Gather Little by Little

The trees here in the South are just now starting the change. Thus begins my favorite time of the year! It’s also T-minus 12 days and counting until we close on our mountain house. I’m sure you guys will be glad when we finally get moved so you don’t have to hear about it anymore! Everything is going on schedule, the inspection was completed this week and only a few minor issues were found. The seller’s have confirmed they will fix everything identified during the inspection before we close. The appraisal came back yesterday and the house appraised for $22,500 more than we’re paying for it. That means we’re walking in day 1 with $22,500 in equity plus the amount we put down, which at this point should be about 10% or so. We had hoped to do more, but are keeping some reserves since our current house still hasn’t sold. I faxed off all of our bank statements to the underwriters yesterday. The mortgage company has everything they need at this point and will completing the final paperwork.

We decided to go with Two Men and a Truck for our moving company. I called about 5 different companies overall. One of them never returned my call. One gave me a really low ball quote over the phone and was hesitant to send anybody out the house. Another came out, but their quote was really high and they just didn’t seem very professional at all. The two final candidates were Mayflower and Two Men and a Truck (TMT). Mayflower was more expensive, but agreed to match and/or beat the TMT quote, which was about $1,000 lower. I asked Mayflower to just provide their lowest bid and they wouldn’t do it without seeing the TMT quote. Since TMT was very professional and came in with the most competitive price, I decided to go with them. They also provide a 15% discount on moving supplies from their store.

I picked up the boxes I bought on Craigslist Monday afternoon. It was well over 130 boxes and included about 10 dish boxes, 6 wardrobe boxes, and 4 or 5 picture frame boxes. All for $125! That’s $1.04/box! My Expedition was filled from top to bottom with boxes. They all just barely fit. Given this deal, we decided to do our own packing. We’ll begin getting serious about packing weekend.

Lots of stuff to do yet, but we’re getting there. The whole process is stressful but exciting.

Important stuff

A few miscellaneous important things I’d like to mention:

• I’ll be hosting the Carnival of Debt Reduction on Monday. Anyone with a blog post on their personal debt reduction or advice on how to reduce debt is welcome to submit. The deadline is 5:00pm on Sunday. If you have a blog and aren’t submitting to carnivals, you’re missing out on a great way to get a free link and some visibility for your blog.
• Speaking of carnivals. I participated in the Carnival of Money Hacks, Carnival of Money Stories, Festival of Frugality, and the Carnival of Personal Finance. Thanks to all the of hosts and make sure you head over and read them.
• October 15th is Blog Action Day 2008. This year’s theme is poverty. More than 7,000 sites and 9.5 million readers will be participating either through writing articles or by reading them. I’ll be participating along with my M-Network buddies and many other blogs on my blogroll. I really enjoyed participating last year.

The gathering

I’ve gathered up all of my favorite articles this week. Lots of great stuff, especially with the economy the way it is.

• An Open Letter To The Readers Of My Two Dollars. – You know, this is really a shame. Personal attacks just for expressing his opinion???? I thought this was America.
• Is Now A Good Time To Buy A House? – Uh, I sure hope so…
  
• Sometimes it Pays to Talk – I completely agree. My problem is that I’m fairly introverted, so I really have to work at this.
  
• Changes You Can Make – Trent shared his article with me via twitter thinking I might enjoy it. He was right. Great article and what a great memory.
• Dear Congress, Wanna Help Your Country? Cut the Fat
• I don’t dream anymore
• My 401k Is Losing Money. What Should I Do? – Seems next to the economy, this is the subject of interest on the internet
  
• Think this is the end? Write yourself a new beginning
• Get Out Of Debt: PearBudget Spreadsheet Hacks
• Retro Gather Little by Little – I thought I’d begin sharing an older post with you, so here’s the first: 10 ideas to help you teach kids to save money published by me on July 8th 2007. Note how different my writing style and quality is in these older posts!

Photo by: seeks2dream