February 2010

Bingo! Loan modification scored

February 22, 2010

After much hassle and bureaucratic hoop-jumping, the credit union finally let us know on Friday that we got the desired loan modification on the downtown house M’hijito and I are copurchasing. That will help a great deal. It drops the mortgage payments from something over $1400 to about $1,085 a month. This comes as M’hijito’s [...]

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February Budget: On target

February 22, 2010

Well, so far, so good: We’re two months into Bumhood, all this month’s bills are paid, and the budget is still running in the black! That’s in spite of a plumber’s bill! This month’s regular recurring bills were quite low. One was zero: having prepaid the February COBRA premium in January, I owed nothing this [...]

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Shopping in the Commissary: Would it save anything?

February 21, 2010

A day or so ago, SDXB clued me that Luke Air Force Base has changed its rule about bringing guests into the commissary: your sidekick no longer has to be a certifiable family member. As we were discussing the coming tax on food, which, when it goes into effect on March 1, will hike my [...]

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Early Retirement: The health insurance hurdle

February 20, 2010

In a comment on yesterday’s grouse about the GOP’s stubborn resistance to a viable national healthcare program, Bucksome Boomer remarks that the main thing blocking her way to early retirement is the difficulty of obtaining health insurance. There are a few ways around this. One is to go back to college. Yes. Tuition at most [...]

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Good-bye to all that…

February 19, 2010

Here’s another volley in the endless blitz of retrograde comments from Republican congressional representatives, reported by The Wall Street Journal: “When it comes to some health-care summit that’s nothing more than a photo op designed to pave the way for Obamacare 2.0, the answer is no,” Rep. Mike Pence (R., Ind.) said Friday at the [...]

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Property tax statement arrives

February 19, 2010

The county has dropped its estimate of my house’s 2011 value by $19,500. That’s down $62,300 from the 2009 valuation. In theory, this should provide some tax relief. In reality, though, it won’t: Maricopa County is going broke, like all the other municipalities in the state, and so the county supervisors intend to raise property [...]

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