Thursday, April 30, 2009

Monthly Update

Pay off car loan - 25.4% (Up 1.6%)
Pay off student loan - 10.7% (Up .3%)
House down payment - 83.4% (Up 5.6%)

Build emergency fund to 6 mo expenses -104.1% (woohoo!)

Yes, it was another good month here :)

Monday, April 13, 2009

Extreme Makeover: Home Edition

Okay, I admit to watching the show. On top of that it usually has me shedding tears. Last night was really bad. But I'm always left wondering who absorbs the extra costs.

They build these large homes in place of smaller homes so I assume that the property taxes go up as well as the heating and cooling costs. In all fairness they seem to be conscious of conserving energy but still, if you more than double the size of a home, the costs must go up, no? Especially when you put in 27 foot ceilings. What?! If nothing else, they're going to have hire someone to clean the cobwebs from up there. I would assume the homeowner's insurance goes up as well since there is now more to insure. All of this is fine if the people have extra money flying around but these people are in this position because they're strapped to being with. Then they put stupid things in the bedrooms. Like a train bed for a 10 year old or a school house for some little girls. What happens when these kids turn into teens and they don't want a stupid train in their room? This single mom is going to find herself trying to scrape together some funds to replace the bed, no? Bleh. I just hope they sit down ahead of time and figure these things out. It doesn't seem fair to the families not to discuss the financial ramifications of making their house huge and highly specialized.