Our New House

It has been a crazy few weeks. Apparently, I haven't been updating people on the house very well. Sorry Shere.

The process seemed to be going really smoothly until we got the inspection back. The Realtor didn't think we should get one, but I'm glad we didnt listen to her. The inspection said the furnace was bad and several other things like the electrical panel and roof have problems.
We got several different quotes from different companies on the furnace and the electrical panel. Steve's dad, who is does electrical work, said that the electrical panel is fine and that the inspector may have been wrong.

Steve and I sent a counter-offer to the bank with a request that they put in a new furnace before closing. They refused and said they only sell foreclosures "as is." Needless to say, I was pretty upset with that. We almost walked away from the deal because we dont really have the money for a new furnace. We could probably scrape it together out of our emergency fund, but i dont really want to do that. My dad has offered to pay for our new furnace and have it installed before closing. I am so greatful for that. I wish we didnt have to do that though. I hate borrowing money from my parents.

Our originally closing date was November 21st, but the bank changed it to December 3rd. I guess this is sort of a good thing for us because now we wont have a mortgage payment until February. It does make things busy for us during the Holidays though.

We are trying to plan our budget right now around all the work that needs to be done. Most of the work is cosmetic, except for the furnace. The previous owner left the place a big mess, tore all the light fixtures out of the ceiling and even stole the air conditioner. The biggest challenge right now is finding the time to get in the new house and clean up before we move in. With the original closing date, we would have had 2 weeks with both the house and the current apartment, but now we will only have a few days. The bank did say that we could get in and clean before closing but we wont have the utilities turned on yet.

Our budget is going to pretty tight for the next few months but we can survive. We have done this before. When Steve and I had our hours cut last summer, we lost almost $500 of monthly income and we managed to survive. It sure wasn't easy. Last month, Steve got a raise and they put him back to 40 hours. Thank God for that. I told Steve this is the last time I want to move during the Holidays. It just way to busy during the Holidays. I have this afternoon off from Sears, so I plan is to start cleaning and packing a bit. Anyone that's bored and wants to come over and visit, give me a call.

I'm still a little nervous about the whole process but I think we can get this done. Once we get started on the process I think I'll start to feel better. I do look forward to going to Lowes and picking out the light fixtures and sinks and stuff.
WWDRS? What would Dave Ramsey say? If we play our cards right and don't get to off tract, this should be a great thing for us in the long run.