Downsizing. . . .

Since my goal is to sell my house in another year or two (depending on this fabulous housing market I find myself in), I'm starting to look around my home with a critical eye, especially at clothing and kitchen items that I've neither worn nor used in the past year. I definitely don't want to spend my last month in my house (assuming it sells) frantically getting rid of things I don't want to put in storage.

Wherever I end up, it's a good bet that my new residence will be smaller than the one I have now, and will not have a garage. Now, I'm no hoarder, but I do have boxes of things here and there that I never unpacked when I moved here over four years ago! To me, that means those mystery items are unneeded; if I've not found a use for them in the past four years, it's as it I didn't own them at all. With that in mind, why not start downsizing before I really have to?

So today, rather than cleaning my floors as I promised myself I would do, I started the task of dividing some of my unused clothing into groups of: 1. nice enough to go to a consignment store; 2. nice enough to go to the Goodwill; and 3. what is this thing even doing in my house? This last group is unfortunately destined for the trash, much as I dislike discarding anything (it's the environmentalist in me that hates to see one more consumer item sent to our already full landfill).

I'm hoping to make a wee bit of cash with the consignment goods, and take a small tax deduction with the Goodwill items. I'm sure that my 'take' will be less than the original costs of these items (I found a $70 pair of shoes I've worn maybe three times because they're too big, and a $90 pair of boots I've worn a comparable number of times because they're too tight), but it's something, right? Plus, I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to fit Christmas into my meagre budget, and every little bit will help!

Satisfaction. . . .

In November, I sent a grand total of $1,452 to my second mortgage holder, which is $1,197 more than I usually pay each month. There's definitely some satisfaction in watching my balance decrease, since up until now I've been primarily paying interest-only (I wasn't aware that this was akin to an interest-only loan when I signed the papers, by the way, though if I'd been a smarter consumer I would have learned that beforehand).

What amazes me is that in the four years that I've had this loan, I've managed to pay it down by just around $1,500. I'm flabbergasted by this.

October, 2006 starting balance: $31,400
November 2008 balance: $30,877.76
November 2010 balance: $29,881.18*

* Note: this doesn't reflect all the payments that I made in November, since some of my paychecks came late in the month.

Know what's even crazier? My November 2010 balance reflects an additional $400 in principle payments that month! So, essentially, the balance of my second mortgage has only decreased by about $1100 in four years of making regular payments!

With financing like this, it's no wonder some American homeowners are in such deep doo-doo. Loans like this remind me of indentured servitude, in which a peasant was obligated to a wealthy landowner (or other wealthy individual) until he died, because the value of his work on the land (which he didn't own) was never enough to cover the amount of his debt to the aforementioned landowner.

Anyway, this is just a rather long-winded way of saying that the satisfaction of finally watching the balance of this evil loan shrink is hard to describe. Perhaps it's akin to watching the pounds on the scale vanish with weight loss, or, conversely, watching the balance of a savings account grow exponentially. In short, it's FANTASTIC!!

In defense of the beater. . . .

I drive a 15 year old car with almost 115,000 miles on it. Hey, it runs (mostly)! I did just replace the battery, it has regular oil changes, and it's definitely due for a tuneup, but it gets me where I want to go. In addition, it's basically free (minus the $80 or so a month for insurance and gas). And for someone who is bent on paying off old debt, that is a good thing!

I do go kind of crazy from time to time wondering about all of the knocks, creaks, and bumps that my car emits while driving. My mind immediately starts adding up the cost of a new alternator, or clutch, or brakes, or any number of crucial auto functions that might need to be fixed in the next few years (I do have the money in my emergency fund for these sorts of repairs, by the way, though I would love to have the extra room in my budget for a 'repair and maintenance fund').

This month, I was convinced that my gas gauge wasn't working. My speedometer and tachomoter haven't worked in years (you get used to it, believe me!) and I've always said that as long as I know how much gas I have left, I'm content to leave those issues alone, since the instrument cluster alone could cost up to $150 to replace, not including labor costs.

I usually spend about $35 to fill up my tank at the end of the month, and with normal driving to the transit station and the grocery store and to my teaching gigs (when the Max isn't convenient), I'm usually left with just a little more than an empty tank at the end of the month. Well, for the last two weeks my gas gauge has been on half-full. No matter where I drove, and for how long, that gauge didn't budge one little iota. Which freaked me out. I've only been stuck once with an empty gas tank, and I didn't like it one bit; I had no interest in repeating that particular fiasco!

So last Sunday, I went to the gas station and got a fill-up, although the gauge still sat at half full just as it has for weeks. And guess what? I only spent $20 and got 7 gallons of gas! Meaning that my gas gauge isn't actually broken, I've just (somehow) driven less this month than I thought I had! Eureka!

I mentally saved myself $400-500 dollars just by putting $20 into the tank! I do wish for a shiny new car now and then, but the value of getting by with my beater might be equal to $90,000 (my remaining debt) when all is said and done.