I'm lying low and helping my parents dig out from a few decades of bad spending habits.
As always I'm grateful that they are with me. I pray for their good health and mine, so I can help them and my family.
I talked briefly with a friend who's helping to clean out my garage at the house where my soon-to-be ex-wife lives. I told him that I had no problem with him helping her out in any way. Hurting her doesn't help me one bit. I thanked him for doing that organizing and cleaning that I never had the emotional wherewithal to do. Unfortunately, the monthly rent on a storage area that he found begins in January. I don't want a bill for stuff that doesn't do some good. I'll be soliciting ideas on dealing with letters from WWII to recently.
My focus on the New House
The first thing is to review mom and dad's finances. They got the usual middle finger when it came to getting a loan for a home. I look at my finances and I realize that I can afford to live and retire to half a garage apartment about 25 to 35 miles from work and any settled area.
I'm used to living within 7 miles of work, downtown Houston, the Medical Center, the Galleria, and Sugarland Texas.
So, the ideal monthly housing cost is 18.3% of your income. Private mortgage companies want to lend as much as possible. They want to lend up to 30% of your income. (It's not yet clear from my reading but I wonder if they're talking about people's gross income.) I want it at 8% of my income or less.
I want to have lots of savings. That means the money to pay for health insurance, life insurance, 6 months of gross wages in case I get unemployed or disabled, nursing home insurance, credit disability insurance, credit life insurance, money for emergencies, money to buy things with cash rather than credit, savings to raise a family and support my ne'er do well friends and relatives in a pinch. A lawyer and an accountant on retainer would be good too.
Paying only 8% of my net income and living close to work and having lots of savings sounds ludicrous until you realize that once upon a time I had all of those things. If you look closely at your own family finances you might think your situation is just fine. If you look at what disasters can befall you or your family, the amount you need to save to have a decent retirement and the amount you need for the regular emergencies that can and will happen, then most people's finances aren't so great.
One of my dreamland fantasies is to build the environmentally sound house that produces energy, has large raised bed gardens, and that can be shown to the public as a good, useful, replicable example.
Must haves, raised bed gardens, water saving devices for watering the raised beds, a comfortable, durable and beautiful interior, a gardening work area, a patio, a garage with a flow through back opening, a master bedroom that is right next to the kitchen, good air flow through the house so we can turn off the ac/heat every now and then, high side and back windows in lots of areas (so we can run around nude!), easy entrance and exit to the back yard/raised beds, washer dryer area easily accessible to the kitchen, 3 full bathrooms, four bedrooms, two of them master bedrooms, a dining room, a den, a living room, a medium to large dinette area in the kitchen.
As always I'm grateful that they are with me. I pray for their good health and mine, so I can help them and my family.
I talked briefly with a friend who's helping to clean out my garage at the house where my soon-to-be ex-wife lives. I told him that I had no problem with him helping her out in any way. Hurting her doesn't help me one bit. I thanked him for doing that organizing and cleaning that I never had the emotional wherewithal to do. Unfortunately, the monthly rent on a storage area that he found begins in January. I don't want a bill for stuff that doesn't do some good. I'll be soliciting ideas on dealing with letters from WWII to recently.
My focus on the New House
The first thing is to review mom and dad's finances. They got the usual middle finger when it came to getting a loan for a home. I look at my finances and I realize that I can afford to live and retire to half a garage apartment about 25 to 35 miles from work and any settled area.
I'm used to living within 7 miles of work, downtown Houston, the Medical Center, the Galleria, and Sugarland Texas.
So, the ideal monthly housing cost is 18.3% of your income. Private mortgage companies want to lend as much as possible. They want to lend up to 30% of your income. (It's not yet clear from my reading but I wonder if they're talking about people's gross income.) I want it at 8% of my income or less.
I want to have lots of savings. That means the money to pay for health insurance, life insurance, 6 months of gross wages in case I get unemployed or disabled, nursing home insurance, credit disability insurance, credit life insurance, money for emergencies, money to buy things with cash rather than credit, savings to raise a family and support my ne'er do well friends and relatives in a pinch. A lawyer and an accountant on retainer would be good too.
Paying only 8% of my net income and living close to work and having lots of savings sounds ludicrous until you realize that once upon a time I had all of those things. If you look closely at your own family finances you might think your situation is just fine. If you look at what disasters can befall you or your family, the amount you need to save to have a decent retirement and the amount you need for the regular emergencies that can and will happen, then most people's finances aren't so great.
One of my dreamland fantasies is to build the environmentally sound house that produces energy, has large raised bed gardens, and that can be shown to the public as a good, useful, replicable example.
Must haves, raised bed gardens, water saving devices for watering the raised beds, a comfortable, durable and beautiful interior, a gardening work area, a patio, a garage with a flow through back opening, a master bedroom that is right next to the kitchen, good air flow through the house so we can turn off the ac/heat every now and then, high side and back windows in lots of areas (so we can run around nude!), easy entrance and exit to the back yard/raised beds, washer dryer area easily accessible to the kitchen, 3 full bathrooms, four bedrooms, two of them master bedrooms, a dining room, a den, a living room, a medium to large dinette area in the kitchen.
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