New Job?

I handed in my resignation last Tuesday after we got the green light with the home inspection. I will work right up until the move, my last day will actually be the same as our possession. I volunteered myself for some overtime Easter weekend – only a few days before the actually move - to squeeze as much pay as I can out of this job.

Last Friday I got a text message from a co-worker letting me know that there was a posting for a position in one of our other offices. I asked her to forward me the email (since I wasn’t at work) and that weekend I dusting off the ol’ resume. 

The job would be different from my current position but since I’m staying with the same company my pension and benefits won’t be affected. Another huge plus: it’s full time!

When I got to work on Monday I loaded my emails and there was the email for the position (everyone got this email) and a personal email from our HR Manager with the following message:

“Not sure how far (town where I live) is from (town where job is) – but this will be an interesting posting for you if you’re interested. Contact (name of manager) if you have any questions.”

I submitted my resume first thing Monday morning and arranged to speak to the manager by phone. I've never met her so I thought it would be good to at least put a voice to my name. The phone conversation went extremely well.

On top of a what seemed like a good impression, I had my current manager pull me aside, letting me know how she thought I would be really good for that position. I let her know I applied and she said she was actually going to contact the manager to recommend me personally. THEN (okay things are going to get weird to explain) I had one of the financial planners I would be working with in the new position pull me aside (he travels to our branch once a week) to let me know he heard I applied and was so excited! I guess they have been looking for a good office assistant for a while. He was also putting in a personal reference for me. I would be mostly working for him, so to have a reference like that is huge. I was so grateful to both - I never asked them to do this for me - so for them to go out of their ways to vouch is definitely a confidence booster. 

Since all that happened I've had numerous co-workers tell me they hoped I applied, including some from our other locations making sure I seen the position. Everyone has been so supportive. 

The job closes this Friday - wish me luck!!

- M 

Why It’s Important to Have an Emergency Fund

This week I learned why it’s important to have an emergency fund ready and available. G’s paycheque was messed up.

Back in May the payroll systems switched. G said it was a headache at first but once he got used to submitting his claims it was easy. Not only easy but the payout of overtime is down to around 2 months of waiting instead of the minimum of 6 months we were waiting before. Don’t remind me of the 8 months it took to get G’s raise…

Fast forward to Wednesday's paycheque which looked like this:

Notice all those lovely negatives? That new system was being really generous and giving everyone too much money for overtime, on call and shift differential claims. So then this paystub shows up with a wall of scary negatives dating all the way back to June! 

We had no warning that this was going to happen or the amount it would be. Poor G went into the office Wednesday (one of his days off) to compare his accepted claims, with the original paid amount then this new deductions. Oi. He was there for 5 hours. In the end he confirmed that the amount of hours he entered (and were approved) were correct but they had indeed overpaid. But he also found one court date that they originally paid but took back the full amount earned. He sent in a ticket (he even gives tickets to the payroll dept lol) to see about getting it resolved or at least an explanation.

If you add up all those deductions up it comes to $1619.81. If this was a regular paycheque for G we would have only been left about $400. Luckily, he had a payout and it evened this paycheque out for us but I had heard of them leaving people stranded like that. One lady I know was telling me about how when her husband did an isolated posting and their rent from the Crown owned housing they lived in was taken directly off the paycheque. Everything was fine and dandy until a year later when the payroll dept noticed they charged them too little and then took all the money off at once. This was a single income family with two little kids, and they were left with very little for two weeks...

We were lucky enough to have it not really affect the pay it still made me extremely aware how important an Emergency Fund is. G works for the Government of Canada – the Government people! I know I shouldn't bite the hand that feeds us, but seriously? Had this happened to us a few years ago when we had nothing saved, it would have been a disaster.

So thank you Emergency Fund. Although there have been times I pondered if we should do something more with you, I’m glad we resisted. You never know just when you might need that little bit of cushion and piece of mind.

- M

A Home Sold & A House Bought: The Final Chapter

If you haven’t read Part One or Part Two click for the links

Okay, so ND Chic totally got it right. We went with house #2!

Not only was it the house I had the best feeling about; it was also in the best shape, in our price range, and was the ‘youngest’.

Okay, so there we were in the basement of House #3. G and I discussing, our realtor adding some input and then G and I discussing even more. We opened up the offers $40,000 below asking price - we knew no matter how much we offered, the seller would counter and we weren’t going to offer the asking price. So we were able to sign the documents right then and there and went along our day.

The next morning our realtor calls up and says we have a counter. The seller only dropped by $10,000. We aren’t impressed. So we add $10,000 to our offer and the seller counters back within a few hours, dropping only $5000 more stating they were firm. At this point we are only $10,000 shy of agreeing and we were getting at the top of what we wanted to pay. There was lots of back and forth that day, all within a short amount of time too. So we backed off, or at least that’s what the seller and their realtor thought. We talked it over with our realtor and she suggested playing a bit of head games since so much had happened that day. Wait and counter in the morning - give the seller one sleepless night with our pause. Let them think about if it was really worth loosing the sale of the house by a few thousand dollars. We agreed we would counter $5000 more - meeting half way but not doing that until the morning. 

It’s totally worked.

First thing that morning (before the offer went in) the sellers realtor was contacting our realtor asking if we were going to consider the offer. “Well they aren’t sure, there are a few other houses they were looking at and they are getting new the top of what they want to spend on this house.” Late morning, our offer went in and we had a signed acceptance within the hour! Yay! 

The only conditions we had: Make sure it was cleaned up, aka all the garbage and crap was gone from the renters, Financing and Home Inspection.

Financing is approved. We were actually approved within two days, lol. I remember when G was trying to get approval for the mortgage on our current house and had such a rough time. No assets, LOC and Credit Cards all with balances, car loan and a shitty income. How much can change in a short amount of time. 

Home Inspection was done today and was extremely positive. The guy was really impressed with everything and confirmed the fix ups we already were figuring. G drove down to do a walk thru with the inspector after he was done and said that the renters had been all moved out and things looked a lot better then when we first seen the house.

Conditions should be removed this week. I’m so excited!

This month is going to go so fast. Now to get everything else organized, at least this move isn't from Ontario to Saskatchewan. Two provinces (then) vs. two hours (now). Much much better.

- M  

A Home Sold & A House Bought: Part Two

If you didn’t read Part One of this post here is the link.

I’m so glad we went on our own that day, I really needed the time to mental regroup. We looked at every single house that seemed promising - over 15 houses. Two that we really wanted to look at - we couldn’t get appointments for that day.

 

• I’m just going to add a little side bar here: I know that doesn’t seem like a lot of houses but it was ALL of the houses in our price range. We are transferring to another small town so that was pretty much the majority of the housing market.

Out of all those houses: only one was left on our list (plus the two houses we couldn’t get into). I have never been so defeated in my life. When we go home to our little sweet old home that night I started crying. We weren’t going to find a home within our price range that was livable. Time was running out, I was exhausted, still sick and stressed. Thank god for G because he calmed me right down and promised me we wouldn’t be homeless (lol).

So the week goes by, we get pre-approved for a $250,000 mortgage (out of our price range/comfort zone). We also finally get approved for the House Hunting Trip. So beginnings lots of conference calls, reading of policy, asking questions, referring back to the policy when answers are slightly confusing. I shouldn’t complain because there are a lot of perks that come with a transfer - which I will get too - but oh my gosh is there a lot to take in.

So fast forward to this last Monday, three houses left.

House Number 1: Slightly out of our comfort zone but if we got it for the right price it would work. A few issues with it that we would need to fix but awesome for resale (remember we aren’t only trying to find a home for us but G will get transferred sometime in the next 5 years so we need to think about resale too). Any changes we do to the property won’t add anymore value, since it’s pretty much all done. Hmmm, something to think about. We get a text from the realtor who is selling the property: very motivated sellers. Hmmm.

House Number 2: This is the only property that made the cut during the first house hunting trip. The realtor (different from House Number 1) texted our realtor and let us know that the seller was flexible with the price. Hmmmmmmmmmm. 

• Side bar (again) - You might be thinking “Wow. Desperate much?” Yup! We are buying not only a buyer market but a depressed buyers market. In the last 7 months: only two houses have sold and they sold for way under the asking price. So many of the houses we looked during our first trip were vacant, because people up and left due to the downturn in the economy there. It sounds evil but during negotiate we used this to our advantage. 

House Number 2 (cont): Okay, price thing shoved to the back of my mind I needed to focus on the property. It currently is a rental but the people were starting to move out and it would be vacant for March (so might be available for a quick closing). Kitchen is beautifully upgraded, new furnace, brand new fascia, soffits and eaves, new washer and dryer, attached garage with huge workspace for G, very family friendly. The bad: the bathrooms need a complete gut job, the roof is old (no leaking yet) but will most likely need to be replaced soon, the renters completely destroyed the place… It was so dirty, they had a puppy who chewed on the stair railings. I guess the owner didn’t even know about all this and when we texted the realtor to let her know it was disgusting she was shocked. The renters had only been there for two months… Oi. 

House Number 3: This house is a foreclosure, title already had gone thru the court systems and is now owned by a local bank. It has been on the market for over a year, just sitting there empty. G was so excited about this one, it has so much potential! Amazing price, 150k below what the other houses around it were trying to sell for. But once we got inside I understood why. So much work, it wouldn’t even be livable right away. I tried to open some of the kitchen drawers and they wouldn’t open because the tile on the kitchen counters was blocking the drawer from opening… LOL I was just laughing at this point and saying nope nope nope nope nope. Surprise: this isn’t the house we chose. That tile mistake wasn’t just in the kitchen, same thing in the bathroom! The bedrooms were so small, only a twin would be able to fit in two and maybe in a double for the master. And the real kicker: some of the siding was already falling off. Like one piece was crumpled on the ground. Really? 

So while we were in House Number 3’s unfinished basement we discussed our options and made an offer one of the houses. (HGTV's House Hunters Theme Song): Did we choose:

House Number 1: The finished, slightly-out-of-comfort-zone-priced property with the motivated sellers but no room to make money?

House Number 2: The dirty formal rental that needs some work with the good bones but also potentially expensive fixes for the future? 

House Number 3: No, just no.

Stay tuned to find out ;)

A Home Sold & A House Bought: Part One

Let me just start with: I don’t know how we pulled this off but we had too and we did it. 

WE DID IT!!!!!!!!!! :D

Okay, enough celebrating (yay!), let me go back to beginning:

In the last post, I let you all know that the buyer had accepted a counter offer and our home was under contract. There were three conditions: financing, home inspection, furnace inspection. 

Step One: The financing. The Credit Union wasn’t an issue - the guy that bought our house has been a long time member and helps run the very successful family business here in town. Not a major risk. CMHC however stepped in. They wanted an appraisal of our property. Normally I would think this is routine but the following text from our realtor scared the shit out of me:

“Now you can start praying too. If this appraisal is too low (Buyer’s name) either has to come up with cash difference or you will have to negotiate a lower price for it to go through. (Buyer’s name) argument could be that no bank will finance it at that price. Just giving you the worst case scenario."

I didn’t sleep at all that night, lol. 

So the appraisal came and went. A few days later, we were told the financing conditions were removed. Huugggeeee sigh of relief. We actually just found out that the appraisal did come in under the purchase price (although we will never know what the amount was) but the buyer just put down more money. I guess that’s one plus about living in a small town with not a lot of good housing options: people over pay. We got $4000 more than we were expecting on this house (aka our bottom line) so it was a nice plus for us. 

So one condition down, two conditions left. 

Step Two: Furnace Inspection. Tuesday (two days before the conditions are to be removed) I get a text from our realtor asking if the furnace inspector could stop in a few hours to do the inspection. I'm not going to say no, we are running out of time to do all of this.

Wait - I need to you to also know during this hectic/stressful week was also the week my body decided to get the flu. I haven’t had the flu since I was a kid! I was off work for 4 entire days and technically should have stayed home an additional day because I had no voice from coughing and throwing up. I had an infection PLUS Influenza 1 - I lost a scary amount of weight in a short amount of time, I couldn’t stand up for more than a few minutes before needing to sit because my heart rate was so fast, and couldn't keep anything down. Not fun.

Anyways, so I was home (throwing up and on my death bed) and was able to let the furnace man do what he needed to do. That went well and passed - the furnace in this current house is old but still does it’s job. 

Step Three: Wednesday (one day before conditions need to be removed) we get another text from our Realtor asking if the home inspection can be done Friday morning. Sure…. but conditions are supposed to be removed Thursday with this contract. “Oh shit.” We said the extra day doesn’t matter to us, but we would like to negotiate our closing date. The original closing we supposed to be March 11th, this wasn’t going to happen realistically for us.

Wait! I need to explain a bit with how these RCMP transfers work. There are a lot of people you need approval from to go look for a house. We have our Brookfield rep, who has been awesome and answered every single question we had so far. Then there’s our … hmmm I forgot what she’s called, lets ask G:

Me: “(Name removed), what is her title technically?"

G: “Relocation something or other. The technical term for her job is useless"

We had a good chuckle. 

That woman, works for the RCMP and gives us approval dates for the House Hunting Trip. Then there G’s sergeant. Then there’s also our realtor, although she is very flexible with dates and my manger too. A lot of working parts here... Okay so we were looking at getting our House Hunting Trip approval the week after our conditions removed (oh I guess I should let you all know that Brookfield and the RCMP don’t see your house as ‘Sold’ until all conditions are removed thus leaving not a lot of time if you need a short closing), G’s sergeant stopped that request right away: not enough officers to cover. The soonest they could all make it work was this week (Feb 22-26). So we asked our buyer if we could push the closing date to April 1st to give us more time and we would approve a one day extension on the condition removal date. 1 days for 3 weeks: seems fair right?? Thank a higher power he is flexible with dates because he agreed no problem. Other huge sigh of relief.

And guess what? We went on Family Day to go look at houses anyways. G and I both had the day off and didn't feel like waiting around. I'm glad we did because THAT was a rough day and a huge reality check.

(To Be Continued...)

Accepted Offer

Wow, what a week!

Remember that little perk of working at the credit union? Well that hunch turned into an offer! Only it was $15,000 below what we were asking. When we got the offer - we countered right away, no waiting around. We dropped our price by $5,000, leaving the buyers conditions. Today our real estate agent came over the signed and accepted offer!

There's still things that can go wrong, of course. The current conditions we still have are financing and home inspection - which is pretty routine.

Staying positive!

Oh wait... now we need to find a house to live in. Fuc--

Happenings

So with the realities of moving getting closer and closer, a few weeks ago I had checked out the "Joy of Less" by Francine Jay from our local library. Even though I spent the entire year decluttering our house, I know there is always room for improvement. What I liked about this book is it didn't just focus on decluttering techniques but the mindset behind why we feel the need to keep certain items. Francine was also keen on reminder the reader that minimalism isn't going to be the same for everyone: minimalism is about what is enough for you. That might sound simple enough to understand but I found it extremely helpful to remember when dealing with G's items. Even though we live in the same house, our ideas of enough are different which is okay. I'm getting better at not being so uptight, lol. 

So after being inspired by the book, I went thru my items a few more times. Most of these items were clothes but I was able to fill another entire box for donation. Funny, how many times I've gone thru my closet and yet have still kept items I'm uncomfortable in and never wear. Those were the items I got rid of this week. 

This week the weather was absolutely beautiful here - it actually felt like spring! I got to wear a lot of the skirts and dresses I love but can't wear when it's -30C outside. Felt good to dress up a little and still be able to walk to work. The cold weather is supposed to return next week but at least winter will feel a bit shorter.

The no spend week has gone very well! Decluttering has helped with that since as I toss more things away, my desire to spend goes waaaay down. There was only one hiccup. On Wednesday G was subpoenaed to court (in a different town) on his day off and needed to buy lunch. He put in 8 hours of overtime so a $15 meal was okay in my eyes. We didn't met our goals of a no spend but it turned into a really low spending week instead. I'm still happy. :) 

- M