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. :)

March snuck up on me - so it's time for new décor!  Yay for St. Patrick's Day (however hard it was to find free stuff to go with it).  Now I need to design an Easter one.

The title says it all.  We had an awesome day - week, even.  We hired four or five people this week and have a couple more in the works for the next couple weeks - for now.  Only wish Zack and looked at the scoreboards sooner and told me sooner that I needed 2 life apps by the end of the month to be qualifying for the company trip.  Essentially two or three days when focusing on recruiting all week has not worked out so well.  Darn quadruple credit.  Oh well - we'll just keep hiring and apps will follow.  I'll be in San Diego this August still - just you watch.  The goal is at least division during March Madness - but I think regional wouldn't be too hard.  Maybe new goal should be Matt gets regional and I'll get division.  But then that's not really helping our team hit district.... guess we gotta run 30 x 30 this month! Woot!  (I know all of your are completely lost by this paragraph.  That is okay - know that our business is growing and we're awesome... that was humble... we're doing awesome.  There.  That's a little more PC.)

When we got back to Payson, we stopped by the condo - it's textured now.  They're still running the furnace - which you're not supposed to do during construction. Last week or so, my dad was over and they were running the furnace - and so he took a look at it, and they didn't even have a filter in it - which can totally screw up your furnace.  We need to tell the builder it needs to be thoroughly cleaned now before we move in.  Oh well.  They've also done more on the outside.  We do have some rock on our building, just not quite the same as all the other buildings.  And now, what you're all waiting for - pictures!

Hello friends...family...whoever else stalks my blog... With the holiday, I have something else to write about - yipee! I know you've all been dying to get an update.  Nothing very exciting.  Still at dad's.  The condo has been sheetrocked.  The brickwork is mostly done.  The gas lines were actually run in our unit (thanks for checking on that, Dad :) ).  We're still working.  Matt's still going to school.  We still haven't transferred our records because we don't know which ward we'll stay in for the next couple months. 

Our business is going well and we actually have a small team working with us.  Training and moving into management has been way fun - scary, but fun :)  We love our team and are prepped to grow like crazy!  And when that happens - buh-bye full-time day job! (I don't dare mention the name - I did that once, and found out we have a googler.  So I will complain without naming them :) )

We also got our rent deposit back, and our tax returns. Yay!  My car is now paid off! (5 years later..yes, I know that's a standard timeline, but I actually had a 6 year loan - so I'm way excited it's done a year early!)  When we get the 8,000 tax credit back, we should also be able to pay off Matt's car!  You'd think that would leave us with no vehicle debt, but we still have the bike.  Sigh.  Oh well, the 2 cars gives us 508.54 extra/month!  It will just be making sure we can make all of our payments until the tax credit goes through :)

In other news, Matt's little brother, Devan, got his mission call to Mexico Léon, Spanish speaking on Thursday!  We're very excited for him. :) He enters the MTC June 30th.  It makes me wonder a little if Jason feels left out for not going Spanish speaking? However, Matt says that Jason can understand quite a bit of it, so maybe not.  (Obv. Matt went to Peru, and Curtis went to Orlando, FL Spanish speaking.)

Back to Valentine's day... we didn't have anything planned at all.  Friday I was thinking, the movie Valentine's Day looks fun, let's go to that :)  So once we determined we had nothing between 11am and 7pm, I decided we were going to go to the movie.  I bought tickets Saturday morning before training.  We went to training 9-11am as usual, had a team meeting afterward, dropped Garth off at his house, and got lunch at Bajio.  Then we headed up to the Wynnsong to watch our movie.  It was good.  It was definitely funny and cute.  We stopped at Staples on the way home because I wanted to see if they had any cute briefcase-type things for an affordable price.  (They don't, by the way, so don't bother.)  Then we looked for a file box.  We acquired one when Matt did the accounting for the hockey team, and, thanks to Zack, he now wants one for in his trunk.  Matt was tired and not really into looking, though, so we left.  Matt took a nap and I browsed the company store and made my first purchases ever (brochures and whatnot and business cards - now that the new company logo is out and everything).  Now I need to print that information and file it so I don't forget about it for taxes next year.  Also, does anyone have a good/easy way to track their mileage?  Because I'm at a loss.  Then we spent Saturday evening on an appointment.  Then we slept in today.  Oops.  Neither of us heard Matt's alarm, and I still haven't updated my Sunday alarm for 9am church... so we woke up when it went off at 8:45am.

Anyway, Happy Valentine's Day/Singles Awareness Day everyone :)

I know it has been a couple weeks since I've updated, but that's because I literally haven't had any time!  We started off busy with the business.  We've got a new recruit who's doing awesome, and we ran our first training appointments with him.  Oh! I finally took my life insurance test and passed with an 84 percent! (Matt got 79 and you need a 70 to pass.)  My information was faxed to the company and submitted to the state.  Now I just have to wait for the state to do their thing and then for the company to appoint me and I can run appointments without Matt. :)  Anyway, so this all kept us busy for a week or so.

Thursday the 21st, we went down to look at the model for the Ridgestone Condos in Payson.  They're amazing!  About 1,270 square feet, 3 bed, 2 bath with an actual laundry room (not just a washer and dryer in a closet).  And! - get this - there's quite a bit of storage too!  Now if there were a garage - they'd be the perfect condo.  As it stands, they are the biggest and nicest condos we've seen (and we've seen a lot of condos over the last year or so).  Their prices have been steadily dropping for the past 2 years, and the cheapest is currently $119,900 (middle unit, ground and third floor are $129,900).  I'd pretty much decided we were going to try to buy one because they were new and still in our price range.  Then we visited the model and chatted with the builder, a friend of both of our families, Stan Goodrich.  That's when we discovered their true amazingness.

During our chat with Stan, we found out how even more amazing the condos are - they'll actually let you plumb for gas at the range and the dryer! (Even after sheetrock - they're crazy - fortunately, there's no sheetrock up yet, so it was cheaper).  Plus! You can have tile or wood laminate standard - and you can mix and match!  We're putting wood laminate in the kitchen/dining and tile in the laundry, bathrooms, and entryway. Right, guess I should continue with the timeline.

We told Stan we wanted to do it and we'd let him know for sure by the beginning of the next week.  So Friday, we visited with their preferred lender (initially we'd been using Wells Fargo since Matt was working there when we started house shopping, but I have no loyalties :) ) After chatting with him and running numbers, giving him all our personal financial information (less one check stub from Matt - which he finally dropped off this week), he figured we should be fine to qualify for 120K.  We left there, sat in the car in the parking lot, and made phone calls - to the parents, to Grandpa Erdmann (we're moving! thanks for everything!), to friends, and to our realtor.  *sigh* At this point I got upset and depressed for two days.  Oh! and we called Stan to tell him we really were going to buy the condo.  We set a time for that evening to go back over, sign the papers, and pay the deposit.

Now let me explain why I was depressed (sorry this post is getting long) - the condos are currently not working with an agent, and there is no commission built into the listed price.  Well, Brook (our realtor) has been with us for the last year or so while we've looked at houses....and he's extended-extended family (married Matt's mom's cousin I believe).  He couldn't make it Friday night, so we ended up back there on Saturday evening (after three training appointments plus normal training in the morning - long day!) After discussions, we're paying Brook about a 2.5 percent commission, so our price is now $122,900.  Then we signed the papers and paid our builder's deposit. 

They were updating the upgrades pricing sheet as lots of things had actually gotten cheaper with the economy the way it is, so Tuesday, we went down to pick our options.  We went with standard on everything except for the aforementioned gas lines and to get a gas range (Total upgrades = $530, making the total price = $123,430).  I know you're all dying to know our colors - so I'll tell you, but I only have internet pics of some options for certain, and one that's close :).  Sorry - I have no idea who the carpet or cabinets are through.

Paint - atrium white (This will ultimately be only the trim and ceiling color - but we didn't want to pay more for two-tone when I have lots of colors in mind for the different rooms, it's easier to tape the trim than the carpet :) )