To Monetize or Not to Monetize

So, I'm considering doing the "monetize" function (i.e., using Google's AdSense) on my blog.

This month, I will have an extra $500 in expenses because of the need for a new crown.

In addition, I received extra summer salary this month, but where I thought I would get two full-time weeks of pay at the end of June, it turns out that I only got about one and a half weeks, which, after taxes, amounts to about $600 less.

Damn.  That's $1100 less this month, which means less to go towards paying off some debt.  Whatever extra I received will go to the new crown and to Eddie's "Wipe-out Kids' Edition" Birthday Party - with some extra going to the debt.

In the end, we do need more money coming into the household.  And doing Google's AdSense is an easy way to do it.  It will inconvenience my readers . . . just because they will be confronted with them.  So, I apologize.  I think, though, that I can choose to block some companies.  I plan to use whatever extra (which I realize probably won't be a lot) to pay down the home equity line of credit (which I used when I was diagnosed two and a half years ago and on sabbatical).  Mom and dad do contribute to the household - both in monetary and non-monetary ways - but it always seems to be a little touch and go.  A little more cash flow will be good . . .

So, dear readers, I will probably implement this change in the next week or so.  It'll be an experiment . .. if it pans out, great.  If not, then I will take it off.  Thank you for your patience!

New Year's Resolutions

Laurie, at Not Just About Cancer, just posted about her New Year's resolutions, particularly ones regarding her health. I thought about what my own would be - even though I don't generally do New Year's resolutions - and here is what I came up with:

1) Manage my money better. See the post I just wrote a few minutes ago about refinancing my house. In general, I've been trying to get better about my spending in the past few months. In part, it's because I used a HELOC (home equity line of credit) to make up the difference between my sabbatical salary (which is only 60% of my normal salary) and my regular salary. I used more of the HELOC last year because of the medical expenses I incurred from the cancer treatment - I have at least $1000 each year out of pocket expenses and alternative treatments like massage and acupuncture are only reimbursed at 70% and classes like qigong or yoga and the chinese herbs are not paid for at all and I somehow had to pay about 20% of all my wound dressings). I must also admit that before my sabbatical, I'd become accustomed to eating lunch out every day, buying books whenever I felt like it, buying games and books for Eddie without really paying attention to price and taking him to county fairs and amusement parks, and going out at least once or twice a week with Scott or other friends on the week-ends. So, I maintained that kind of lifestyle when I could after learning I had breast cancer for the second time and then learning it had metastasized. I just didn't want to have to worry about budgeting when I had bigger health issues to deal with. But now that I'm back to work full-time and have six+ months of good tumor markers, I've decided that I need to start paying down the HELOC and saving more money. I really need to tighten my belt and not do so much discretionary spending. It's doable, but I think I'm going to find it hard. (Also, there are some members of my family who make a whole lot less money than I do - and one is unemployed in this economy - and so I try to help them out because I do get opportunities to work and they aren't able to.)

2) The other thing I really want to work on this year is learning how to accept people (both colleagues and friends) as they are. I mean, there are a few individuals that I have decided to never be around just because they are difficult. But there are people that I need to learn to live with and just realize that they are the way they are and not much will change them. I can only change how I react to them.

It's a tough lesson for me to learn. Part of the reason why it's hard for me is because I've been able to accomplish a lot in life by learning how to control situations so they don't control me. I've become very decisive and take action once I learn enough about a situation, so much so that I have started to think that my course of action is the only course of action and when others move more slowly or don't take action at all, it drives me nuts and I get frustrated and even angry. For instance, over the past couple of months, two people that I love - my partner Scott and my dad - have told me that I'm too controlling.

Anyway, those are the activities I want to work on this year - to accept that other people operate and resolve issues differently than I do and to manage my money better.

Happy New Year!

And, in other news ...

I posted a few weeks ago that I decided to refinance my house. Last week, I received the unfortunate news that the refinance with my credit union wasn't going to happen because the appraiser gave an appraised value of my home at $33,000 less than the property tax assessment.

$33,000!!

When combining the outstanding balance of my first mortgage and the home equity line of credit (HELOC), I was just over the 85% threshold for refinancing. I used the HELOC last year to make up the other 40% of my salary that I lost because I was on sabbatical, especially since I had more out-of-pocket medical expenses.

Crap. I tried to figure out if I could dispute the appraisal, but the credit union said that the only way to do so was to pay for another appraisal and then they would average the two.

In the meantime, the 30-day lock-in for the interest rate (5.5%) expired on Sunday, Jan 11. So, when I asked if I could get the lower interest rate (it was 4.625% last Friday), the answer was no, the credit union has a policy of using the "worst case" - so they use the higher rate between when I originally applied for the loan and what the interest rate is now. So, if the rate goes down, I use the 5.5%. If the rate goes up, I use the new higher rate.

Figures, huh?

So, I started looking into other mortgage companies. I did some searching online and found that many of those online companies have consumer complaints. They include Quicken Loans, Lending Tree, Paramount Equity, among others. I settled with Nationwide Lending Corp. as I couldn't really find any complaints against them. The person I'm working with is trying to work with the current appraisal (who just said on his voice mail that he wasn't going to do any business until Jan 21) so that I don't have to pay for another one. That's kind of a good sign. And, I'd be able to get a 4.75% interest rate. My current rate is 6.5%. I'd save over $400 a month if the loan goes through, a lot because of the interest rate and also partly because I'm going from a 20 to a 30-year loan. But the appraiser needs to send the report to Nationwide as well as tell Nationwide why he appraised the property so much lower (Zillow.com gave a value of my home that was $10-15,000 higher than the appraisal I paid for).

It's all kind of a major pain in the ass. But once I got used to the idea that I'd have a much smaller mortgage payment, it was hard to give up. I was also refinancing with cash out so that I could have my friends and brother-in-law build a new fence and do some other repairs to the house. I also spent more cash in Las Vegas thinking that I was going to get the cash out, so now I'm kicking myself because I counted my chickens before they hatched. It's created some financial stress. I think I've got it figured out, though, so I'm okay.

So, we'll see what happens with Nationwide Lending ... I'll keep you posted!