TrampCamp 2007

Forget Camp FaSoLa. The new hotness is TrampCamp. 2007 was the inaugural year for TrampCamp and our one camper/instructor (pictured) is already signing up again for TrampCamp 2008. Shouldn't you too? Learn backflips, frontflips, sideflips, flipflops and much much more. Find your inner Mary Lou Retton power animal. TrampCamp 2007 would like to thank our generous sponsor, Craigslist for helping us secure this 10 year old trampoline for $60 and enabling us to have a full summer of flipping fun.



Afraid of getting hurt? No Insurance? Never fear! Thanks to the marvel of YouTube's How-To videos, all our TrampCamp counselors are fully skilled in setting broken bones, relocating dislocated hips and shoulder sockets, applying ice packs and remedying all other common trampoline traumas. •

Posted by: Sheldon Finlay on Sep 09, 07 | 11:02 pm | Profile

An offering of peace

My handlers have been busy fielding the bundles upon bundles of angry fan mail that I've been receiving in response to my last few blog posts. So to help control the backlash I offer to my faithful, albeit, restless fans this generous bouquet of parentheses ((())) and accompanying ubercute WMSHC baby photo. I trust that the healing has begun.



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Posted by: Sheldon Finlay on Sep 09, 07 | 10:20 pm | Profile

Happy Birthday to Me!

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Posted by: Sheldon Finlay on Aug 02, 07 | 12:00 am | Profile

A Key!

I wonder what this key goes to? •

Posted by: Sheldon Finlay on Mar 16, 06 | 1:58 pm | Profile

So about this house.

Tomorrow at 9:30AM we sign papers, present our settlement check and the house is ours. Hooray! So what exactly are we getting? Well, it's a 3 bedroom colonial home located in a quiet and wooded neighborhood in Belchertown. The house has a little over and acre of property and is protected on all sides by trees. Behind the house is acres and acres of forest. The neighborhood lives up to it's name: Forest Road. Despite all these woods, our yard get plenty of sun for gardening.

The house was built in 1978 and has been completely updated. In the last two years it has received a new roof, meticulous vinyl siding, a new septic tank, and a new state of the art radiant floor heating system. The previous owners spent a lot of money on this place which means we don't have to worry about all those things. We can just move in. The house also have an enormous deck off the back and an equally enormous swimming pool.

Inside the house we have a large family room with cathedral ceiling, exposed beams, paddle fan and sky lights. This room was certainly a selling point for me. In addition to this family room, we also have a second family room (parlor?) with dark hardwood floors, fireplace and french doors opening off to the deck. There's a smallish dining room and a kitchen which is in deperate need of an Ikea makeover (already in planning as I type!). Although the previous owner purchased all new quality stainless steel appliances.

Upstairs are the three bedrooms and full bathroom. The master bedroom will be used as my office. One of my first project this weekend will be removing the office carpeting and installing laminate wood flooring.

So that's pretty much it. I took some photos a few weeks ago during the home inspection and posted them online for family to see. So I guess I will make them public now:

http://www.sheldonfinlay.com/content/photography/simpleviewer/

Tomorrow is our closing and kicks off our long anticipated moving in. Oh happy day!

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Posted by: Sheldon Finlay on Mar 16, 06 | 1:29 pm | Profile

Car troubles

Amy and I share one car. This is rather convenient, since with both work at home and rarely need to travel to separate destinations on any given day. However, as of recently our car has been giving us a great deal of grief. It all started with a "Check Engine" light back in the November. I brought it into the shop to get a pre-inspection tune-up so it would pass the MA inspection. They managed to get the check engine light to go out, but the car would not pass inspection. We returned the car to the shop and had more work done on it and it still wouldn't pass. Turns out the inspection station could not get a reading from the car's computer, yet our shop says they can get a reading from it just fine. In addition to this, the check engine light keeps going on intermittantly. After about four trips to the shop and an equal number of trips to the inspection station, we are at our wits end. We can't afford to put any more money into this 1996 Hyundai Elantra.

We are currently driving our wounded Hyundai without a valid inspection sticker. We have no choice. This past weekend the car started rough idling and getting performing poorly. I took a look at it today and it appears that cylinder #4 isn't firing at all. That's just great! I don't think our Korean wonder has much life left it in.

So, here we are about to buy a house and are already being stretched thin financially and we have to figure this damn car thing out. We also need a car with a trailer hitch so we can pull our trailer full of goodies to the new home. Fortunately, a quick search has turned up a suitable replacement: A 2002 Hyundai Elantra with 55K miles which is located less than 5 miles from our current home. It's not the best time to be spending money on a car, but we are pretty much stuck. We need a car, we can't afford to put any more money into this one, and we can't afford to wait. So we're just going to have to bite the bullet and go over-budget and pray everything works out. I am sure it will. •

Posted by: Sheldon Finlay on Feb 26, 06 | 7:35 pm | Profile

Moving along

It is really amazing to me how fast and smooth this whole house purchase is going. I expected the whole process to take months. It's hard to believe that we set forth on this pursuit on Valentine's day and here we are just a few weeks away from moving in. Things are moving along so fast that we are actually considering closing earlier. Perhaps by mid-March instead of late-March. That would give us more time to make some changes before we move in.

This past week we met with a mortgage lender at People's Bank. The whole experience was very pleasant and we locked in at a very good rate. People's Bank is known for having the lowest rates around and beat our CountryWide mortgage rate by almost a whole point. The application went very smoothly. Given that we're both self-employed, I figured things would be a little more difficult. But the person we met with said our income was very stable and was well suited for this home and we shouldn't have any problems. Now we just wait for the bank to commit. But overall, I am sighing a great relief given that the financing is pretty much in the bag.

On Friday, we got to visit our property for the second time in order to accompany the house inspector around the premise. On this visit an odd thing happened. The place seemed to shrink in size from my memory of it the first time. Both Amy and I experienced this. Very interesting.

The inspection was very thorough and the inspector was great. He was a seasoned contractor and knew exactly what to look for. Overall, he gave the place a very good rating. There were a few minor electrical considerations (non-GFI receptacles in bathroom and kitchen, missing water ground, etc.) but nothing critical. We talked with the Realtor and agree that we should have the seller bring an electrician in and make these quick adjustments. He did make some general homeowner suggestions such as weather-sealing the deck and blowing more insulation into the attic. Not really faults, just common sense improvements.

In addition to the inspection we are also getting the well water tested and having the basement tested for radon levels. The house already has a radon remediation system so radon shouldn't be an issue, but it will be nice to know for certain. The bank also requires the water test to be satisfactory in order to approve the loan.

So things are moving along nicely. I did take some photo while I was there and I am debating whether or not I want to post them online yet. We'll see. •

Posted by: Sheldon Finlay on Feb 26, 06 | 1:00 pm | Profile

The FACT Act: Get copies of your credit reports online for free

It's been a few years since I cared to peek at my credit reports with the major credit reporting bureaus, Equifax, Experian, and TranUnion. But since I am going up again mortgage lenders, it's probably a good time to ensure everything is in apple pie order. The law used to require credit reporting agencies to provide a free yearly copy of your credit report upon request. This only applied to a dozen or so states, Massachusetts included. The last time I requested my credit report I had to call each agency and go through a fairly lengthy automated verification process before they would send me a paper copy by mail which would usually arrive a week or two later.

Yesterday, while doing some credit reporting research I found out about the FACT Act (Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act). Basically, it entitles everyone, regardless of state, to receive a yearly copy of their credit report. This is a fairly recent law which went into effect on December 1st, 2005.

Thanks to a website ( https://www.annualcreditreport.com/ ) which was recently created by the top three reporting agencies, one can quickly and painlessly receive copies of their credit reports online from all three agencies. Each agency will attempt to sell you other things such as credit scores and debt analysis and credit report monitoring, but you can deny these additions.

I now have all three credit reports saved and printed out. And I am pleased to report everything looks better than I had expected.
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Posted by: Sheldon Finlay on Feb 21, 06 | 11:10 am | Profile

A home in the woods

Amy and I had a pretty good idea of what we wanted in a home. We knew we wanted a reasonable size home with 3 bedrooms (One for ourselves, one for our home office(s), and one for a guest room). We both like to garden and work outdoors, so the land needs to be fairly open and workable. The house itself needs to be charming, spacious, have a large living room and be inviting. We didn't want a ranch or a split-ranch, or any house born out of the post-war baby-boom. An elegant farmhouse would be nice, if it was well maintained and insulated. My favorite New England style home is a Victorian or a classic Colonial Saltbox.

Last week, after securing the promise of financing, we choose a Realtor to represent us as buyers. Our Realtor's search system provided us with addresses which many Realtor's don't offer unless you call them and ask for them. So, before we went out with the Realtor we narrowed down the list of suitable properties tremendously by visiting Google maps, plugging in the addresses and studying Satellite photos of the house and surrounding properties and landscape. I know, I am such a geek. But, hey, it saved us visiting all the houses located on busy streets, in packed neighborhoods, or without open land.

On Saturday our Realtor picked us up and drove us through the Belchertown properties we had selected. The first few were okay, but they honestly were not much better than the apartment we live in now. And none of them had a shred of land for a garden. There was one house which I was very excited about just from the listing sheet and when we finally saw it it appeared to have all the variables: one acre of land, quiet wooded location, large family room, full sun exposure with the house facing west, large windows on all sides of the house. The place was perfect, after two walk-throughs and a trip around the yard we were hooked. We saw one more property after that and headed home.

One Sunday we were supposed to go with the Realtor and visit some properties in Deerfield, Conway, Northampton, and Easthampton. But Amy and I decided we were ready to make an offer on the place we like in Belchertown. We filled out the paperwork with the Realtor, wrote out a deposit check and left for the Vermont Sunday sing hoping for the best. While we were singing the Realtor left a message on Amy cell saying the owner's offered a counter offer. We accepted their counter offer, they signed the purchase agreement and now it's a done deal. Hurray! Our Realtor was awesome for pulling this all off during a Sunday. And her agency isn't even the listing agency for the property. She's the best!

We still have to get the place inspected and have already booked an inspector to come out and check the place over. We also have hired a lawyer to do the deed work and whatever else lawyers do during house closing. And of course, we also have to finalize our financing. My accountant called me today to let me know what the final income numbers were and how much we tax owe (ouch!). But if all goes according to plan, we will close on March 23rd and will be having an official moving day the following Sunday, the day after the Vermont State Convention. We are keeping our fingers crossed that everything works out. •

Posted by: Sheldon Finlay on Feb 20, 06 | 1:36 pm | Profile

Funding our new crib

Our overly salesy mortgage broker called us yesteryday and informed us that due to our "success as self-employed business people" and "our outstanding credit" and "our smart financial decisions over the past few years", we are pre-qualified for a mortgage large enough to afford a decent home. Hooray! Thanks be praised! This is a great relief. Now, pre-qualified is different than pre-approved. Pre-qualified means that based upon what we stated as our income and downpayment, we qualified for x amount of money at y interest rate and with z dollars down. Now, in order to be pre-approved we have to back it up all with tax returns and bank statements, which shouldn't be a problem. Surprisingly, they only need 6 months of financial info from us. I always heard that the self-employed usually have to fork over at least 3 years of stable financial info. This wouldn't have been a problem, just more work for us.

Upon learning of our pre-qualification, Amy and I went over the numbers and attempted to add up all our monthly expenses and monthly income qnd figure out where we'd stand after taking on a mortgage. We factored in the monthly mortage payment, taxes, insurance, PMI and all the other hidden fees. Holy smokes! It certainly adds up quick. Our housing costs will nearly triple over what we currently pay for rent. And our rent isn't cheap (3 bedroom duplex 10 minutes from downtown Amherst). But we should be able manage and we decided that we will work hard to make larger payments towards the principal in attempt to pay the loan down faster (savings of thousands and thousands and ten times thousands of dollars!). We probably won't be flying down to Alabama anytime soon.

Now we begin the process of looking at properties and making offers. Happy Happy Joy Joy. We may also shop around for another mortgage offer. While the mortgage we're pre-qualified for is decent, I would like to see if we can get an even lower rate. Even a 1/4 point on the interest rate will save thousands over the life of the mortgage.

Mortgage Word History

The great jurist Sir Edward Coke, who lived from 1552 to 1634, has explained why the term mortgage comes from the Old French words mort, “dead,” and gage, “pledge.” It seemed to him that it had to do with the doubtfulness of whether or not the mortgagor will pay the debt. If the mortgagor does not, then the land pledged to the mortgagee as security for the debt “is taken from him for ever, and so dead to him upon condition, &c. And if he doth pay the money, then the pledge is dead as to the [mortgagee].” This etymology, as understood by 17th-century attorneys, of the Old French term morgage, which we adopted, may well be correct. The term has been in English much longer than the 17th century, being first recorded in Middle English with the form morgage and the figurative sense “pledge” in a work written before 1393.

Posted by: Sheldon Finlay on Feb 16, 06 | 9:24 am | Profile