Every once in a while, I mention something to C with the expectation he will talk me out of it. Sometimes, I even start the conversation with the note that I need him to be the reasonable one. This weekend, we both failed at being reasonable, at least when it came to talking.

 

Saturday. It started with me, not feeling well, wanting to be able to play video games while being on the bed, instead of sitting at my desk. I mentioned that I really want a new laptop. My $300 laptop that we bought in 2008 works great for writing, but nothing else.

Instead of talking me down, C took my request seriously. We looked at the coupons on the CostCo book (which would not go into effect until Tuesday), and then did more research online.

What we would both really like is one of the convertible laptops. I’m not talking a tablet with an attachable keyboard, I’m talking full on laptop that has a touch screen and can fold over to be used as a tablet. We even went out on Saturday to see what options Best Buy and Office Depot had. There weren’t many options, and we came home empty handed.

Fallout. Yesterday, with the CostCo coupons in effect, we looked at their online deals. Sadly for me (but good for my pocket book), the convertible they carry did not have a discount, so we decided to wait, at least for now.

 

Sunday. I am addicted to a local real estate site. I love looking at houses and following the market in our area. There was this one house, not too far from where we live, that I was in love with that was having an open house on Sunday. C agreed to go see it with me.

The house was even more perfect for us in person than it was in pictures. It has a fully fenced yard, front and back, with the front and back separated. There’s a little patio with fire pit in the front yard. The front of the house has a lovely, huge, covered porch.

The floors are wood. The living room is rather small, but flows nicely into the dining room area. The kitchen is as big as our current kitchen and dining room combined, with an eat in area and a gas stove. Behind it, there’s an actual mud room that’s big enough to be the pantry and laundry room.

Also downstairs is the master (with half bath), a full bath, and a second bedroom/office. Upstairs has two more bedrooms, one of them which would also be called a master if it had it’s own bath. Still, it shares with only one other room, and the bath has a claw foot tub.

Off the stair landing is a walk in panel to the attic storage.

It has a two car garage and a nice deck in back.

The house is also more expensive than we can afford at the moment, though if we hadn’t paid off my graduate student loan, we would have had 5% cash down.

Again, C is with me at this open house to remind me that I can’t have it, even thought I want it. Except that C wants it, too. And he’s more creative in coming up with ways to finance it than I am.

Ideas like: Create the LLC we’ve been talking about with friends and sell our home and the MIL’s condo to it. Once we no longer own our current home (even though our “rent” would still be the mortgage payment), buy the new house. We would then rent out our current home, and thus, our property management empire would be born.

Or take out a loan from our retirement funds to come up with a down payment.

We are not doing either of these things, but it’s tempting. I really am in love with this house.

Fallout. Talking about new mortgages got us talking about our current mortgage. We’re paying 6%, but we’re probably a little underwater on the property, and we don’t qualify for HARP. (Our loan is not owned by Fannie or Freddie.) But still, 6%, when current interest rates our below 4%.

So today we have a phone consultation with Quicken loans. C is open to paying PMI again (me not so much), but we’re also wondering if we could do an 80/20. They aren’t as popular now as they were when we got our first home with one, but we have excellent credit and now, very little debt.

So who knows, maybe we can end up with a slightly smaller mortgage payment, or at least be making more progress toward paying down equity with our current payment.