Went to Bestbuy and Sears to look for 3 appliances that I needed: a washer, a dryer, and a fridge. Thought about going to costo, but I didn't think they delivered.

The appliances had a be high quality, inexpensive, and accessible for me. Before I went, I did some price comparisons online. I found a coupon for 15% off open box appliances at Bestbuy. So I went to Bestbuy first, figuring whatever I didn't buy there, I would get at Sears.

When I got to Bestbuy, there was 1 open box item that caught my eye. A washer for 299, so with my coupon, it would have been about $250. I was like cool!, but upon closer inspection it was pretty banged up. It felt a little flimsy. It was a GE. It didn't live up to my quality standards. Not that I'm an expert, but I can tell when something is disposable. The selection was fairly limited at Best Buy in the low price range. They had some cool $3000 fridges with tv's and those $1000 water efficient washers. Oh well, so off to Sears I went.

Sears had a boatload of a selection of washers and dryers. Each aisle had a different brand and all price ranges. I was like, the only difference seemed to be the brand. Every brand had a low, mid, and high range product. I tested out some dryer doors, because some were too hard for me to open. I told the sales rep that it seemed like brand and price were the only differentiation between products. So I asked him which brands to avoid and which to pick. He said to avoid Maytag and GE. Glad I didn't buy that GE at Best Buy. He said Whirlpool is what he'd get.

Ended up gettting a Kenmoore set(made by whirlpool) that were onsale for $50 off each, totalling $670. Not too bad.

They were doing a promotion, 0% interest for 12 Months, but I had to spend 399 on a single appliance. Off to the refridgerators. Again, I asked him what brands to avoid. He said to avoid Frigidaire and Maytag. Both frigidaire and Whirlpool make fridges for Kenmoore. If a Kenmoore fridge has rounded corners, it's made by Frigidaire. If the corners are square, then whirlpool makes it.
Ended up getting a Kenmoore again(with square corners). Price tag said 469, but found out it was on said for $399. Yay!!

They were also doing a free delivery promotion, ending today. $65 to deliver and set up all 3 appliances. Free after mail in rebate! I was telling the rep, how I heard over 50% of people don't ever turn in their rebates. He proceeded to tell me that Sear's statistic is thar 60% do not turn in their rebates. Why people don't send off for free money boggles my mind. I'm going get my rebate ready to mail off right after I'm done with blogging.

Send me the money!!

Well, I signed the closing docs for the new house my brother I will be moving into yesterday. The house isn't actually closing for another week or more because it's still under construction. My brother's heading out of the country for 3 weeks, so the paperwork had to be signed before he left.

We were expecting the 1st mortgage payment to be due in October, but got a nice surprise and it won't be due until November. Woohoo!! That basically means a free month of "rent", budgetwise. That'll help sooo much. My October budget was looking to be over $1000 in the red because my Mother-in-law moved out of one of my rentals.

On top of that I still need to buy a fridge, a washer, and a dryer for the new house since ex-wifey to be is keeping that stuff. There's a reputable place that sells refurbished appliances. Hopefully I can get some good deals there. My brother isn't too picky on the brand or style of appliance as long as they work, and I'm pretty much the same way. If we can get all 3 appliances for less than $1000 total that would be great.

The day I suffered my spinal cord injury...
I was working at a fast food restaurant one evening when a man came in at 11:15 and ordered some food. After I took his money and opened the register to give him his change, he pulled out a small caliber gun and demanded all of the money. There was a little over $50 in the drawer which I started to hand over to him. During the exchange, somehow the money dropped on the counter. That was when everything seemed to go in slow motion. We both looked in each others eyes, and then he shot me in the neck. My life would never be same after that moment. The bullet damaged my spinal cord around the 7th vertebrae of my neck, leaving me paralyzed from the chest down. My co-workers called 911 and an ambulance came within a few minutes. I spent 7 days in a regular hospital and 100 days in a rehab hospital.

They caught the guy a week after the incident and he is now halfway through serving his 22 year sentence for assault with a deadly weapon and armed robbery.

So there's a little more background about me. Now to finances.

Here's a current snapshot of my finances (net worth view) after my pending divorce:

Net worth calculation
house 2 value 175,000k (-134K mortgage) = 41,000
house 3 value 234,000k (-165K mortgage) = 69,000
Pending House 4 value 384,000k (-384k mortgage) = 0

IRA 6,000
401K 3,000
Stock Account 3,000
4 x Bank accounts 7,000 Fluctuates a lot due to expenses
RampVan 25,000

4x Credit Cards -33,000

Net worth approximation $120,000
So this one view of my finances. Another very important view to one's finances is cash flows. I'll go over that in a future post. It's one thing to have a lot of debt and assets. It's another to be able to pay those debts. Cash flow is king, they say, at least in the business world. Whether you agree your household should be run like a business is a whole other issue.

On a side note, a reader had wondered why I "needed" to buy a new house given my current situation. There were many considerations in what the housing situation would be after the divorce.

I knew of the bat, that the kids wouldn't be primarily staying with me. My 2nd daughter was born in our current house. Many memories with the kids were made at this house even in 3 short years. So, we wanted to minimize the disruption for the kids. So it was decided that my wife would keep the house, with the kids primarily living with her. That was despite the fact that $25,000 worth of handicap accessible modifications were done to the house including a modified kitchen, bathroom, doors, and ramps.

So out of the house I was going. Options: rent apartment, rent house, buy house. Having an accessible home is a necessity. The availability of accessible housing is fairly limited in my area. Not that there is a low supply of accessible housing in my area, it's the fact that there is a really high demand for it in my town. All of the accessible apartments in the area had long waiting lists.

So it was down to buying or renting a house. Another consideration was whether or not I was going to live with myself or not. I preferred having someone live with me to help me with things I couldn't do. My brother was the first person I talked to and he was up for it. He lived 30 minutes away from and works only a few blocks from where he worked. So he wanted to make it worth his while to move to where I was. Finding an accessible house would end up being a difficult task also. There weren't any for sale, or for rent right off the bat. There were some good prospective houses for sale that could be modified, but then I found a housing development that was in the mid/early stages. Figuring it would cost $25,000 or so to make the necessary modifications to an old home, I decided to see what the new housing development would charge me to build it the way I wanted. Surprisingly, they told me they would do the modifications at NO charge. After taking into account the free modifications, the price of a brand new home would be about the same or less than buying an unmodified home. So that's basically how I came to the decision to buy a brand new home. Just signed the closing docs today. Actual closing won't be for a least a week though. House is still under construction.

Here's my first entry. My financial life is a real spaghetti mess. I think I'm feeling a need to document this madness, or maybe document the fact that I know it will be straightened out someday.

I would say that I'm doing fairly well, all things considered. For anyone reading this, I feel bad because there isn't enough time to give you a full background of my life up to this point. It's like trying to understand a book when you only get to read the second half. Well, I guess how the story plays out in the end that is important. Here's a summary of the first half of my "book" starting with my spinal cord injury:
1995: Gunshot wound causing injury
1998: Finish Bachelors
1999: Meet wife to be
2001: Buy house, Get married
2003: Have kid #1
2004: Buy house #2
2005: Have kid #2
2006: Receive Masters
Buy house #3
Decide on spousal separation

September: separation of spousal finances

So there you have it. A quick rundown of the last 11 years of my life. My wife's keeping the current house and I'm moving out with my brother(buying ANOTHER house).
Wife's also keeping one of the vehicles. Almost all debt was/is in my name.

So what's left in my financial inventory after the financial split with my wife?:
-4 credit card balances
-Van (paid off)
-2 rentals with highly leveraged financing
-401k
-Roth ira
-Stock account
-4 checking accounts
-Heloc and mortgage on wife's house
-Car loan for wife's vehicle
-Alimony and child support

I think that's all I can think of of the top of my head. Well, after typing that all out, I guess it's not so bad.

For anyone who has been through a divorce, I'm sure you know how hard it is to make ends meet when costs aren't covered by 2 people anymore. I can feel the squeeze. Especially with the pending house I'll be buying with my bro. I will be selling one of the rentals, that should ameliorate my financial situation a bit. I hope my wife survives the pinch.

I never would have thought that I would "own" $1 million in real estate. After I buy this next house I will. I live in the west, so I guess in this crazy market, a million dollars doesn't really buy much. Plus, it's mostly mortgaged out.

My goals for the remainder of the year are to sell one of the rentals, establish a budget that I feel comfortable with, and reduce my credit card debt.

Well, I think that's enough for today. More details in the future.