Monday, June 22, 2009

House Hunting

Now that we have stable jobs, we're trying to find a house in Black Mountain that we can rent for a couple years. We've found one really nice house in Swannanoa nearby, but it's a little out of the way to get to. I looked at a house in Black Mountain yesterday and it's decent, but the location is great. Both houses have yards that Hannah could play in, though the nicer house will need some extra fencing as it's not fully enclosed.

So the question is, nicer house, or nicer location? Considering how much we get out of the house, the location is probably not as important, and considering this is not going to be a permanent residence, it's probably better to go with the house we'll enjoy living in more. An extra hurdle is that the nicer house is about $100 more a month. Not a huge deal, but I'm sort of on a "kill debt" kick, so any thing we put in to rent will be less we can put towards debt. Teresa is going to look at the house in Black Mountain tomorrow and see what she thinks.

Speaking of debt, I've been listening to Dave Ramsey a lot. He's a Christian guy, and his job is helping people get out of debt and learn to invest and how best to do it, etc. He has a daily radio show and he wrote a book. I read the book first and then started listening to the radio show. It's really inspiring, and since I already was trying to pay off our credit cards and student loans, it was encouragement and a little more structured help. We've only just started the "Total Money Makeover," but I'm looking forward to knocking out some of these bills one by one.

Some of the costs of moving will have to be taken care of though. We'll likely end up buying a washer and dryer. I bet we can find some cheap ones on craigslist or something. I'll have to look around.

Teresa's job at the kennel isn't working out well. The hours are lousy and the work is crummy. She's applied for another job that's more her style at a library, and I really hope she gets it so she can quit this one. I think she'll be a lot happier and a little less trapped.

My job is going great. I really enjoy it and feel like I'm doing well at it. I'm starting to dig into the finer points of being a controller and organizing the financial future of the company. Scary! But exciting.

Here's to keeping this blog updated more with updates on Teresa, T.J. and Hannah.

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