December, which gives us plenty of time to decide if that's the right time for us. And that we would then want to start house-hunting in January 2017 at the latest. He actually suggested that I check with our apartment complex to see if we could get out of our lease early, which was... weird. I dunno. He needs to hit his numbers I guess.

And then there's all the stuff we need. 1 year's worth of W2s, 60 days of bank statements, 30 days of paystubs, and any recent tax returns. Easy enough to collect once we're ready for all that. I'm okay about organizing that kind of thing, for the most part.

That covers all my notes from the meeting. I think it went well enough, and helped me get some ideas to mull over instead of this big conceptual mass of money that I'll never get. There are options. I just need to roll them around in my head, talk to husband, figure some things out. We'll get it done.

Rae on the Great 2016 Roller Coaster

I haven't posted in a few days - sorry not sorry to be honest. Today I wasn't feeling great so I've been napping a lot. Yesterday (Saturday) I hung out with one of my writing buddies again and we got a little progress made and she brought me tea and taught me how to pan-fry cheap fish, which was *awesome.* Friday I had my Dungeons & Dragons group over, and ran my first game session!

And then Thursday and Wednesday, well, I was just generally distracted by the fact that I got a promotion.

I'm not joking. On Wednesday morning, I read this article about optimism. On the drive to work, it was raining and the classical station was playing Sorcerer's Apprentice by Dukas, which made me giggle. And then I went to work and got a promotion.

Starting in June, I'm getting raise, new KPIs, and potential commission and bonus structure if I do well. Starting immediately, I've moved out of my cubicle and into a shared office with a window. I'm still a little in shock, even though apparently this was a done deal for a good long while. Multiple people knew it was set in stone before I did, ha!

WINDOW!!!!!

Now, for some background, my manager left in February of this year, just after management began to change up our organizational structure. I've basically been doing a lesser version of her role since she was here, excluding running meetings. I was the primary consultant one or two because I'm especially savvy with one of our products, but I didn't think it was any big deal until she told me afterwards. Before she left to move out of state, she told me that I absolutely had to apply for her job. That I was ready. I was, admittedly, interested in the pay raise, and I had finally realized a few months before that it wouldn't be insanely hard or stressful as I'd first anticipated when I was just working as an admin under her. So she helped me write a bang-up cover letter, and I brought that along with a resume I'd had updated over to management, and the department head (and my now-manager) responded with, "Oh! Oh, you're interested in that job. Good for you! Challenge yourself!"

It was a bizarre reaction to say the least. But then things changed, because the department head became my direct manager, and my work actually had the chance to be seen by upper management instead of just the one person who left. And then I made a small sale on my own - granted, it was low-hanging fruit. I just said, "Hey, since we just finished this project for you, do you want another one?" and the client went, "Yeah, let's do that." Easy, and fairly small, but still required the ask.

So... hard work results in progress sometimes. Who knew? It just comes at such a good time in my life. I'm going to go chat with a Wells Fargo mortgage officer on Tuesday, not necessarily to apply for a pre-approval, but to tell him my situation and to be frank in the fact that I am probably going to apply with them once we are ready to buy a house, but I want to get my ducks in a row first. I doubt that any lender is going to be upset if their potential clients are doing their homework first!

So yeah. Roller coaster two months. It's making it a little easier to start looking at those silver linings.

Anyway. I practiced harp today until my fingers hurt (woo!), but I just don't feel physically up to much, so it's time for more Netflix. Things downstairs are back to normal working order now that a full month has passed, which means cramps. And the way I see this, it's good, it's healthy. I'm not getting super emotional, which is kind of amazing. I feel normal again. I feel more like me. Now to keep up this progress.

Rae has Random Ideas for Income

I've been chatting with one of my besties this evening, S. S is pregnant (like, about to pop) and is going on maternity leave soon. Unfortunately, she's in super-pricey California, and maternity leave, while necessary, is going to be a huge hit on her little family's expenses. So we got to chatting about different income ideas.

There are already a ton of blog posts out there about how to make extra money. A metric butt ton. This post isn't anything like those. "Start a blog!" "Mow someone's lawn!" Nope. This is more personal. This blog isn't to make money. If it gains a following and people think I should add a donate button because I helped them? Fantastic. If it doesn't? No big deal. It helps me, and that's the main point.

Nope. These are income ideas that have nothing to do with the standard person poking at the internet in their PJs. These are for me, for my bestie, and maybe for the other random creatives out in the world.

1. Be a harpist

I may have already mentioned this in the previous post, but I am a harpist. I know how to harp. I can bump my thumbs, lift my elbows, and I can kinda-sorta sight read. But I'm really rusty. This is going to take a lot of practice, some nice calluses, and I'm going to miss my longer nails. But if I work up a gig book again, I could totally do some weddings and get a reasonable hourly rate.

2. English language transcription

I'm still kinda-sorta interested in this, but I don't think I have the time to commit to an IC contract right now. I would love to have a second job, and it actually does sound very interesting and like something I could do, but after talking it over with some people, this is my bottom choice for a side gig.

3. Knit up all the yarn and sell sell sell

I have 2 bins of crafting supplies. I need the room and the money. This one's a no-brainer. Though I don't think I'd ever do an Etsy store tbh. If nothing else I should at least make a ton of badass Christmas presents. Something other than scarves preferably.

4. Podcast script writer

This could be fun and potentially profitable. It also could be a total wash, but I don't care. I'm loving the couple of scripts I wrote with another friend this past weekend. We've finally got An Idea that works and flows pretty well. I wrote a full 10-min comedy script, and if we put 3 of those together with some ads, well, there you go.

5. Life manager

This is a wacky idea I had in the shower, and one I'll probably never follow through with. You know how there are life coaches? Well you can ignore a trainer or a coach, especially if you already find yourself ignoring your family. But you can't ignore a manager if you want to get paid and don't want to get fired. I was thinking this could be a fake boss with kind of a goal setting and time management role in someone's life, and while you do pay them for their services, they also pay you a salary if you do what you're supposed to and accomplish your goals. Lots of issues could come up, like if it's long-distance the person could always lie, but it's a neat thought.

6. Goal setting Photoshop artist

This is one I came up with when talking to S. There are folks out there who are using Photoshop to fat shame women by making pictures of them looking skinny - usually no-ribs skinny. But what if you were trying to lose weight and you wanted to see that After picture? Especially if it was one that actually looked like you would look like skinny, in a realistic way? I'd be interested, myself.

7. Lower bill arguer

This is another wacky one - and would just be something you'd really do for friends and family. But see, I really hate calling places. I know I could get a lower rate on my phone or internet bill if I was good at arguing, but I'm not. But if someone could call on my behalf and save me a little money on my monthly bills, heck yeah I'd pay them.

That's just a few, but it's stuff I haven't seen on all of the financial and frugality sites that I check.

Also, quick whine: I got on Facebook to check for updates on my friend J's baby, and there were literally four baby posts in a row. Four. And that doesn't count my friend J's baby, or S's soon-to-be-completed. So there are six people in my social circles (more, because I rage-quit Facebook after that, again) who are pregnant. I complained to my coworker about it and he was like, "Yeah, it's like a party that you didn't get invited to, huh?" And I'm like no, it's like a party that I was invited to, but the guy that sent the invitation changed his mind and uninvited me and f**k that guy.

Sigh. I just... need to lose weight. Top priority. Today was a wash as far as that goes, cause free Cheesecake Factory. But I did do my stretches for a third day in a row, got healthy work groceries, and logged my food. I need to lose all the weight. House or no house, that part doesn't matter as much as making my body birth fit.

Now where are my damn colored pencils?

Rae Talks Stress and Goal Coloring

So it's been an interesting day and a half. The introduction post has been posted, the first day is done. And I realized something rather interesting: I am already burning myself out on the magnitude of the task at hand.

See, originally, I was going to post my wins and my losses. A win was applying to a second job or remembering to use a coupon. A loss was eating out or neglecting to balance my bank account. But I tend to overdo things early on, and I was just getting overwhelmed. Even something like looking up a mortgage-savings website got me stressed out. So I'm going to spend this evening's blog focusing on baby steps and the fun I could have with this process. That's right. Fun.

For instance, over the weekend, I got together with a friend of mine and we talked about a podcast we'd like to put together. We've been talking about it for a while, but we had a legitimate breakthrough. I wrote an entire script for an 8-10 minute parody skit, and the words just flowed.

Then today, I was talking to a friend and former manager about the skit and how awesome it was, and then how stressed I was about the concept of needing a second job. And she gave me some very good advice - that when it comes to a second job, I should do what makes me happy. I didn't have a response. I mean, I wanted to do something creative, of course, but everything I've read has said that you need to make sacrifices to save money.

But... why not both? I'm a harpist and a writer. Why not spend time that I would be working on admittedly boring work like a part-time data entry or store clerk position, and instead work on creative ventures that could very well make money? The reason I rejected those at first is that they're unstable in a way that my job isn't. But if I looked at them as a job, and put the same amount of time and energy into them, they would be so much more rewarding on a spiritual scale, and I'd be able to save more willpower to doing well at my main job which would pay higher than a part time job anyway.

So I'm going to try it for a while and see how it works, and report on it to you. Fingers crossed, right?

Now I know this is a financial blog, but I'd like to also to post a few notes related to losing weight. Why? Because at some point in the future (playing the long game here), I am going to want a better full-time job with better pay. And in order to do that, I need to take care of my physical issues like back pain and extra weight, both of which I have the tools to manage on my own terms. The fact that there is prejudice in hiring toward overweight people, especially women, sucks. But it's the truth, and it's not going to change just because I wish it would. So I'd like to lose some weight so that I'm a thinner candidate at my next important interview and more likely to be hired. Plus lower back pain sucks. And better health = lower medical costs in the long term!

And, to comment on the elephant in the room, yes. I am terrified that my weight is why I've lost two pregnancies. I do consider myself lucky, in that my losses were early in - both before 7 weeks - and they occurred naturally and completed without medical intervention. But I'm not going to try again until I consider myself more in shape. So without further ado, here are the primary goals I want to work on:

1. Do a great job at work.
2. When I'm home, make sure my home is cared for (meal prep, cleaning, organizing, and balancing the e-checkbook).
3. Once I have cared for my home, get my daily exercise in.
4. Once I am too tired to exercise any longer, practice harp - specifically, put a gig book together again.
5. Once my fingers hurt too much or I am too frustrated from practicing, write.

And that should honestly take care of the majority of my time. So the sacrifice is going to be focusing on those five things at the expense of stuff like playing video games and reading as much.

Now I still love knocking out goals and seeing the progress toward them. My three main goals are to lose weight (0 lost of 65 lbs in total), to pay off our car loan ($1,500 paid/$14,400 principal) and to save up as much money as humanly possible outside of my IRA ($1100/$50,000 goal)

I went to http://www.free-mandalas.net/ and printed out a few adult coloring pages. I'm not worrying too much about how many coloring spots are in it. If I run out, I'll get a new one. :D

  

Dragon for weight loss (rarr!), stained glass for the car debt, and heart for savings. One bubble per $100 saved/paid off or 1000 calories burned.

And just like that, I'm excited instead of stressed. BAM. Take that, human psychology!

Rae Introduces Herself

I must have tried to start a blog a thousand times by now. Blogs about my goals, about weight loss, about creativity, and about writing. Even one about my journey into pregnancy, though that was never published and ended with my second miscarriage.

In fact, that event is the reason I’m starting this blog. It happened a month ago at this point, and I’m doing better… but I’m not 100% me. I took my time with it, as one does. Played a lot of video games, read some really good stories, and got myself back into the swing of things at work. The truth is, though, I am never more myself than when I am working towards a goal. Obsessively. Especially if it’s a huge goal, with very little hope of accomplishing much in the short term, one I would need to focus on every single day and can work on in my spare time order to achieve it.

So that’s the purpose of this blog. It isn’t to brag about my financial success or to give advice (though there may be some of both due to the nature of the beast). It’s to help myself hone in and focus on who I am when I’m and at my best and working toward something better.

What I really want financially is a mortgage to replace my rent. I am 32 years old and plan to work until I'm 65 barring the unforseen, so a 30-year mortgage would give me at least a few working years free of house payments. Currently, I have a very nice, if pricey, apartment. $1024/month after pet rent, plus it's being jacked up this year as par for the course. Expensive, right?

This was an upgrade that husband and I chose to make after I got a raise at work, because our previous apartment was a shithole. We lived there for two years - it was right on the highway so you heard sirens every night, there was no washer/dryer in the unit, the machines at the laundry facility worked only if you were lucky (or if someone didn’t open the dryer you’d paid for and stopped it), we saw domestic violence from our living room window, our door was kicked in by an overzealous security guard, and a murdered woman's body was dumped at the homeless tent camp just outside of the gate. So yes, we have a fairly expensive apartment right now. I have no regrets. But I would prefer to put that monthly payment toward equity than an apartment, even if it is lovely and safe and has a washer/dryer in unit.

The problem is that with our rent so high, we’re having difficulty saving anything up. Now that’s not to say that we’re living from paycheck to paycheck. In fact, we’re doing okay. The problem is that things are stable, instead of on the upswing.

So to be completely honest about everything, I’m going to share my financial situation with you. It’s all in approximates, obviously, and I’m not not going to say where my accounts are. That’d be ridiculous. But it’s a way for me to hold myself accountable and keep things realistic. And hey, if I end up with a reader who starts in my financial situation and has goals similar to mine, so much the better.

Debt: $13,000
We purchased a second car in December 2015 on a 48-month lease at 2.99% APR financed through our credit union. The car was $10500 but we chose to get a few warranties for safety's sake. We managed a $1k downpayment at the time and have made 4 monthly payments and 1 extra payment. I'm not as nervous about this because it's our only debt - no credit card bills or student loans.

Retirement: $4000
Putting 2% of each paycheck to my Roth 401(k) + $100/month toward my Roth IRA. It isn't much, but it's also not something I'm willing to sacrifice for anything else. I look at it as a bill. I'd love to max out my contributions every year, but I think that might have to come after we get the rest settled.

Savings: $1100
This is the part I'm a little embarrassed about. It's better than it could be, but this includes our total savings, so emergency fund, Christmas gift fund, everything all in one. It might dip a bit as soon as I get the rest of my medical bills from last month in the mail. Also doesn't help that I ate out a lot last month after everything happened.

Budget: $3200/month
Contrariwise, this is the part where I feel we've made the most progress. See, we've finally managed to get to the point where we're not spending the money we made on the last paycheck - instead, we spend from the money we made last month. All the money we're making this month is going to be allocated to our budget at the end of the month. We use our goodbudget.com account, but we aren't always great at sticking to the plan, so things do get a little disjointed sometimes. More or less, though, that $3200 is our 0-sum budget, using up all of our income from the previous month but not over-using it, and our retirement fund is a part of it.

So there you go. Obviously, in a perfect world, this would be a lot different. My goals are admittedly pretty lofty:
$0 Debt
$5500/year to Roth IRA (instead of approx. $2000/year)
$10000 in Emergency Savings
$20000 for House Downpayment (+closing costs, inspection fees, etc)
$25000/year Superfrugal Budget
Also I'd like to lose 65 lbs and have 2 kids.

I'm serious about all of this. These goals are, admittedly, crazy, but I'm not getting anywhere with them right now. So that's the purpose of this blog. Rae Wants a House. And without working harder on those goals than I am right now, Rae ain't gonna get what she wants. Time to get to work.