Creditcardfree's Personal Finance Blog

Yes, I do get the title is one of those oxymorons! I need to get some thoughts on paper about our savings and credit card debt. We are still waiting on reimbursement from the Army that will cover some of our credit card debt.

Currently, we have about $5500 on two credit cards. We just surpassed $3K on our newest card, Citi Prestige. We will get 50,000 Citi Thank You points that we can redeem for about $500 in gift cards. The rest of the debt is on our other Citi Thank You card.

We will need to pay the Citi Prestige in full when the statement closes. I think we have until very August to pay it, which I don't expect to be a problem. The Citi Thank You card is still on 0% interest through September. We will also pay it in full before any interest is charged. You won't see me paying ANY interest.

The cash we are expecting from the Army is about $5500. How good is that? There may be more if we can get our apartment complex to give us a daily itemized receipt for the first 10 days of our stay. I'm not sure it is going to happen, but we will keep trying.

I also went back to see how much money we took from savings during this process of selling and moving. Approximately $4800! Nearly $2900 was for a deposit on our rental home and rent for the first month. I have to keep reminding myself of that because it seems like so much money! I will be paying ourselves back for all this cash outflow as soon as possible. If I don't repay the actual deposit I'm not too upset on that since I expect we are good renters and able to get most of that back when we move on.

Oh and we are still expecting just over $2K from our escrow account. That should help get us back to where we were several months ago.

I seem to just need to keep convincing myself it is all okay. It' a little nerve racking to know we have $5500 on credit cards and are down $4800 in our savings. I suppose technically our savings is up because of our house proceeds, but I kind of think of that as separate. I wasn't borrowing cash from our home equity when we owned the house, I don't want to be borrowing from it now either.

Specific enough, or still vague?

I've mentioned Ooma many times on my blog. It's our VoiP (Voice over internet Protocol) home phone line. We pay about $4 a month in Federal Taxes for the service. Ooma often has promotions where I can offer my referral code to others and if they sign up I get $20. I can refer up to five people each time. And this last time I did just that. I now have a $100 credit on our USAA credit card!

I will use the credit to pay some of the last bills from the house. I think I still have water, electric and gas to pay. These will exceed $100, but at least I have some assistance!

I consider this a snowflake or found money. In the past I have used these to accumulate cash or pay off debt. I don't have a current place that I am funneling these funds, but they will all help get back on track after all this spending with the move! And I'm still keeping track of the snowflakes I have earned for the year.

Who else has Ooma? Did you get a chance to refer anyone to the service during the last promotion?

I saw

this article over at CNN. Stocks for 2015 are expected to earn about 6% this year. That is less than last year by far, but I'll take it. Any growth is good!

I cancelled our newspaper subscription in May and was told to expect a refund. I checked on it at the beginning of June and was told it would go back to the original credit card, which I realized was closed. Then they indicated a check would be cut. I now know the check has been issued and mailed to our old address on June 17. I guess it will be forwarded! Hoping it arrives soon, so I don't have to keep tracking it.

Verizon needed to verify my husband's employer in order to keep providing us the 15% employer discount. Usually providing the work email does it, but the military has such high security standards that didn't work. The other option was to submit a paystub (with income and ssn crossed out). I thought I did it before we moved, but could find no confirmation. I uploaded it again this week, and today we received confirmation that they were able to verify the employer and we qualify for the discount. Can't remember how much that ends up being, but it all counts!

My husband checked about the Temporary Lodging Expense. The receipt we had doesn't qualify. It isn't billed daily and it cannot say lease on the receipt. We are inquiring with our property manager about providing the bill in the way the army is requesting. If not, it's not the end of the world, but a little help paying for this temporary apartment would be nice.

We might go to the beach this weekend. It's just under two hours away. It would probably be a day trip. We won't go if it is too hot like it has been or if it will be too rainy. I'll need to really be careful about putting on sunscreen. I must have missed some spots when we went to the pool the other day...I'm burnt!

I was notified by email to activate my 5% off categories for the third quarter on our Chase Freedom Card. It's gas stations and Kohl's. I also choose my categories for our US Bank Visa. I picked 5% for furniture and cell phone and 2% for restaurants. Not sure if we are going to be buying furniture, but it is a possibility so might as well look for a little more of a discount!

Are you okay earning just 6% on your investments this year? Do you get an employer discount on your cell phone bill? Do you have any cards you need to make sure to select or activate rewards for next quarter?

I logged on to our mortgage account this morning. It's Paid In Full! In fact, I get a little interest back of $15.94. No mortgage debt for the near future seems pretty nice for now. We'll see what I think after living in a rental home for couple months!

I did check with our mortgage company and they said it will be two weeks before they start processing the escrow refund, which takes three days, and then 7-10 days to receive the check in the mail. So easily three weeks from now before we get the check. The full amount I'm expecting is $2054.93. I'm sure I can find something to do with that money!

My husband filed our travel voucher for our trip to our new town on Friday. We will get 23 cents per mile for our just over 1000 mile trip. This covers fuel.

We will get a per diem (a flat fee) for hotel and food expenses. My research says this will be about $875, but my husband things slightly more.

We should also get funds to cover moving about 1100 pounds of household goods in our van. My guess is that is around $1000 right there.

The military doesn't pay for selling a home like corporations sometimes do. Everyone always seems surprised by this. The military doesn't really support purchasing a home simply because moves are so frequent. The military does provide a Dislocation Allowance (DLA) and it is based on rank and if you have dependents. Our allowance will be $3,453.76. Crazy odd number huh? Not sure where they get these numbers!

There is a potential that we could get some funds to cover a portion of our rental apartment. This is called Temporary Lodging Expense and covers up to ten days. We aren't sure if it is only for hotels though. I'm also not sure if my husband has submitted this request for funds yet. And I don't know if the amount will just be ten days of our actual cost or more based on some predetermined amount. It could range from around $700 to $2900 if we are even eligible being in this apartment. Fingers crossed we could get a little bit as it would sure help!

Much of this money will pay off current credit card charges incurred during our move. This will leave us debt free. I'm also hoping there are enough extra funds to pay ourselves back for cash we used to make our rental home deposit, airline tickets and even that big repair bill on the house!

I'll report back once the funds are received and let you know the totals and how I used those funds. I'm hoping it's by the end of the week!

We visited the local Botanical Garden in our new city. It was very nice...although super hot at 10am this morning when we visited. With our military discount, admission was $36 for four of us. I think we were there an hour outside. We decided we would visit again and decided to purchase a membership for the year. It was $75, we were able to apply our original admission to the membership. Total spent was $75, but will cover many new adventures at the Botanical Garden.

I can't wait to go back when it is cooler! Do you have a botanical garden in your town?

I read on Million Mile Secrets that Chase is changing their rules in regards to being approved for new cards. This means you might not be able to get some of their fantastic bonus offers again...or at least for awhile.

Here's the article, so you can read the details for yourself.

The closing on the house went just fine, other than a call from my realtor that the bank was asking for my account number again for the wire. So I sent her the information since the person who I sent it to before wasn't working today. Maybe that was the problem?

The wire came through not too long after closing. All funds as expected and I'm super glad I changed it to a wire rather than a check. Well worth the $20!

This afternoon I called to cancel our homeowners insurance. We will get a $21.98 refund. I guess by state law it needs to go back to the escrow account at our mortgage company. Then the mortgage company will mail us a check. Our current escrow is sitting at $2,017.01. I'm going to use some of this money to cover the renter insurance policy that is now due. It's only around $300 if I remember. We might get a little interest back too depending on which day the loan is actually paid.

It feels good to have that transaction done!! It feels odd to not own a home, but once we are in our rental house I may not care since we will at least be in a home.

I've mentioned we had a big repair to do on our home before we could close. The buyer found mold growing on the ceiling of our unfinished basement storage room on the same day they saw our home and made their offer. Once we accepted the offer they told us about the mold they saw and wanted to make sure we would remedy it. Sure no problem. If we had been aware we would have taken care of it prior to putting it on the market.

It seems the consensus is it resulted from construction materials that were likely left out in the rain too many times before being put on. One board would have it but the next one would not. It was a bit odd really.

The problems really started when the buyer requested to bring his mold guy in to look at. The buyer, mold guy, my agent and I all met just under a week after the offer. The mold guy talked about his method to mitigate which was to test the type of mold, to use a mold killing agent, a white paint to seal the wood. The mold guy also suggested drilling into the ceilings of our finished basement to see if the mold continued. The buyers biggest issue was to make sure the mold was mitigated before they occupied the space and that they wouldn't need to disclose it to their buyer when they sell.

The bid came in and was a bit vague about costs, particularly those that had to do with investigating further into the finished areas. We didn't want to go that far as it seemed unnecessary and over the top to be drilling for mold that wasn't likely there. If the buyers wanted that work then we suggested they pay for it, and could even witness and control how far they went and it could be done before we closed.

Let's just say our negotiations at some point came to a standstill. We couldn't get them to agree to anything we threw at them. Their agent wasn't communicating with our agent or the buyers. We were technically out of contract at one point because they didn't sign in time. We were out of contract for SIX days!!

What fixed everything was that we decided to call another mitigation company, Service Master. We knew we would need to get the work done if we were going to put it back on the market, which is where it seemed we were headed. We got someone to come out and bid the job the same day we called(a Friday). The price was within the limits we were willing to pay, in fact slightly less. The work could start on the following Tuesday be done on Wednesday. Then an air quality test was done on Friday. We had our results on Tuesday and the air quality was passing!

I guess I should back up a bit. Service Master's bid was to use a mold killer (hydrogen peroxide), then seal with a clear coat, steam clean the room, run air cleaning fans and run an air quality test. No drilling of holes in our drywall! Service Master was very confident in their method and felt it would pass the air test the first time. So we sent yet another proposal, that we would treat the mold per SM recommendations and provide a passing air quality test as soon as available. The buyers wanted us to state we would cover any additional treatments necessary. We agreed to state that because we felt so confident the first fix was all that was needed. And it was!

Looking back, the real problem was that the buyer seemed to want their hands in picking the mold person, although he did tell me any mold remediation company would be fine. I did at one point call to get other estimates including Service Master who said there would be a $250 fee. I thought at the time, I'm not paying more when I have one bid for free. The fee would have been taken off if we had the work done by them. The mold guy the buyer chose was nice, but wishy washy in his bid, his time frame and at one point seemed to indicate he couldn't even get to the work in time for closing. It just got bad in so many ways!

Really, if we are paying for any work on our home before closing we should also get to choose who we are having do the work. The first mold guy should never have come out and I think things could have gone a lot better. We did offer cash to have the buyers do the work, but of course that was a no because they didn't want the work done while they owned the home because they would have to disclose. Ethically, since they know about the mold I feel they should still have to disclose. My agent says no.

I also found out our state has no laws regarding how mold should be remediated, no air quality standards, and even the health department indicated black mold (which this was not) wasn't any big deal and could just be cleaned up with bleach! So interesting.

There are way more details and drama I could tell, but it's too exhausting. We did take care of the mold it was handled by a professional and it was done in time for our originally closing date last Friday.

Our cost for the mold remediation: $2,854.72. Yep, that's one big repair bill! We put it on our Citi card to earn the rewards. Today, I paid nearly all of it off, I sent in $2,714.14, which was the amount I saved up for the repair. I was just a little short. I will likely pay the rest tomorrow with the house proceeds.

And the mold was the reason I left the AC running and set for 80 degrees when we left. I couldn't chance that the home would be getting too humid and cause another issue with mold. The cost has to have been minimal as the temperatures have been cooler there in the last week. The buyers did their walk through last night, and I haven't heard that anything was wrong so I expect closing to go super smooth tomorrow.

I decided today that the proceeds from our home sale needed to come by wire rather than an overnighted check. We're in an apartment temporarily and I figured FedEx would probably drop it at the office and then I would try to have to catch someone working to get the package. Too much to worry about. I also didn't like the idea of depositing such a large check into an ATM, or mailing the check to a branch since that is really our only option. Well, there is UPS deposit, but it isn't clear if there is a limit on the amount of the deposit. And I can't mobile deposit since the limit is $10K.

Turns out it should only be $20 to wire the funds and they will be in our account on Friday! That is less than having it overnighted by Fedex to our current location (at least that is what the realty company would charge). I was able to get the wire instructions right off the bank website and sent to the escrow service.

The escrow service also asked for our forwarding address to provide to our mortgage company. They will need it to send the excess of our escrow account and possibly any overage of interest paid. I'm looking forward to getting all this cash!

We will be debt free after I get the current credit card charges paid off...hopefully by the end of the month. Maybe before. I need to do some calculations so I'm clear where all the money is coming from and where it is going. I don't want to fritter away this equity money on things that weren't house related. Of course, I'll tell you all about that later!

We should also be getting reimbursed for our moving expenses. My husband is back to work, but hasn't had time yet to submit our travel expenses. That should be a chunk of change too.

We have already left our home and are now parked in a furnished rental apartment in our new southeastern town. Can I say it is terribly hot here? It is hot!!

We just heard that our house sale will close on Friday! This is just one week after our original planned date. Not too bad considering how late the buyer's lender received the purchase agreement and got started on their loan.

I'll update more later...just wanted to share the good news!

Wow! Our cats are actually doing REALLY well in the car on our trip east. They have been in the car about 6 hours all together. One we barely hear a peep from, the other who is super loud anytime she is in the car is so much quieter and even sleeping!

I'm guessing the anti anxiety medicine the vet prescribed is really working! It's a transdermal med (specifically called Amitriptyline) that I rub on the skin in their ear each day. They are on day five or six now. I think I paid $12 for each of them. So worth it!!

The vet also gave me Feliway wipe samples. I wipe those on their kennel each morning. So that could be making a difference too.

We left their kennels out for the last several weeks with the doors off and installed a piece of carpet in the bottom. They have spent time in them off and on. And over the two previous days they hung out in them in our bathroom while movers were packing and loading. I think they have come to see them as a safe place.

So it's all good and peaceful on our trip and I couldn't ask for a better experience for them as far as the car ride goes.

As for the hotel, one cat just has to hide. Currently she is under a recliner chair in our hotel room. The other cat is sitting on the window ledge looking down from our eight floor hotel room. I feel bad the one seems so afraid, but she did eat some tuna I offered earlier so she is likely fine and will settle in once we are at our corporate apartment in a couple days.

I'm pretty sure I will be sending an email to our vet to let him know that his advice and care for our cats during our trip was spot on!

We paid the electrician that came to do a couple repairs on Monday. The bill was $87, which included a small fee for parts and tax. Two guys here for 15 minutes, but it was nearly half of what we were expecting.

Still one more repair bill to pay. We haven't seen that invoice yet, but we do have the bid so we have a general idea. I'm really hoping we have it tomorrow before we head out of town.

All utilities have been notified of our move. The gas is being turned off tomorrow, the water will be turned off before we leave, internet gets turned off Friday, and the electricity will keep going until we close on the house, hopefully in ten days or less. I think I will set it for 78 degrees...maybe 80 if it is going to hot during that time frame.

It will be nice to get the final bills of all the utilities and have them paid before we move into the rental home in July.

I was reading the forums and was alerted to the fact that Target gift cards from online resell sites are selling for less than face value by at least 8.5%. I went looking and noticed that ZenGiftCards is selling them for 10.5% off. I have not used ZenGiftCards, but I have used Cardpool.com and Raise.com to make purchases. Do you own due diligence before making purchases with companies you aren't familiar with!

Target gift cards online are always eCodes. This generally means that the gift cards can only be used online. However if you have the Target app (not Cartwheel) than you can upload the gift card to the app and show the gift card on your app to use it in the stores.

I really want to buy one, but I'm a little hesitant deciding how much. Right now I shop there all the time primarily for groceries. With the move this will change, thus probably less spending at Target. However, I'm thinking there will be some college expenses to purchase there.

Just wanted to give everyone a heads up if you are a big Target shopper and want to save even more than you might on your Red Card.

We had some electrical work done yesterday for our buyers. Two men came in and took care of the work in less than 15 minutes. They indicated we would get an invoice by email, so as a result we didn't pay them! Strange way to operate a business don't you think?

I've emailed the company. The response was, "I should get to that today, or maybe tomorrow." They must be way understaffed. It really can't take that long to invoice me can it?

We need the invoice to show the buyers we have completed the repairs we agreed to. I also just want to get them paid, so I don't have one more thing to think about.

We also have another larger bill to pay, but that work is not yet complete (fingers crossed it is today). I hope they will have an invoice for us today too. Not that I want to pay a large bill, but I do have the cash set aside for it.

I do highly recommend at least 2% of your home's list price built up in cash because things do come up. You may not need that much but it sure feel better when you do.

I can't wait to be done with this house sale, so I can really work the numbers to see how we fared financially.

Have you had a company invoice you later for work done? Or do you find most repairs are paid immediately upon completion?

We did eat for all meals today at home. I'm not exactly sure what everyone had for breakfast and lunch, anything we could find really.

I sent my husband to the store to pick up pasta, a loaf of bread, and salad fixings. I knew we had pasta sauce to use up as well as dressing. Now we have more salad than we have dressing for!! My husband will likely finish it up since he is okay eating salad without dressing.

We do actually expect that tomorrow night will be our last night to make dinner here at home. Our kitchen dishes will be packed up by Tuesday night. And we should probably turn off our refrigerator at that point as well. By then we'll just be eating peanut butter as that is all we will have left!

I did toss about 1/2 cup of lentils and a cup of brown rice. I've had them both in my cupboard for awhile. I'd rather just replace them when needed to avoid having them stored in a box for nearly a month.

We also went to a local museum in our town. It's a national museum and was updated after this city had a flood several years ago. We always meant to check it out. The move finally motivated me to get it done. I think the free admission for military families was help too! It was enjoyable and had a great exhibit about what it means to live in a democratic country and be free. It was a beautiful building too.

Tomorrow we are dropping off a bag and a box to Goodwill. We also have an appointment to get our oil changed on our van. Perfect timing since we have a big road trip ahead, but it needs to be done anyway.

And tomorrow is the day the appraisal should be done. This time we won't be around to know whether it is done or not as we have other plans when it is planned. I will check with my agent though to make sure it is! I do find it crazy that we are just days from the original closing and the appraisal still isn't complete. It is interesting now that the sale is delayed I actually don't care to much about it. I think because I know it will close at some point. I also know I have to leave regardless of the change. I also feel pretty confident it will close before the end of the month.

Did you eat at home today? Have you done any decluttering that you can donate?

We are less than a week from moving. We are trying to eat everything up and at this point that pretty much is done with a few exceptions. So now we are buying food a day at a time...and eating the leftovers as we go. I don't have exact numbers (no time for that) but it feels pricey.

I tossed out some expired spices and some condiments that I know we won't use. If I had close friends and family I might try to give it to them, but that just isn't the case here. So down the sink it all goes. I'm recycling the containers. I am keeping quite a bit that I really hope the movers will pack. If I remember from previous moves I think they will.

Personally, I want to try to eat as much vegetables and fruit as I can in the coming days. I'll just be buying it a day or two at a time.

I mentioned Monday that we were having an appraisal done...finally! Unfortunately, we cleaned the house and were ready at the appointed one hour window. And a half hour after that window past I called to tell my realtor no one showed up. Our realtor discovered the buyers lender cancelled it. The lender needed someone to pay the expedited fee of $75. The buyer refused feeling it was their agents fault for not providing a purchase agreement in a timely manner. Then the lender couldn't get in touch with their agent to agree to the fee. So they cancelled it without notifying our agent. She knew nothing until I texted her about the no show on the appraiser.

Long story short (new phrase picked up from my agent), the appraisal is now this coming Monday! Three days AFTER the original agreement to have firm loan approval. Our original purchase contract was agreed on April 29!! We did all have a hard time coming to an agreement on repairs, so we were delayed for awhile there. In the end we needed to hire another company to do the work, which has been to our benefit so far as they were super prompt about doing the work and were more in line with the approach we wanted...thus we didn't have buyers doing excessive stuff we wouldn't agree to.

Other than the delayed loan everything is on track on our end. We have held up our end of the agreement. We will end up leaving way ahead of closing now as it was already scheduled with movers, my husband has to get back to work and we want to get our daughter to her first band practice! There may be documents ready to sign before we leave, but if not ready they will need to be mailed over night to us. Irritating, but not the end of the world.

Does anyone else have a story about a mortgage loan being delayed in the past? I know it happens. I would just love to hear one so I know I'm not the only one!

My husband's new Citi Thank You Premier card arrived in the mail today. What a package it comes in! I've included pictures, because my description would fail. It seemed to take forever for it to arrive. He applied on May 21.





A pretty large box! Those aren't our cards in there, but that is where they were.

We plan to use the card to pay for our hotel, food and gas on our move east. These costs will be reimbursed, but it's nice to earn rewards on those costs. Our first living space is a furnished rental apartment for 30 days. We can pay for our rent on a credit card! This portion is not reimbursed(although I write that and think maybe 10 days is covered...need to check), but the reward of $500 after spending $3,000 will help reduce that initial housing cost.

We also have a rather large repair bill on this home that we will need to pay very soon. It may go on this card, too. I do have the cash, but some rewards along the way don't hurt. This card doesn't have the 0%, so putting the charges on this card will force me to use the cash I do have to pay it.

Onward...more things to do to get ready for the packers on Tuesday!

I have cancelled our first service bill connected with our home. Internet. Once we leave there is no need to keep it going. Unfortunately, they bill one month at a time. No prorating. We pay $55 plus federal fees, amounting to about $71 a month for some very high speed internet. That amount is due now for the entire month of June. I was hoping to cut it in half at least and save a little. Oh well.

Other utilities will be called soon, once we have a more firm date for closing. Those utilities include water, gas, and electric. I can probably call the company we are renting our water softener from since it may need to be picked up (although buyers have requested to continue the lease).

We called USAA to cancel our homeowners insurance, add renters insurance and change where we have auto insurance. Yep in the end more more money going out. Our renters insurance is about $30 a month (which we may adjust down) and auto insurance will go up about $20 a month. Of course, I'm never happy about bills going up, but it's fine for now until I can look into other options.

I did receive my Panera gift card in the mail. It's worth $10. This was earned from MyPoints. I promptly put it in my wallet for use the next time I'm at the restaurant.

Our (hopefully) final mortgage payment on this home posted yesterday. After almost three years, our interest was less than the principal portion of the payment! A low interest rate (2.75%) and making extra principal payments has helped get us there.

Specifically the interest portion was $485.96, but the principal portion was $487.70. A difference of just $1.74, but I'm celebrating this fun milestone regardless!

Do you have a mortgage where the interest portion of your payment is less than the principal portion?

The reason I mentioned this should be our last payment on the mortgage is that we are nearly 100% sure we are delayed on closing by a week. All due to the incompetence of the buyer's agent.

Closing on the house is scheduled for June 12. Since the lending process didn't start until Thursday (because of delay by the buyer's agent) it could get delayed. I would guess it will still get done by the end of the month. The appraisal is today.

Once the house closes, our mortgage will be paid in full! And we get a check. I plan to settle up getting all of our bills and credit cards paid in full. We will be debt free again! And expect to be debt free for the next several years since we are renting.

We are still waiting for the Citi card we applied for. It seems it should be here any day now. I hope it comes before we move! We would like to use it to put some repair expenses on and the charge for the furnished apartment we are renting for 30 days.

I'm setting up an allotment from my husband's pay to our savings account at Navy Federal Credit Union. It's a requirement for our newest CD. The amount has no minimum and I have read some people just set one up for 2 cents. I figure I'd pick a little larger sum that will add up during the year. It will be $25 a month, so a total of $300 a year.

We are still working on using up food in our pantry and fridge. The freezer is pretty much empty except for a loaf of bread, a partial bag of fruit and a container of crushed tomatoes. I plan to make a soup today for dinner which will use up some lentils and the crushed tomatoes. I have some bananas to make banana bread that my daughter can take to her early morning library club on Wednesday. I can see several things being tossed unfortunately (think rarely used seasonings and oils). And why is it that the pasta and the pasta sauce can't be used up at the same rate. We have this same problem with salsa and chips, too!

Will anyone else find themselves debt free in June or finishing a debt paid off in June? Are you using up food in your pantry, fridge or freezer this month?

For the month of May I accumulated $139.28 in found money/snowflakes. This money helped pay off the final balance on the Citi Card from January, the remaining cost of my daughter's glasses plus a little bit more.

If I wasn't working on selling a home and all that goes with that I expect I may have found more earnings, especially with things I could sell.



Did you find snowflakes this month?

It's been a month since our purchase agreement with the buyers. They had their inspection nearly two weeks ago and our fingers are crossed they will finally agree to our offer on those repairs tonight. Unfortunately, their agent had a baby a week after their purchase agreement and is really not helping them at all. I do feel bad for them and really it's affecting all of us.

I was actually given permission to contact them about an issue and they responded very favorably to my email. I think prior they weren't getting the information our agent provided to their agent. We even decided to instruct them to call our agent if they had questions since their agent is not available. I do know our agent knows our wants and desires and was definitely working for us, simply communicating on our behalf with them. I think it helped us move mountains today in terms of progress.

Just today our agent decided to check on their loan and specifically the appraisal which we have not heard about yet. The person who wrote their preapproval letter three days after the purchase agreement had not yet received their purchase agreement or started their loan process!! The buyer was notified and thought their agent (who had the baby) had taken care of it. This actually may delay our closing. I'm not sure the buyers are aware of this yet.

We are leaving the same day regardless. At least that is the plan now. My husband has a specific day he needs to return to work and we need several days to travel.

It definitely feels like our days here are numbered. There are plenty of things to accomplish including a few meet ups with friends. It is interesting the impact you have on people even if only in their lives a little bit for a short period of time. I've always known and felt that we have an impact on more people than we realize. We have gifts, talents, points of views, and maybe just genuine love that comes across and impacts people. People notice and appreciate authentic humans in their lives. Be you. Be authentic. Be true. It's good for you, but also for others. The more I move around, the more I notice this and I actually feel blessed to come into contact with more people than I might if I stayed in one place.

It's been a month since our purchase agreement with the buyers. They had their inspection nearly two weeks ago and our fingers are crossed they will finally agree to our offer on those repairs tonight. Unfortunately, their agent had a baby a week after their purchase agreement and is really not helping them at all. I do feel bad for them and really it's affecting all of us.

I was actually given permission to contact them about an issue and they responded very favorably to my email. I think prior they weren't getting the information our agent provided to their agent. We even decided to instruct them to call our agent if they had questions since their agent is not available. I do know our agent knows our wants and desires and was definitely working for us, simply communicating on our behalf with them. I think it helped us move mountains today in terms of progress.

Just today our agent decided to check on their loan and specifically the appraisal which we have not heard about yet. The person who wrote their preapproval letter three days after the purchase agreement had not yet received their purchase agreement or started their loan process!! The buyer was notified and thought their agent (who had the baby) had taken care of it. This actually may delay our closing. I'm not sure the buyers are aware of this yet.

We are leaving the same day regardless. At least that is the plan now. My husband has a specific day he needs to return to work and we need several days to travel.

It definitely feels like our days here are numbered. There are plenty of things to accomplish including a few meet ups with friends. It is interesting the impact you have on people even if only in their lives a little bit for a short period of time. I've always known and felt that we have an impact on more people than we realize. We have gifts, talents, points of views, and maybe just genuine love that comes across and impacts people. People notice and appreciate authentic humans in their lives. Be you. Be authentic. Be true. It's good for you, but also for others. The more I move around, the more I notice this and I actually feel blessed to come into contact with more people than I might if I stayed in one place.

We've been using our Citi card for most purchases. At one point a couple months ago I signed up for their purchase rewind program on a pair of Converse shoes I purchased for one of my daughters. The Citi Rewind program searches for a lower price up to 60 days. If they find a lower price for the item, you can apply for a refund of the difference.

The shoes I purchased were $49.99. Citi found the same pair selling for $37.99 by another retailer. They are offering me $12 back. I did put in the request which will be applied as a credit to our account. I think if the amount were over $25 I could ask for direct deposit or a check. The credit is good enough for me!

Have you used Citi's Price Rewind feature?

We began the year with a balance of $686.27 on our Citi card. Luckily it has been at zero percent interest. My goal was to use extra funds/snowflakes to pay it off. After some recent Facebook sales, I had the money to make the final payment on this portion of our Citi credit card debt which was $47.20.

I used the extra money earned from these Facebook sales to pay $10.80 on my oldest daughter's glasses which were also charged on the Citi card. I know only need to pay $12.80 to have those paid in full.

And yes, there is still a balance on our Citi card from more recent purchases which I will write a post about at another time.

To keep things on a light note after the holiday, I'm posting the picture I took of one of my cats last night. She's hanging out in her travel kennel. I put carpet remnant in there, took the door off, and added some cat nip. I've seen both cats using them, so hopefully it is a good start to our trip!

For the first time I have sold some of our household items on Facebook! I made $33 selling a patio umbrella with stand, a leaf blower and a push broom. It appears I have another possible sale tomorrow night that should net another $10 for a dresser.

The cash from all these sales should get the balance on the Citi card from January finally paid off.

Selling on Facebook is still just as difficult as selling on Craigslist. People are still flakes about committing to an item. Don't say 'interested' if you don't at the same time tell me when you might want to pick it up!

I've given myself a limit of a week to get some of these items sold. If the items do not sell, I expect to donate or possibly trash the items. I don't want to move things I don't want anymore!!

Do you have any tips for getting people to commit with Facebook sales?

I moved $7,500 from our money market account to the savings account at Navy Federal CU which finally posted today. I applied online for the CD this morning. I guess that doesn't mean it is open earning interest quite yet, but very close! We now have more than have of our EF money at NFCU earning anywhere from 3.5-5% interest. Pretty good in this environment of super low interest rates. If I could put more money in I would!

My husband arrives home today (and about 10 hours earlier because he got on an early flight this morning)! Graduation is tomorrow for our oldest daughter. He will be here the remaining time before we move (he has a lot of vacation to use up before Sept 30 or he will lose it). We will be busy, but we are excited to be back together!

Have a super Memorial Day weekend! Don't spend too much...there will always be another sale.