25...

All that I really know about Dave Ramsey is that he is for debt-free living and has a good training course.  Until today, I didn't know his daughter followed in his footsteps with regard to advocating sound financial stewardship.  I was aimlessly clicking around the Internet and found her blog entry entitled 25 Things You Need to Know About Money Before You Turn 25.  Again, not knowing exactly what her father advocates, I was struck by No. 14:

You should only get one type of mortgage: a 15-year, fixed-rate. Your monthly payment should be no more than 25% of your take-home pay. Stay away from 30-year mortgages and ARMs no matter what!

When my sister's husband left her, she followed the rather sound advice of getting him off the mortgage and title to her house ASAP.  She refinanced the home and gave her now ex-husband his share of the equity in the house.  His $50,000 was gone in a flash.  My sister has gone on to pay copious amounts of extra money on her mortgage whenever possible because she wants her house paid off before something happens to her.  It is her fear, not being able to keep a home for her children, and yet it is her strength.  In just four years (I think), she has flipped her mortgage payment percentages to where she is monthly paying more toward her premium than toward her interest.  I know that others do not understand her fear, but I do.

Back in Alexandria, I had a wildly high mortgage for a teeny-tiny place because that's what you do in the DC Metro area.  When I knew I was losing my job (a bird whispered in my ear) the very first thing I did was to throw my house on the market and go looking for a place where housing was affordable no matter what job you worked.  I honestly thought I was going to be working longer.  And I knew that unemployment was not even 2/3rd of my mortgage payment.

Affordable housing is a real problem—the lack thereof—in a whole lot of places in this country.  And the poor economy has enticed landlords to charge exorbitant prices for rentals because the need for rentals has sky-rocketed.  But I believe the real problem in housing affordability is the debt-to-income ratio mortgage companies will approve for buyers.  I believe, but am not guaranteeing, that the highest debt-to-income ratio a buyer can have and still get a qualified mortgage is 48%.  That's just NUTS!

The two things that caught my eye about piece of advice No. 14 was the 25% as the max and the 15-year mortgage.  I wish I had known at least the latter when I bought my first home, if not for this one.  The point is moot, now, since I could not afford to carry a mortgage and pay for medications on disability and so drained my meager retirement by its majority to pay off this house.

The end of my career (teacher to professor to communications) was in the affordable housing industry.  So I know lots and lots and lots of facts and figures (or at least I used to know them) about the problem of affordable housing.  But few rarely address not the cost of housing but the folly of folks spending too much of their income on housing.  

That debt-to-income ratio that folk use to calculate just how much they can qualify for in a house doesn't factor in things like electricity, gas, water, sewage, and some sort of communication (landline or cell).  Utilities take a chuck of that 52% left over after you've maxed out your debt liability for buying a home.  Little is left for food and transportation and clothing and such.

And then there is the dirty little secret that folk will often be coached to pay down whatever they can or hold off buying even necessities until after closing to essentially fudge their true debt-to-income ratio.  Once you have the mortgage, you can have your debt-to-income ratio even be a negative one. Yes, you may eventually lose your home, but that cap on debt restriction only lasts as long as the ink on your paperwork dries (or maybe the 3-day waiting period passes).

If you look at a 30-year mortgage, it is a bit nauseating to see just how much you are actually paying for that home.  So, the 15-year mortgage is a good boundary.  As is the 25%.  Heck, with the problems in our economy and our medical system these days, I would go so far as to state that the 25% should include ALL fixed costs associated with homeownership, such as the utilities.

Of course, this is coming from someone who lost her head for a week or so and lost the firm grip she had on her budget once the (blessed) news of generic Celebrex came her way.  That caveat aside, I think it is actually criminal that folk are allowed to get themselves into such debt for housing ... that the allowable debt-to-income ratio can be so high.

My two spates of rather unexpected unemployment ingrained into me the fear of getting into debt.  Once I paid off the large (to me) debt I built up whilst being unemployed the first time (doing so by still working odd jobs after I got a full-time job), I worked on that emergency savings.  As a working person, I also always put something toward retirement, just not enough.  Certainly, not enough for becoming disabled at 43.  SIGH.

I know ... I'm being a money bore again.

But I received my last utility bill today, so I know exactly what my fixed expenses (including meds)  are for May and the total for Amos' needs, which leaves me what I have to work with for everything else, primarily the grocery/household amount for my credit card (payable in June) to stay on my budget.  Hopefully—and I do mean full of great hope—this will be the LAST time I will have to shave off food and utilities and household needs in order to pay a larger-than-normal expense (puppy dog exam, tests, vaccines, and 12 months of heart worm/flea/tick medication) since I now have 25% of my disability income being diverted into small savings accounts for those types of expenses.  The remaining monthly living is 50% towards medication and 25% toward everything else. I think (hope) that I've finally achieved a livable month-to-month balance going forward from now and on into 2016.

I will admit that I am a bit scared to go fetch the much needed milk I mentioned yesterday that is even more needed today, for all sorts of tastiness entices me when I am in a grocery store.  I think that is because the more hours in a given day I battle violent nausea, the more I want to be thinking about and buying and eating tasty food.  Odd, I know.  Probably a problem, too.

My list, for the first two weeks of the month is:  milk, lentils, broccoli, garlic, bell peppers, lettuce, cucumber, carrots, other veggies, napkins, Murphy's Oil soap, two more pairs of the higher compression stockings, Osmocote, systemic, and a bush for the spot on the other side of the back porch stairs that I did not replace when the rhododendron died in 2013.  Of course, I'd like to get more steak and sugar snap peas, too.  But they are not yet on my list.  

The bottom line is that despite having room enough for a fully budgeted grocery/household month still, I'm going to shoot for a thinner spending goal as a sort of penance for losing my head over the Celebrex news.  Plus, for June, I'd like to go out for a bonafide restaurant meal ... IF ... I can work up the social courage to go someplace by myself (obviously with my Kindle).

I could be misrepresenting the truth (do to my failing memory), but I believe that this July will mark two years since I've been to a real actual non-fast-food-ish restaurant (when my mother last visited and treated me).  That's just kind of sad, for someone who's so darned innards sick all the time.  Don't I deserve some wanton tastiness that I did not have to cook and then subsequently clean up after?  

I'm not sure where I would go, but I have been thinking about what I would like to eat.  Of course, those heavenly steaks at Baker's Street are high on my mental list.  However, I think I am leaning toward having Indian food, since I am fairly certain that is a type of food I will never learn to make anywhere near adequately.  Surely there has to be at least one Indian food restaurant in Fort Wayne.

Amos said he wants to go, too.  You know, he said that he's willing to pre-clean whatever dishes I dirty.  Poor puppy dog.  He's a bit deluded on that score.  I guess I am not the only Nutter living on Kinnaird Avenue!

I did sneak and take a photo of the baby robins, today, once I realized Mrs. Robin was taking worms to the nest.

I'm going to try really hard and not bother them with constant photo-taking.  Hard to imagine that in a mere 14 days these naked, bulbous-eyed wormkin thingies with be leaving the nest to fend for themselves!

I also thought I would show just how many fiddleheads are poking through the new mulch already, despite the fact that we've had cold weather for eons now.  Fern bliss will soon be coming my way!

Sunday.  Sunday will be the day that I believe I can finally at least put my hanging baskets back out on the porch, for Spring might finally be coming to Fort Wayne.