Lessons Learned

• When buying a house, it may be best to find what you want and then keep looking. Then, when you find the PERFECT house, go look at it in the rain, sunny days, etc. Look at all the surrounding areas, neighborhoods, schools, etc. Knock on the neighbors' doors. See what they have to say about the builder, neighborhood, find out how they seem, etc. Then, if you still like everything you saw, heard and love it, go put in an offer AFTER you get someone (not associated to you- but reliable) to come out and do the inspection. When you put the offer in, go low. Sure, get the comparables from the county website to see what similar houses sold for, but compared to the current market, appraisal, etc. Make sure the offer you put in is low. You can always barder back and forth with the seller/ builder and go from there and if they out-right ignore you, you can go back with another offer a little higher.
• If you get said house, do not go fill it up with brand new furniture. Furniture is just a material thing. Furniture and updates to the house can always be done (with cash) at a later point. Yes, you may need/want something to sit on besides a cardboard box that you unpacked with, but ikea furniture will do just fine until you can save up previously mentioned cash to get something else or find a nice find in a yard sale. BORROWING on time is not the same as cash!!! I.e. purchasing furniture from Rooms to Go because you can pay on it for the next 3 years at 0% interest. You should not do it. NEVER. EVER. Cash or nothing (well, debit card= cash). ALSO... along the same lines you will get caught in a trap with this 0% stuff. We did this with our TV at best buy. They were having a HUGE sale for firefighters and police in DeKalb county. So, yes we just had to have one. And, since it was 0% for however long, we could just pay it time by time. THIS was horrible. But, at the time, we were into material things. It was bad. But, with His forgiveness and grace, we have changed our ways. One just has to remember, You can never keep up with the Jones' ... guess what? The Jones' are broke too!
• Which brings me to my next point. Please, don't ever purchase from rooms to go. Their furniture for the most part is, for lack of better words, cruddy. We have had nothing but bad experiences with them and just trust me and save yourself heartache and money.
• Have at least 3 months pay saved up if you are planning on getting pregnant. You never know what may happen!
• As much as someone may annoy you, you annoy someone else just as much. So, love on that person who annoys you even though you may not want to.
• Working is a gift... some people cannot work due to illness, not being able to get a job, even due to having some sort of mental illness that does not allow them to hold a job. Working is a gift and though, most times I would rather be somewhere else, it is just another chance to tell someone about the wonderfulness of Jesus and all of His glory! Maybe not so overwhelmingly, but little by little. You just never know who you run into that may just need to hear about Him or even just need you to smile at them!
• Have you heard of the Equity Accelerator Program? The design or purpose is to make semi-weekly payments of your mortgage so that you will essentially pay down more of your principal on your mortgage and over the years you will pay drastically less interest and your mortgage will turn from a 30year to more of a 27 year (depending on your monthly payment). DON'T DO IT!!!!! Why may you ask? Yes... and I shall answer. First, there is an ACH withdraw fee. Yea you may say that overall you are still cutting down the interest and years you will pay so it is worth it. I thought that too. But, it is not. Second, due to federal guidelines and other bank guidelines, the bank cannot take any payment that is less than your mortgage payment amount. I.e. your mortgage payment is $500. Thus the program takes out $250 twice a month, usually the Monday after a pay day. They will charge $5.50 for the transaction. So, you pay $255.50 every two weeks. They then hold your money, all $511 (with the fees) and pay your mortgage in full on the first of the month when it is due ($500) keeping the interest that may have accrued from your $511 and they obviously keep your $11 fee. The reason this works is that two times a year people that get paid every two weeks will get a third pay check. So, the company will keep that $250 in their bank account until the next month comes along that has three weeks in it. Since the banks cannot take any payment less than the mortgage payment they will not put that $250 towards principal. When the next month rolls around that has the three pay periods, they first, pay the mortgage payment with the first two paychecks equalling $500 then with the third paycheck they collect $250, add it to the other $250 hanging out in their bank account and pay the extra $500 mortgage payment on your house. Now, I see the light. Yes it took me/ us 3 years to see it. No, we are not happy about this, but since we do see it, I wanted to share to anyone else who will listen/ read. It is not worth it at all. The fees are ridiculous, they have absolutely messed up our mortgage and we have cancelled this program. Bad news? No, I do suggest two other options. Option 1: Pretend like you are in this program. Take 1/2 of the mortgage out of your first paycheck. So from the example above where the mortgage is $500, you would take $250. And, again from the second paycheck take the additional $250. Then, pay the mortgage. This way, it is much easier to come up with, it is the same amount every pay check and it is almost like a "payment plan" for your mortgage. Doing this, it is the same principal as above. You will end up with two extra payments during the year. When you get to the extra payment, I would first apply it to any outstanding bills I have. Medical bills, credit cards, etc. Option 2: Do all of the above as if you were following the program but when you come to the extra payments I would then put it in savings. If savings is well built, I would then put it aside (in either checking or savings) for the additional mortgage payment. Whatever the outcome, chosing option 1 or 2, it is better to actively "pretend" to be in the program or act as if you are on you own and not participate in a third party where they collect outrageous fees and have control over your money. It is just like Clark Howard and Dave Ramsey always talk about... having control over your own money and knowing/ directing every penny of it!