Gather Little by Little

With a loud Whoosh, our typical fall schedule arrived this week. Football season started for my 13 year old this week. He’s currently playing in Pop Warner but is also planning on trying out for the school team next week as well. The school has been running 2 hour conditioning sessions each day this week from 3:45 – 5:45. Following that, he then goes directly to his Pop Warner team practice which is from 6-8:00 3 nights a week.

I am truely amazed and very very proud of him. He has attended 4 hours of football workouts almost everyday this week. Last night towards the end of his Pop Warner practice, he got hit in the nose and developed a pretty serious nose bleed. His coach made him sit down. My son watched his team finish practice with their typical wind sprints and as they finished, his nose finally stopped bleeding. His immediate response? “Dad, I’m going to go do the wind sprints I missed.”

I of course wouldn’t let him for fear his nose would start bleeding again, but I was also very proud of the level of dedication and team spirit he has. He felt guilty about missing the wind sprints with his team mates. My son has strong character and lots of it. That makes me very proud.

Also this week we’ve been busy trying to get an offer together on another house we found up in the mountains. Remember I said that even though things didn’t work out with the house we previously made an offer on that I knew God had a plan for us? Well, we found the perfect house for us. While it is at the top of our price range, we can afford it and due to the housing market decline, we should be able to get it for nearly $70,000 less than the normal asking price.

The house is on almost 4 acres, right on the side of a mountain, has a beautiful mountain view, is more than 3000 square feet and has a creek running down the left side of the property. Now if we can just sell our house…

Which brings me to the next thing that is currently consuming our life: preparing our house to sell. Yesterday, our buyer’s agent invited 13 real estate agents to our home for an open house. The purpose was two fold, increase traffic to our house and receive feedback on things we can do to make it more appealing to potential buyers. And provide feedback they did. We’ll be spending this weekend painting, cleaning, power washing and repairing various things in our home based on their recommendations. We’ll also be having someone come in to clean the carpets next week as well (Any recommendations?)

I wrote earlier this week about how I purchased a gently used 2000 Ford Expedition on Sunday. I ran to the DMV this week to get it registered, then to the inspection station to get it inspected, and finally to my insurance agent to get my insurance set-up for it. i have been driving it some this week, and so far it’s doing great! It does suck gas like their is no tomorrow (10-15MPG based on my scan gauge mpg meter), but it’s nice to be able to ride together as a family.

Oh! I almost forgot. School starts on Monday as well, so we’ve been buying clothes and school supplies along with attending school open houses. In between all of this, I worked a full 40 hour week, still wrote 5 articles for Gather Little by Little and my wife was at home doing laundry from our vacation and cleaning up our home in preparation for the Realtor open house.

Woosh!!!! That is exactly what Monday sounded like as we arrived back from our house hunting trip to the mountains. I felt like the subway train of fall pulled right into the station in the middle of our house.

I know my friend Lynnae from Being Frugal.net is going through this right now as well, how about all of you? Has the subway train of fall whooshed into your house?

The Gathering

Here are my favorite articles this week:

• Frugal Decorating: Save 50% to 85% On Paint – I’ll be using this advice this weekend as we’ll be purchasing some paint to touch up our interior walls. Great suggestion!
• Will We See the End of Auto Leases in the Next Few Years? – I sure hope so as they are a huge budget drain.
• The Myth of Multitasking: How Doing It All Gets Nothing Done – I agree, multitasking is distracting. I personally feel the more you try to do at one time, the less you get done overall. Not to mention, quality suffers as well. I’ve seen this first hand on software projects I’ve managed.
• Tightwad Tuesday: Don’t Be Squeamish Over “Gently Used” – I’m a huge advocate of used. Not only is it environmentally friendly, but it makes us good stewards and saves money.
• The Path to Mediocrity: Doing What Works For You and Other Self-Limiting Philosophies – Plain and simple, this is a great read. Thanks Flexo, well done.
• New $7,500 Tax Credit For First Time Home Buyers. – I SO wish they would do something like this for all homebuyers, not just first time. I really hope this does help the market though, as I need to sell my house!
• Would You Prefer a Four Day Work Week? – Nope, but I would prefer working at home 5 days a week.
• Living In A Down Economy – Determining Your Bare Bones Budget – Something everyone probably needs to be taking a good look at right now. I know we have.
• How To Change Your Car’s Engine Oil – This is something I was going to consider doing, along with writing about it. CleverDude provides a great write-up on how to do change your oil, but his cost analysis really has me second guessing the savings. I think maybe I’ll just stick with paying the dealership $20 to do mine.
• Why You Should Never Put Credit Cards Before the Mortgage Payment – As most of you know, I work for a bank (which is why I blog anonymously). I was talking with a friend a few months back who is a manager over in our credit card area. She said people were doing this and I was shocked! The reason? People often live off their credit cards these days. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
• Fourteen Techniques for Improving Your Work-Life Balance – Excellent tips. I always focus on getting more done in less time. I seldom work more than 40 hours, but always focus on getting more done than my peers that work 45+ hours a week.

Hey…have a great weekend! I’ve got some great guest posts lined up for the next few Saturdays, so make sure you visit over the weekend as well!

Photo by: Trinity (The answer is out there, Neo, and it’s looking for you, and it will find you if you want it to)