Thursday
Thursday, already? I did a double take on the calendar this morning thinking - for whatever reason - that today is Wednesday.
One man replied to my ad - well a real person and then a couple of scammers. The scammers say they want to rent your room and will pay 6 months in advance plus all kinds of fees included in that payment. You get sent a cashier's check, deposit it in the bank, then you "forward" some of the extra money they sent to an acquaintence. You see, this person is only try to help a friend with some much needed finances. A week or more later, the check bounces, if you spent any of the money, you are screwed.
I occasionally toy with these people. One time I got it pushed to the point where the guy gave me his alleged actual phone number after I told him the first phone number was no good. I didn't go beyond that, it would have been a long distance phone call. So, I informed him I knew he was a thief and told him to bug off. Never heard from him again, lol.
The problem with the guy is that he has a dog. I have had enough experience with other people's dogs in my house to know it isn't a very good idea. Pissing all over the place, attacking my little dog - it just doesn't seem to ever work out, so, I didn't even respond to him. I have ways that it could be made to work - the dog would be in a kennel in the person's room during the daytime - but most people object to that. Not that kenneling a dog is considering inhumane, it's just that many people think it too confining and "punishing" the dog for nothing.
Well, they can think of it any way they please, but when it comes down to brass tacks: it's my house, not theirs. They find it very difficult to find anyone to take them and their dog in. I might, however, consider it with an extra $50 per month pet fee. Save the money while the person lives there and then use it to replace the carpet in that bedroom. I dunno, I'll think about it, I have time right now. The real push for people looking for new places to live generally doesn't start until the last week of any given month. I'm starting to become an expert at this stuff.
I am upping the deduction out of my paychecks for 401k to 5%, initiating that today. I have 2% coming out. I can't afford it, but I can't afford not to. I will figure out how to live without the other money. Getting my hours back at work would be extremely helpful in that endeavor, but there is no sign in sight that that is going to happen any time soon.
I was hoping this month I would get the safe driver award. Although the list hasn't come out yet, I know I won't be getting it. I got warnings last month and just getting warnings is enough to disqualify you. Of course, a safe driver, one would imagine, is one that stays out of accidents. I dunno, I guess I think it a bit unfair that as hard as I try to be as safe as possible - and getting no tickets or getting into accidents - I still get removed from the list. It would have been a week's pay. When I see that list and my name not on it, I am going to probably be a bit grumpy.
Oh well, such is life. Right now, that extra money would be really nice.
Work day approaches,
g'day.
ben
2 comments:
Friday
Strange dream last night, woke me up. An impossible act: a man came up behind another, opened his mouth, put it over the entire man's head, bit it off and swallowed it. The headless body plopped onto the ground. A few seconds later, this grotesque looking "head" came out of the man's neck. That dream woke me up.
Well, whatever and anyway, it's Friday. I was surprised to find a LOT of work in the truck routing system had been dumped in there overnight. About 30k worth of pipe being delivered to a contractor plus a bunch of stuff to be picked up for Monday deliveries.
Just nice to have something to do - which has been the norm to some degree lately versus nothing.
Obamacare and it's many dissidents and more pointedly, the news of all that is going on to repeal it, well I find it highly entertaining. The lastest "attack" against it is the State of Idaho claiming that they can simply nullify the bill in their state under some "archane law" or otherwise put as " Idaho's Republican-dominated Legislature now plans to use an obscure 18th century doctrine to declare President Barack Obama's signature bill null and void."
Lol. The amusement in all of this is Reid. The man is a relic. How he got voted back in, I'll never know. It still appears between polls and public opinion that more Americans want this thing repealed than not, start over and do it right - that's what I said at the beginning of this nonsense. My thoughts were that they were pushing the thing through like a runaway train. There was NO way, IMO, that they had spent anything near the time it would really take to research this thing through and come up with a good plan that wasn't going to end up throwing more public money down the toilet.
Off of that subject, another subject that always interests me are the pirates on the Somalian coast and now more of them being killed, this time by a raid initiated by South Korea to retake a ship that had been taken hostage. There is a pretty cool pic of the special forces, on the ship, crouched down by the windows, apparently about to go in and kill a bunch of them while at the same time, keeping all the civilians alive. Bravo, bravo, bravo!!! Gotta love that! You gotta figure a lot of training goes into making something like that happen in making sure no civilians are also killed in the firestorm - you can see holes in the windows where the helicopter and the naval ship were giving covering fire - pretty awesome. I wonder if they were also videoing it, I would love to see that.
Well, I guess my HAMP thing is underway. I mean, I've sort of been told on the phone that it is, I haven't really received any written confirmation of that. I will send in the first of 3 month trial payments tomorrow and then call them Monday to ensure that all paperwork has been turned in, is correct and if not, please resend and I will re do it, thank you.
This is the HAMP killer: you don't get it right the first time? You don't get a second chance, that's the FEDs saying that, not the lenders. It means before the first payment is due, you have to have i's dotted and t's crossed - perfectly - or it's a no-go. Once you start the HAMP process, it goes very quickly. It is NOT difficult to do, but I can understand now why the news reported that many of these modifications don't go through and people lose out on the opportunity. It's a hard and set rule: NO second chances.
I found the whole process a bit surprising in how fast it moves and the fact that you have to get everything done in a very short period of time. The news, as I have read it, has not reported this very well. They've only eluded to homeowners claiming that banks lost their paperwork, they did not elucidate on the subject of no second chances, short time period between when you first start the process and when the paperwork is due. It sheds a little fresh light on the subject, at least for me.
Now? I guess there are those calling for 30% down payments to get a home mortgage. Others want to revert it back to 20% - whatever the case, I am now becoming more comfortable with staying in my house seeing all of this starting to come out. How many people are going to be able to come up with even 20% down? On a $200,000 home, that's 40k. Just happen to be carrying that around in your back pocket, right?
I've trashed this subject around in my mind for months now. It has been a terribly difficult decision for me to decide whether to stay in the house and live with the fact that it's so far underwater, or short sale it and live with the fact that I will probably be a renter for the rest of my life. Seeing this 20 or 30% down stuff today in the news? Thanks, I think I'll stay and start saving to build a small guest house. It's going to be a long time, I'm guessing before my house's value is anywhere near what the mortgage is on it, I might as well start saving money, get another rental going on the property and get more income from it. I had toyed with this idea before - but that was when times were better. Now? I'm stuck at my house, I don't see any reason why not to build. Money, of course, but, I am now starting a more aggressive savings plan in my 401k, which I am now fully vested in. It might take a year or 2 to build up enough to get enough out to put up a good structure, I can live with that, not like I have any choice in the matter.
Work day is here.
G'day.
ben
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