It is okay, we did not die, fall in a hole, get lost, take an exotic vacation, or anything else nearly as exciting.  We have, however, had quite a ride on the emotional rollercoaster of life. :)

Condo - done. Finished. Pretty. For ages.

Loan - fail.

New loan - should hear back this week *crosses fingers*

So, some of you are probably confused now. That is because I've not felt like posting this to the world for awhile.  I've been meaning to post for a week or two now, but haven't found time since I lately only get on the computer during breakfast.  Since I'm always late to work anyway, I thought it wise not to make things worse by trying to blog during that time.  (The days I try to catch up on the blogs I read usually put me an extra 5-10 minutes behind - I'm horrible, I know.)

Okay, so we got to do our final walkthrough of the condo at the end of April.  They were then going to do the touchups/fixes and clean - and it would be ready as soon as we closed. :)  Well, then we had loan issues.  A - Chase is stupid.  With the rural housing loan, we had to include a portion of our student loans, even the deferred ones.  Between that and the way they figured our income (a three year average for two 20 somethings who have worked little hours while going to school or changed jobs and so have had varying pay rates doesn't work out so well), our debt to income ratio was too high - no loan.  Not that it mattered anyway because apparently rural housing was out of money about that time too.  So much for that.

Next - FHA loan.  Matt was quite resistant. Finally I found out why (umm, he dropped two classes during the semester without telling me, leaving him like 7 credits - and he was pretty sure he failed a class - leaving 4 credits, which is not half time - the required amount to keep your loans deferred), so we still had to include student loans.  Oh the joy.  Well, we figured, "What's the point?"  Especially if our income was figured in the same way.  So we didn't do anything for a week or two.  We started looking for pet-friendly apartments instead. :(  We (I) decided to still give it a shot though, because you never know.  Before doing that, we wanted to ask some questions of the mortgage guy so we knew if it was worth attempting . . . but we couldn't get ahold of him.

We decided to look at some apartments, and that very day I was going to call on some, low and behold, mortgage guy finally calls back.  He answers my questions sufficiently, so we signed the FHA papers and got him the necessary documentation for everything - again.  Needless to say, we didn't look at apartments.

THEN, since Matt's student loans are in grace after this semester, we needed to get the estimated payment amounts for his loans from each lender.  Wells Fargo was easy enough.  UHEAA sent a fax in a timely manner.  FedLoan, on the other hand, sure struggled with sending a simple email.  Matt called a couple days later, and it was in "verification" and they said we should have the email within 24 hours.  We didn't.  The next day, Matt was going to call again, but the email finally showed up.  So everything was in.  We thought.

My pay had dramatically increased, so I needed to explain why (I graduated, therefore freeing up my life to be able to work 40 hours a week - shoot me now) and I also had to show when I graduated.  Did that - mortgage guy wanted it revised. :p Yay for my smart phone - because I had to get my email with the attachment on the road (we went to the aquarium - perhaps that will be the next post), open it, retype the letter (good thing it was short), and send it back.  I wouldn't want to do that frequently, but it sure was handy to have that capability on my phone.  All done!

Okay, not really (I'm never buying a house again...) One last thing - they needed to pull our credit again showing the cars were paid off.  That, or show documentation for Matt's parents paying off his car to add to our first credit pull.  Matt opted to just pull it again because it was easier and we don't anticipate needing to use our score for anything in the near future after this.  So we did that - and then had to sign the credit disclosure (my score is pretty dang good :) - Matt's . . . . is okay.  I know it's not your fault, hun :) ) and we had to sign the FHA addendum to the purchase contract.  So we did all that yesterday and it went to the underwriter.  Now we are just waiting to hear.  Asked loan guy today, said he'd see what he could find out . . . and we heard nothing back.  He's getting another text tomorrow :)  And that is where we're at. 

It's late, and Matt's still not home from band. Maybe I'll post about the aquarium now....

The days are drawing nearer to when we will be actual homeowners! Well, condo-owners anyway.  That's okay, though.  It makes my insurance cheaper :)  Speaking of, Matt and I are both studying for our personal lines license - so we had fun getting the quote for our insurance. . . . and moving from HO-4 to HO-6 (Tenant Occupied vs Condominium Owner) lol.  Moving on....  Things are coming along swimingly.  The current projected complete date is April 12th, and it looks like they just might hit it :)

We got our loan stipulations back yesterday.  Easy-peasy.  Matt dropped off the required stuff this morning.

It's nice to swing by one day (yesterday) and see what my parents got to see a few days before. (Condo was locked when Matt and I went to look the day or two before that.) Then stop in again the next day (today) and have stuff actually be different! Woot!  I vote the construction industry work more often ;) (Side note - looked like someone was getting their wood floor in on the third floor today :) )

Now for the pictures!

Hello world,

The condo is coming along swimmingly.  I went down there today because I had some extra time, and the tile was laid and the cabinets were in.  My new friend, Jake, was putting the hardward on in the kitchen.  Oh! And we have shower surrounds.  It looks really good so far, which is nice because you always wonder if everything you picked off of little samples is going to go well together.  So far, it is.

Now for the sombering part - we might not get it.  You see, when we pre-qualified for the loan, we put Matt's wage at $15/hr, because that was what he was supposed to be paid after training, which he was just about done with at the time.  Our mortgage guy said that, even with putting in the $12/hr he was currently making, it should have been fine.  We told him what our credit scores were, and he said he saw no problems in us getting the loan.  Huzzah!  At that time, we decided to move forward with the contract and builder's deposit.

Last week (? maybe the week before), we met with Clay (the mortgage guy) again to do the official application.  He pulled our credit that day, which was the beginning of the mess.  There is nothing wrong with our credit, but he did see we had student loans.  All but two are currently deferred, however, with the type of loan we are getting (Utah Rural Housing), they have to include part of the student loans against us.  Lame.  But all was still fine.  We had to give Clay another bank statement for all of our accounts, along with a new paystub. 

Here is where it begins to get depressing.  Matt's paystub still has $12/hr on it.  He had become complacent about it and figured his work just hadn't gotten around to changing it yet.  He'd mentioned it when we first talked to Clay, and it had sounded promising then, but it obviously never transpired. 

Clay talked to Matt today saying he needed a paystub showing $15/hr.  Thanks to having to have the student loans on the loan, $12/hr isn't enough for our debt to income ratio.  Matt went to talk to his boss about it and was told that they really don't have the money to pay him that and they aren't sure what hours are going to be like... blah blah blah.

So now he's really annoyed at work.  Truth be told, so am I.  I'm mostly pissed at the fact that they never actually told him until he came asking again.  Really.  Who does that? Oh wait.... It's crappy when it's work in general and you find out you're not getting a "raise" you thought you were, but it's made worse when you like your boss and she's your friend's mom.  I'm not saying they should bankrupt themselves to pay Matt what they agreed on, but they really should have, the second they found out/decided not to bump his pay, they should have told him.  Thanks to this, we may not be able to get our house.  I only make $10/hr where I work and I can only work 40 hours.  In fact, starting next week, I'm working less than that because one of our major projects isn't dialing for a month.

Options: Ask Matt's boss to pay him $15/hr for the month of April so we can get the loan.  Sell Matt's car.  Make more money at Primerica so we can either pay stuff down to help the ratio or make a large enough down payment that it's not an issue.  Pull money from Matt's IRA for a downpayment.

All sucky options.  Well, not really.  $15/hr would be nice - even if only for the month of April.  Making more money at Primerica?  Well who doesn't like money?  The other two are less desireable.  Selling the car - if you or anyone you know is interested in buying a nice car, we're asking $8,000.  Talk to us :)  It's just obnoxious because, come winter, we're going to have to buy another one.  IRA - doable, but crappy because it only has like $4,000 to pull - which might be enough to get us in the condo, but then we have nothing saved.

So .... unless someone is feeling generous - put the word out that there's a nice, black, manual 2007 Ford Focus with street package, 6cd changer, and steering wheel controls for sale.  $8,000 is the low blue book price.  Email or comment if you know anyone :)  Thanks so much!

I have recently found a grand treasure trove of free digital scrapbooking stuff and thought you all might want to share. Kudos to the women (and few men I've found) who have the time, talent, and skill to create digiscrap stuff - I don't.  I also, however, refuse to pay for stuff.  I don't have an extra $20 to buy cute stuff, but the freebie search can be painful.  Well that was the case until I found these little gems - which I shall now share with you!

So this updating thing has been lacking.  I know.  I'm sorry. Part of that is I don't feel like there is much to say.  The other part is I'm virtually never home.  Bhuvan gets lonely, I think.  My parents went by our condo today, apparently the doors have been hung and the trim is up.  The painter said he'd probably paint Tuesday or Wednesday.  The 1st floor units are painted with tile and wood in them - no carpet yet.  The development website says the finish date is April 5th, but we've heard April 11th. 

We met up with the mortgage guy yesterday to do the first signings of papers - the official loan app with the pulling of credit and everything.  Next step - appraisal.  It was actually from him, who heard from one of the builders, we heard about the April 11th plan.  Lame.

Other hectic things this week - hiring and training!  We've had lots of interviews again this week, though mostly all for our team, no personal.  Then we're trying to get our team trained - but when we both work full time (k, I'm 9-5 and Matt does school and like 30 hours), we then work the business from 5:30 to 8:30 or so as of late - plus saturdays.  It's fun, and I like doing it with Matt, but this is why we're never home.

I got my shirt (finally) that I qualified for last month.  Matt got a hat for 3 directs.  Then our company incentive from January finally showed up - a pin of the new logo.  All the guys were wearing them as tie tacks tonight :)  Now I have to finish my training and make sure I don't need anymore slides because I'm training on Saturday.  I'm excited - my slides are adorable.  Did you know you can create your own PowerPoint backgrounds with digiscrap stuff?  Well you can - and they will be adorable!  I love customizing stuff :) 

Tell you what I don't love, though, and that is working 40 hrs/wk.  I was so done today by 3:30pm.  My brain was gone.  I think it was mostly because I really only had one survey (that literally took half my shift to edit) to work on, and it sucks.  My boss is out of town, so I'm shift lead during the day.  I think I called her like 7 times.  Oh well.  My goal is to get the Cebu team editing everything in the next two weeks so I can quality check and train them on watching for new projects and setting all that up how it needs to be done the following two weeks.  By that time, we'll be moving and I'll take some time off.  If the condo is really done by the 11th, my time off will fall on the same week I'm already taking friday off for Fast Start.

Other news - Matt's little brother is receiving his endowment this Saturday.  Matt and I had to get our recommends renewed (cuz we attend the temple so often - we're horrible, we know) - and our records still aren't transferred.  Our new bishopric and stake presidency still signed everything, though.  Hopefully they got it electronically logged too.  Oh well.  The paper says I'm good to go.  I don't know why we have record issues.  In our last ward, they didn't get our records until the end of December or beginning of January... we moved in during August.  They didn't realize until we got to tithing settlement.  Here, they got our info two Sundays ago - and still not transferred.  Sigh.  Oh well.  So that's been fun getting that done the week of.

Then this Saturday, we won't be able to go to dinner with the family afterward because we've got an appointment with one of our newbies.  She's doing awesome.  She's only 18, but she's caught the vision.  Not to mention, she's always been rather mature (I work with her at my day job, too).  She's going to do great.  She just set 4 appointments today and already has had like 4 people in for interviews.  I wish they all were like that. Heck, I wish I had been like that when I got started.

That being said, I'm putting in a plug here.  It's my blog, so I can do that.  It is also my business, so I can do that :)  We're obviously crazy busy and need to hire some more people.  If you or anyone you know (yes, even you blog-stalkers) are looking for some extra income on the side, part-time, or potentially looking for a career change, leave a comment - or if you know my number, go ahead and call me.  We're looking for some good people we can get trained quickly who like other people, like making money, and would be willing to step up into a leadership role when they feel ready.  If I've at least sparked your interest, like I said, leave a comment, call me, or email me.

Now maybe you're not interested in working an extra 10-15 hours and making $1,000 - $3,000/month extra.  That's cool.  I know what we do isn't for everyone, but odds are, you could use what we do or you know someone who could use what we do.  We're busy, but it's a good busy - we have a lot of families to talk to still who need us - yours might be one of them.  If you have been thinking about life insurance, auto/home insurance, investments, or looking at consolidating your debt, paying less, and for less time - let's talk.  We offer a completely free financial needs analysis customized to your situation.  Even if you don't buy from me - I don't really care.  It's good to see what you have and where you need to be, right? 

To my lovely readers who've made it this far, let me ask you this - are you on track to retire?  Are you sure?  How do you know?  Do you really know how much your family needs to have saved to retire when you want to retire?  What if you want to retire early?  What if you want to retire and actually play when retired? (Travel, anyone?  That's my goal :) )  Well let me give you those numbers.  Like I said, I really don't care if you buy from me as long as I leave you in a better situation - and knowing what you have, where you're going, and how to get there is definitely a better situation.  You're probably skeptical of my intentions - but that's how un-salesy we are.  I really don't care if you buy from me.  If I can put you in a better spot, you will.  If not, you're already in a good spot.  Wouldn't it be nice to have that confirmed? 

One last plea - I know you're sick of my plug - if you're not looking for extra income during this time, and you're not interested in insurance, investments, or loans, I bet you know some people who could use one or both, right?  We are a referral-based company.  We work by word of mouth.  Even if you're not interested in what I have to offer, maybe you know someone who might be. 

Email me - and we can chat about any or all of these situations - extra $$, financial needs analysis, or referrals of people you think I might be able to help.  I really appreciate you, my lovely readers.  K, plug over. :)