Today was an interesting day at the mailbox. I got three different letters, each one being financial in nature.

$0

The first letter was from the credit union. Eleven years ago, when I first started working where I work, I signed up with their credit union. Minimum deposit required to open an account was $5. So I rolled out a fiver from the colossal roll of cash that I keep on me at all times (you know, for emergencies) and opened an account.

I had some credit card debt and decided to take advantage of my newly established credit union membership by taking out a signature loan to pay off the credit card. I was denied (fuckers). That was the last time I stepped foot in the credit union (I hold grudges).

Over the past decade I’ve been getting statement from the credit union every quarter. Four times a year I’m given an opportunity to marvel at the rate in which my $5 investment has grown. Unfortunately as the economy went to shit so did the interest rate savings account. The interest is now so low that when it’s figured against my equally low balance the total currencies deposited into my account by the C.U. are exactly $0.00.

At this rate, I’ll never hit $6!

12.5%

Now letter number two is much, much better. My quarterly statement from my retirement account. In the second quarter of 2009 my account increased 12.5%!! That’s what I need to hear right now.

The retirement is part of the budget for Life 2.0; though the current plan is not to touch it for the first two years. I shouldn’t need it at first, and after watching it get destroyed with the rest of the market I’m hoping leaving it alone will allow it to recover. Now I would be silly to expect 12.5% growth or anywhere near that ever again. It’s very likely to be a one time bump, but even still it’s terribly nice to see as dusk falls upon of my life as a gainfully employed tax payer.

116k

The last of the postman’s trilogy of financial letters was from my home insurance company. This is the time of year in which I normally renew my insurance for the house that will (hopefully) soon be someone else’s responsibility to insure. My renewal package included a summary of changes in my policy coverage.

Adding up my coverage for the house, personal propery, and “loss of use” I come up with a number that is $116,000 higher than I sold the house for. Apparently it would have served me better to burn my house to ashes than to have wasted so much time with realtors, home inspectors, and reed diffusers. My fault for that, I obviously didn’t investigate all of my options.

Translation?

If my mailman was a gypsy then my mail would be my tea leaves. The question is what would they be telling me? Well, to me the answer seems to be obvious: don’t trust the banks, invest in the future, and insure the hell out of everything you own. That’s actually not bad advice…

…though I should get myself a fortune cookie just to be sure.

The house appraisal is this morning. The abode has been cleaned as if I was trying to sell it. I expect to hear about his/her report in a couple of days, though my realtor is going out of town until the weekend, so we’ll see.

Ready, set...

Over the weekend the buyers and I reached an agreement regarding the (bullshit) inspection report. One more hurdle cleared.

Then came the glorious midnight hour last night. Tuesday gave way to Wednesday and in doing so it brought the option period to a close. Buyers can always back out, however we’re past the point of them being able to do so for free. So we’ll consider that another hurdle cleared.

Today I had several friends ask me if I was getting excited. Unfortunately thought, I’m not. I’m getting scared. Honestly. I’m not scared of the quitting-the-job-moving-away-and-starting-over thing. In fact my fear is the opposite. I’m getting more and more apprehensive over the idea of things falling apart at the last minute. This wouldn’t be the first time in history that a home sale fell through in the final stretches.

Maybe it’s my Type A personality coming out, and I’m having a hard time dealing with so many things out of my controls. My friend Dave tells me that I stress over things too much; maybe that’s what we’re seeing in plain text right now. Whatever the case may be I’m having a hard time enjoying this as much as I want to be enjoying this.

Have you ever seen those racing lights where there are a string of yellow lights and one green? The yellow ones light up one at a time until they’re all lit up, then the green one follows along in the rhythm already established. It’s the luminescent equivalent of “ready, set, go!” Well I feel like everyone of these steps lights up another yellow light. Each time I’m closer to the green and that’s a good thing. But it seems that these next 3 weeks are going to be overly stressful for me.

Everything is really starting to speed up. I feel as if I’m getting to the top of a hill on a roller coaster and I’m just about to go down… but.. not… quite… yet. If this coaster derails at the last minute I’m worried my mind will derail right along with it.

So here I am, on the eve of what I’ve been working towards for 18 months and what am I doing? I’m whining. Maybe I just need a good slappin’.

So if you happen to know some kinky little blonde… you let me know, k?

1. Woke up
2. Brushed my teeth
3. Played on the computer
4. Ate brunch
5. Sold my house
6. Wrote this post

And it’s not even 1:00 yet!

Weekend three of the house on the market is coming to a close. Two showings this weekend, my slowest weekend yet. Negotiations with my prospective buyer last week fell through. Any hopes of being able to tell a story about how quickly my house sold are officially dead.

One of the two showings has already generated a comment: “Showed well but he did see something he liked a bit better. Sorry. Thank you.” One left, but assuming that will be a no as well I’ll be dropping the price on Tuesday.

Portland isn’t getting any closer…