Information sourced from Genworth Financial

As I mentioned in my goals posts, H and I are really interested in purchasing a home sometime in the future.  Though I doubt that we will buy a home next year because of timing and getting married, though we will continue to save for a down payment.  Of course, we’re going to try to get a twenty percent down payment – which wont be too hard (relatively speaking) because we live in a very low cost of living area.  You can still buy houses close to my work for less than 100k, though most have just two bedrooms.  We are in a similar size home now, but I know that will probably be a bit small for us, I’d imagine.

Of course, being a large purchase and one that not only appeals to the sensibility of the owners, it’s a heavily emotional purchase, and that changes the game quite a bit.  People have “dream homes” and see their home as an investment as opposed to just a place to live.  Any home that people end up walking into with hopes of buying gets larded up with emotions, “perfect family holiday” scenarios, and everything else under the sun.

Typically, this results in a buy quickly falling in love with the home and beginning to get very dream with their finances as well.  They become certain they’ll get a raise of X this year, and they will have enough money to cover the payment, or they’ll get a new higher paying job, cut back expenses and their spouse/roommate will also begin working for significantly more than they currently do.  They sign the contract and buy more than they can afford.  They dont have 20% down payment, so they’ll need to get mortgage insurance, which will cost a bit more over the long run, but can fund their dreams right now.   If you’re curious about mortgage insurance, there are some free resources at GenWorth Financial on their mortgage insurance page.

Of course, even if we are able to avoid mortgage insurance, we’d still have to pay for home insurance.  Honestly, I was never a big fan of insurance until this summer, when the hail storm hit and I was able to cash out a huge check. Before that, I always resented paying into insurance and never really feeling like I got anything out of it.

Hopefully, none of this will happen to H and I and we will end up saving up a whole boatload of money for our future home, and not need mortgage insurance.  Though it (mortgage insurance) can help in some cases, I like to keep the number of people I owe money to a minimum.

Obviously, it’s a new year and that means a few things.  The first one is that the gym is crowded, and the second is that it’s time to make some resolutions for the year (I prefer goals, but call them intents if you desire).  Either way, I feel like setting some goals for 2012 will be crucial to your success.  If it’s your first year, you’ll probably miss the mark and have it be way too easy, or way too hard.  I suggest setting a few of both so you dont feel like a failure at the end of the year.  You’ve got 360+ days to work on them…and anyone can do something in that amount of time, right?

Joe over at Retire by 40 had a great post on his december cash flow.  Glad things with your 4plex are shaping up joe!  Keep up the wealth building!

Kevin over at thousandaire thinks college kids should get skills, not good grades.  I couldnt agree more – I graduated college with approximately 1 marketable skill (GIS – for those familiar), and not much else.  After working for 3 years, I’ve got tons more to add to my resume, and wish I learned all these things in school.

The Money For College project is adopting a baby with his wife! Congrats!

Money beagle doesnt like christmas finances because he doesnt know how to categorize them.  I find this happens to me at christmas as well as throughout the year.  I shop at walmart, and sometimes pick up food there, as well as clothing or dog food.  I usually just classify it as whatever I spent the highest percentage on.

Joe At RB40 has another post in here on motivation – good stuff for the new year!

I hope that you’re relaxing today and spending time with friends and family.  Enjoy your holiday!

As I mentioned yesterday, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.  One of the reasons is that there’s no pressure for gifts or to buy a bunch of crap like christmas, but there are many others as well.

I’m thankful for my family.  They’ve always tried to put me on the right track and (especially dad) tell me things so that I wouldnt end up learning lessons the hard way – which I promptly ignored, at great cost.  They have always been there for me and tried to help out in whatever way they can.  They’ve also let me fail at plenty of things, which has taught me some great lessons.

I’m thankful for my fiancee.  She is always there for me and offers to help no matter what the project is.  She even indulges my totally nerdy habits, and will always be my best friend.  I can’t wait to get married and start out lives together, and no matter where that leads us, I hope she will always be around.

I’m thankful for my friends.  Even though many of them have gotten married this year, we still make time to get together and have some fun whenever possible.  They are always there to teach me things and come up with patently terrible ideas, which are then executed with just as much foolishness as one would expect.

I’m thankful for the dog.  When H and I were playing the foolywed game we had to list what we thought were our 3 best purchases as a couple.  Both of us listed the first one as the $75 that we spent to get our dog from the shelter.  Though she’s sometimes annoying, she’s always wanting to play and is a great running partner.

So whatever you’re doing today, whether its watching college basketball (like me) or you’re out standing in line for your black Friday shopping, remember what it is you’re thankful for and make sure to let the person/people know that you appreciate them

Hey everyone:

I just wanted to put this up and wish you all a happy thanksgiving.  Thanksgiving is probably my favorite holiday as it’s filled with family and friends, lots of board games, fun in the kitchen cooking and relaxation.  I’m usually in charge of cooking the turkey, and I always try to do something fun and interesting.  Last year, we made a turducken, and this year, we are deep frying the turkey (this will be the 2nd time).

image credit: busymom.net

As most of you know, I had a plan to pay off my smallest student loan right after I got back from fincon.  Of course, that didnt happen for a few reasons.  First, my dad offered to send them some money, so I took the free money, was going to wait for the check to post and then pay off the remainder.  Of course, this was during the time that they changed systems, so the site was down for 10+ days, then crashed because of overuse for a few days after that (dont even get me started on that).  So after that, the check cleared my dad’s bank account on October 20, and to date, they still haven’t applied it to my account (nor have they even found it) – they told me it would take 10 business days (seriously?!) to find it, and it’s been 15+.  So yesterday, my dad went to the bank to dispute the check and recall his money.  I have had 0 problems with this loan/processor to date, and this 1 thing has totally pissed me off.

/rant

Ninja had a change of heart with his mortgage.  I”ll have to say that I’ve always felt that it was a contract.  The banks dont care if it’s your house when they are foreclosing, so why should you care if you’re “Breaking a promise” when you’re walking away?  If it’s better for your financially, then do it – just like everything else.

Of course, PF Blogging wouldnt be what it is without diverse opinions.  Kevin at thousandaire has a retort to ninjas post.  He thinks you should do the right thing and pay your mortgage.  He makes some great points, but to me if you’re sacrificing financial security just to stay in your house, I’d suggest seriously looking at what you should do.

I was over at Yakezie this week talking about the benefits of reducing debt and increasing cash flow.

I’ve got some more pictures from alaska to share.  The first two groups (which you can find here and here) is from my week in Anchorage, and the ones where I’m on a boat are taken from a harbor wildlife cruse I took that was based out of Seward, AK on the Kenai Peninsula.  For all of these pictures, I was hiking Mount Marathon in Seward, AK.

This was a really fun hike that I did in Seward.  When looking at the route before I left, I noticed there was 2 trails (which I found more about later) and took the easier (and longer) hikers trail.  It was something like 3 miles from the edge of town where the trail started to the top.  The trail started out in a pretty dense forest for about a mile before breaking.  Here’s what the trail looked like as we got through the trees.

This didnt go straight up, it hooked around the back before I regained the ridge.  It was cold on the back side.  There was no sun, a large creek and the wind had kicked up.  I was fully prepared though, so I just pulled out my gloves and hat and kept on going.

This is a picture of the town of seward from near the top of the mountain.  Yes, that’s the whole town – it’s around 5,000 people.  It was a nice little place, and I probably walked from one end of town to the other about 4 times per day – or more.  I had no other way to get around, but I dont mind, it was good exercise.

I took this picture from the near the top and was thinking to myself, that would suck if you fell off of this part.  It was pretty steep, and the soil was pretty loose so there wasnt much to stop you.

This is a shot of ressurection bay from mt marathon.  It is pretty impressive.  During the good friday earthquake of 1964, (the highest ever recored on the richter scale) a tsunami was headed for the town, but the deepness of the bay blunted the strike and there wasnt as much damage in seward as there was when the tsunami made land in california.

So after reaching the high point and turning back, I found the trail that I had missed earlier and started following it down.  I didnt follow it up – so I didnt know where I’d end up reaching the hiking trail (the one I took up) again.  Not too long after, I realized that this moment was never.

That picture that I took earlier saying that I didn’t want to fall down I started going down.  As you can see, it’s quite steep.  The dirt was really loose, so I was able to pretty much take a few steps then slide down, stopping on one foot for a second and then continuing down the trail.  After a while, I realized that I was on what they call the “runners trail”.

Another part of the runner’s trail.  Yes, it goes through that runoff creek.  After thinking about the runners, I was wondering how the hell they did this in a race.

This is the trail that I took down from the top – you can make out the lighter part in the grey rock.  That was me kicking up the trail and turning the darker rocks over.  You can see the trail go off the left hand side of the mountain and duck into the green – that’s where the trail starts going through the river.  It took me about an hour and fifteen minutes to descend the trail.  I thought that was pretty good, but when I went to dinner later that night, my world was rocked.

I was talking to the bartender when I was eating dinner that night, and he was telling me about the Mt Marathon Race.  The race is held every July 4 and was started after a bet in a bar around the turn of the century (the best kind of race, right).  The bartender told me that the racers run from around the building we were in (about a mile from the trailhead), to the top of the mountain, and back.  The crazy thing was that the record for this run was 45 minutes and some change.  When I heard this, I was clearly stunned.  I knew that I took the longer route, but didnt think that my 5 hour hike could be distilled into less than an hour race.  The even more shocking thing was that the decent (that took me over an hour) took the race winner less than 11 minutes!!!

I couldnt believe it – I want to try the race, but unfortunately it’s so cool that there’s a really long waiting list and they have a lottery.  The town grows to 35,000+ people during the race weekend!

That’s the last of the pictures from this hike – next week will be the last installment of my alaska pictures.  I hope that you’ve enjoyed them.

I’ve got some more pictures from alaska to share.  The first group (which you can find here) is from my week in Anchorage, and the ones where I’m on a boat are taken from a harbor wildlife cruse I took that was based out of Seward, AK on the Kenai Peninsula.  For all of these pictures, I was halibut fishing near Seward, AK.  I also have gotten my first taste of the fish (I grilled a fillet last week) and it was soooo gooood.

This first group is from the halibut fishing trip.  You may have seen my posts about halibut fishing on twitter and what a hassle it was to get my halibut home from Alaska, but the trip was awesome.  Here’s a view from the boat as we are steaming out of resurrection bay around sunrise (8am-ish)

Even though I am a terrible photographer and have a terrible camera,  I still think this one turned out really good.  It’s the same 3 glacier area that I posted some pictures of from the other boat.

This next shot is a view from the boat after we have exited the bay and were out in the open ocean.  The water was quite choppy, so much so that the whole group almost didnt go out because of it.  I was still ok during this part – I didn’t start to feel like donating last nights dinner and that mornings breakfast to the fish until much later in the ride.

Those snow covered peaks in the very back of the shot are from Kenai Fjords National Park. I wanted to spend some time in the park, but it’s not really accessible by car.

When I was on the halibut boat I was wearing my wyoming hat, and a guy walked on the boat with a wyoming hat.  He quickly sat down next to me and we started chatting.  Turns out, the guy lives where I used to live in wyoming and knows both of H’s parents!  I absolutely couldnt believe it.  It’s such a small world sometimes.

These are all the fish caught by everyone on the boat.  Alaska has a daily bag limit of 2, so that’s the maximum that you can catch.  Everyone on the boat caught that many, and after that we were steaming back to the harbor.

I didnt sit down in the cabin of the boat at all, and rarely went in there because it made me feel sea sick. (note to guys: if it’s a choppy sea and you need to go to the bathroom, dont waste your time peeing in the bathroom.  I got thrown around so many times and hit my head on the wall and had water splashing me in the face from the porthole window that I had regretted my decision even before I was finished – Just go off the side of the boat.) So as I was sitting outside watching the deck hand toss all the fish out of the box and onto the deck, I waited for mine (marked with orange zip ties around the tail) to come out.  The first one I saw flew out of the box, and on to the deck, where it washed right out the deck drain!  I told the deck hand and he chuckled (because it was sorta funny) and he said they had another one for me.  I probably got the better end of that – the one they gave me was probably bigger.  S

That’s the deck hand cutting up one of the fish I caught.

Some of you have probably seen this, others probably have no idea what it is.  It’s a coal tipple, and one reason that I took a picture of it was because I thought it looked really awesome in front of the mountain.  The tipple is there because this is the only port in alaska that doesnt freeze over for the whole year, so most of the coal mined in central Alaska is taken by train to a facility near this tipple, processed, and then sent to this tipple for loading on a boat.

This is a guest post provided by Debt Advisory Line.

Debt consolidation means taking out one loan to pay back several others. This may sound like a strange idea, but there are many benefits attached to the concept: Rather than paying many different creditors each month, you’ll henceforth be collaborating with a single company, which will be taking care of your finances and communicating with your lenders. Typically, debt consolidation reduces your monthly payments for your loans, sometimes even making some significant dents in your debts. Clearly then, there are a lot of advantages to debt consolidation, and yet it isn’t for everyone. Let’s have a look at what you need to take into consideration.

First off, let’s briefly take a look at the advantages and disadvantages of debt consolidation in general. As mentioned in the opening paragraph, debt consolidation reduces your monthly payments and simplifies your payback scheme: Rather than having to spend hours on the phone each month to deal with your creditors, your debt management company will take care of these issues for you, saving you a lot of hassle and valuable time which you can use to earn the money you need for your loan. What it also means is that rather than having to spend every single penny trying to pay back your debts, you may finally be able to save some money for when times get rough – should you lose your job, for example. Admittedly, in some cases, a longer maturity of the loan will mean paying more interest overall. This is something you need to be aware of when thinking about debt consolidation, but it doesn’t make it any less attractive per se.

Foremost, debt consolidation is a sensible tool if you’re threatened with bankruptcy. Personal insolvency is one of the most drastic measures and will change your financial situations for years to come. By reducing your monthly payments and consolidating your debts into a single loan, you may be able to continue paying back your creditors and avoiding bankruptcy, thereby keeping your credit rating clean and putting you on the road to recovery.

Debt consolidation also seems to be the way to go if you’re dealing with many creditors at the same time. The complexity of such a situation means that you can easily lose track of whether or not you are still able to meet your obligations. Depending on the particulars of your situation, already failing to meet a single creditor’s demands could result in you having to file for bankruptcy. Debt consolidation creates a transparent situation where you only need to deal with a single company and always know exactly whether you’re in the red or not.

In some cases, debt consolidation can even reduce the overall debt to be paid back to your creditors. Speaking to a company with experience in debt consolidation makes sense in these cases, as they’ll be able to analyse your situation and then recommend concrete practical steps to you.

This past weekend was the financial bloggers conference for just about everyone in PF blogosphere.  While it was the weekend of the financial bloggers conference for me, it was a few other things.  The first was that plans that had been months in the making would finally be executed, and the other would {hopefully} be that my life would get way more awesome.  As many of you know, I’ve got a girlfriend, H, and we’ve been dating for quite some time.  At first, she didnt want me to talk about her on the site, so I left her out or referred to her in some other fashion.  Once she decided she didnt mind being mentioned she was given a name for the blog and comes up more now.  Anyway, back to the story, and I’ll start from the beginning.

Spring

This spring was quite busy for the both of us.  I got a new job much closer to where I live and H did some traveling.  She went to Belize and Las Vegas with a friend.  I had finally gotten quite a bit of debt paid off and decided it was time to get busy planning the future.  Of course, since I wanted this all to be a surprise I had to act stealthily and tackle problems one at a time.  The first was to determine the size of a ring and then find some spare time to go buy it without her noticing.  For the first, I figured that I’d just swipe an old ring she already had and take that in and let the store do the rest.  For a while I paid attention to which rings she had on her finger, but that proved fruitless, so while she was traveling to Belize I got on her computer  and looked through more than 3,000 pictures from the last 3 years to see if there was any of her with a ring on.  After looking through them all I found a picture that was only a few weeks old (and would have gotten deleted if it were on my computer) that worked.It had her wearing a ring. I marked it in my memory and waited until a few days before she left for Vegas and I rifled through the jewelry box, found the ring, and hid it to make sure she didn’t take it along.  After that I simply went to the jewelry store and purchased what I wanted using her own ring as a size reference.  I did already have  a style and a budget set in mind, so that made things quick and relatively painless.  Unfortunately, I purchased at the top end of my budget and ended up going over because I paid a much higher sales tax than I’m used to paying (or that I personally think is necessary).  That concluded phase one.

Summer

Honestly not much happened here – there was quite a bit of planning and decisions, phone calls, and discussions with friends.  Nothing too much though.

The Day

So, as I mentioned, I went to the conference and decided that the Sunday after Fincon11 was over would be the day.  One of the reasons was because when we first started dating we had a really fun trip to Chicago so I figured it would be fun to go back and do the same things that we did that first trip.  So, my day started at around 1am at my buddies house, confirming tomorrow’s plans after a last minute change because the train didn’t run as late as I’d hoped.

I left early from the conference and hopped on the train at the station.  While I was at the conference, H was getting manicures with some friends and heading to an art show.  PS – totally stole the manicure idea from Ninja.  My buddy picked me up at the train station and we headed to the hotel where H and I would be spending the night in the loop (she thought we were staying with friends), and he gave me the ring.  I had forgotten how large the box was and I couldn’t put it in the pocket of my jeans, so I put it in the pocket of my jacket and zipped the pocket up (I was given some good advice by a friend. He said to not  be constantly checking my pocket to make sure it was still there.  Instead, I carried my jacket around as it was too warm anyway and occasionally brushed it against my leg to make sure I had not somewhere/somehow lost the largest single purchase I’ve ever made).  After this, my friend and I met H and his girlfriend and had a very late lunch.  After lunch my friends left to “run Sunday errands” (that I asked them to).   H wasnt sure why they didn’t want to hang out anymore, but they sent us on to the train to the loop.

H and I had a great afternoon strolling around Millennium/Grant Park area.  It was the first time I’d seen Buckingham fountain actually turned on, and the weather was perfect for it.  There was a guy making really gigantic bubbles with what looked like some string and 2 sticks, though unfortunately for me my phone was dying, and given all the communication I needed to make (and fake) at that point I suggested we go to a coffee shop for a sit down and some tea and orange juice.  I was able to charge my phone to almost full and we headed off to see the Bean and wander the park.  At this point my friend suggested we meet at the Hancock building for drinks before dinner (totally a ruse because they weren’t coming to dinner with us at all and I made reservations there about 6 weeks ago).  We went up the the 95th floor to “get drinks” and  I checked in and we were seated.

After arriving at a table for two when I had told her there would be four people there she asked why there were only two. I just said that I wanted to spend some time with her after being gone for so long.  That eased the question and after our white wine (H) and pumpkin manhattan (me) arrived, we ordered our dinner.  I kept talking about getting desert (even though I was so full and my stomach hurt the thought of it made me sick) because if she didn’t get desert my whole plan would come apart at the seams (though I do think the restaurant remedies this with a “complimentary dessert from the chef” or some nonsense).  After some prodding and a great dessert menu it was time.  She left for the restroom and the waiter confirmed plans with me. They brought out her plate first.  As he was setting it down, I got down on 1 knee and got the ring out of my pocket:

To say that she was shocked would probably be the understatement of the year.  After asking if it was a joke, she quickly accepted and put the ring on.  Unfortunately, it was too small!  I was 1/4 size off, so she forced it on for the time being and I told her we could take it to the store when we got back the next day and get it taken care of.  After dessert, I told her my friends were in the area at a nearby bar and wanted to have a beer before we left.

I had long ago arranged to get as many people here as possibly, but because of many different things I had a feeling it would be tough – it was, but I didn’t care.  As we walked in she saw a few of our friends, and finally her sister that had driven up for the day from Indiana.  She was very excited (to say the least) and we had a few beers and went back to the hotel.

One thing I can say is that although I don’t feel any different  I’m excited and can’t wait for the rest of my life to get here

Update: H edited this, and there were quite a few gasps and “I was wondering how you did that’s” when she was reading it.  Thanks for editing!