My recent downgrade in my phone plan got me into a savings mood.  So I decided to look around and see where I could save some more money.  Bird and I had separate car insurance policies that were both set to expire in late March.  Rather than just renewing as we’ve done for the last few years…we decided now that we were married it would be wise combine our policies, so we went out and collected some quotes.

Here’s what we used to pay:

• Bird’s Car Insurance:  $559.50 for 6 months
• My Car Insurance: $294.50 for 6 months

To be honest, I have no idea why Bird’s insurance was so much more than mine.  Whether it has to do with her car or her coverage or where she lived…I’m just not sure but that seemed like a crazy high amount to me.

Now that we live in the townhouse and have a lot more stuff (wedding gifts) we decided to get a home insurance policy as well.  The Association covers the external stuff on the townhouse so we mostly had to worry about all the stuff inside it.  The nice thing is, you get a discount on your auto insurance by combining it with a home policy.

We ended up going with AAA for our new insurance.

• Both cars: $461.59 for 6 months
• Home: $193.24 for 12 months

We end up saving almost $600 a year.  Nice!

As you all know Bird and I moved across town and into the townhouse last weekend.  Let’s take a look at what the actual move cost us:

Truck Rental: $90 ($29.95 + .99 a mile)  – saved $15 by opting out of the SafeMove insurance thingy

Bagels for the am moving crew (friends):  $18

Pizza for the pm moving crew (different friends):  $36

Gas for the truck:  $25

Total Cost:  $169

I learned a few things on this move.  First of all, it’s nice to have a lot of friends.  Also, it was nice to get a truck.  It was my first move with a truck and it was very convenient to have just make one trip.  Previous moves were conducted with multiple minivan trips.  It was worth it to pay my friends with food.  They would have done it for free because that’s what friends are for, but it’s tradition to pay in food for moving help.  A mere fraction of the cost of a real moving crew and without them the move would have taken MUCH longer.  Plus, they didn’t break anything or scuff any walls or anything.

Moving Tip: Here’s a sneaky trick for you that I discovered on Saturday.  When you arrive at your new place…unload the truck into the garage and then tell your friends that you have to return the truck immediately.  By the time you get back, all your stuff has been moved from the garage and up two flights of stairs and you’ve gotten out of all the heavy lifting.  I swear I didn’t do this on purpose (the truck did need to go back) but it worked out great.  My friends are the best.

Now let’s cover the mental cost of moving the couch that the tenant left in the living room only to find a used condom underneath it.  SO. GROSS. I’m still calculating that cost.

Tomorrow morning at 8 am I pick up the U-Haul and Bird and I move to our new place.  I’m so, so, so excited.

That being said, I’ll be without internet for a while as we get settled in, etc.  Not that you’d ever know it with my sparse posting as of late.

Wish us luck that it doesn’t snow on our moving day!

This morning when I went out to my car, I noticed a piece of my door handle was broken.  Upon further investigation, it looks like someone tried to break into my car overnight.  Fortunately, they were unsuccessful.  It looks like they most likely had a screwdriver and tried to punch the lock on my driver side door.  There are a bunch of scratches on the lock and it’s a little bent.  My key didn’t go in as smooth as usual, but it still worked.

When that didn’t work, it looks like they went a step further and busted off a plastic piece of the door handle near the locking mechanism.  Basically then they had access to lock inside the middle of the door itself.  Lots more scratches and dents there, but the little Honda Civic would not allow access.  Yay.

The dumbest thing is:  there’s nothing really in my car.  Okay, sure, I have a CD player, but that can’t be worth much these days.  That’s seriously the only thing I have in my car that’s worth anything at all.  Unless of course they were trying to actually steal my car.  Yikes.  And talking to my roommates and neighbors it sounds like it was only my car that was hit.

So the whole thing is kind of annoying but at least they didn’t break my window.  I’m also glad they didn’t put any huge scratches in the door with whatever they were using.  I was able to pop the plastic piece back in place and it basically looks normal again.

So I’ve been thinking a lot about neighborhoods.

Actually, Bird and I have been thinking for some time now about where we are going to live when we are married.  The plan as of now is for me to move into her place for a couple of months when we get married and then look for a new place together.  We didn’t want to have to do an apartment search while wedding planning.  Too much stress.

When we get back from our honeymoon, we will really intensify our search for a new place.  I’m feeling a bit urgent because it sounds like as soon as we settle into a new place I will be able to work from home which is actually great news because then I don’t have to worry about a commute when we are looking for a place.  As of now, we are planning on leaving Minneapolis and looking for a new place in St. Paul.  We will most likely rent for a year or two as we save for a down payment.  Once we have a down payment saved up, more than likely we will buy a house in the suburbs.

Of course, that’s all just a tentative plan.  We’ll see what actually happens.

C just emailed me and told me he received a letter from our housing association about our tenant.

It was a list of complaints:

• Leaving the trash receptacle out
• Cigarette butts in the driveway
• Parking on the grass
• Still displaying holiday lights

So C is going to call her and tell her to shape up.  I’m not too worried about it, but it’s never really a good thing to have complaints.  One of the things I’m the most worried about is the cigarette butts.  I really, really hope she’s not smoking in the house.  That is a total no-no according to the lease.  But because the complaint states that they are in the driveway, I think she might be smoking on the balcony which is above the driveway.  Either way, I hope C talks to her and gets her to clean up her act.  I’ll keep you posted if I hear anything more.

Bird and I stopped by our friend’s new house last night.   It has a bit of work that needs to be done, so I don’t think I’m moving just yet.  It was foreclosed a while ago, so it’s had the water shut off and only about a quarter of the lights work in the place.  My friend is in the construction business and this kind of thing is right up his alley.  I’m making myself available to him this weekend if there is anything he wants me to do that might help expedite the process.

It’s going to be great and I think I will try to post some pics once I get moved in.

This morning I took a break from work to visit a country club with Bird.  We’re scoping out potential reception sites.  We got a little lost on the way, but we eventually found it and it was really nice.  Every place we see has some pros and some cons.  So eventually we’re going to have to make some decisions.  For now, I think today’s site is definitely in the top five.

After the tour, we stopped at Panera for lunch.  $18.35

Today is the day my friend closes on his new house.  After work, Bird and  I plan on going over there, checking it out and celebrating with him.  I guess it was a foreclosure, so there is a bit of cleaning and painting to do.  We plan on getting that taken care of this weekend and then I’m hoping I can begin moving some stuff as early as next week.  I’m still really excited about it!

I just got a voicemail from my buddy that bought the house.  He said they are moving the closing date up….to this Thursday!

So I could potentially move in this weekend.  That will be awesome.  My commute will be cut in half.  I’ll be 20 minutes closer to Bird.  And I won’t be living with my parents anymore!

I will have to start paying rent and utilities again!   But it’s totally going to be worth it.  I can’t wait.

I don’t know if you all remember, but there was all kinds of drama regarding my living situation last summer.

Here’s a brief refresher:  I bought a house with my friend C, turns out I didn’t like living with C, we tried to sell the house, then tried to rent the house.

We eventually used a property management firm to market the house for rent and they found a renter in about 6 weeks.  So as of 12/15, I’ve become a landlord, just like Meg.  For their services we had to pay the management company one month’s rent.

So not only was my December spent ring shopping and fretting about the proposal, but also cleaning the house from top to bottom, moving out and becoming a landlord.

On top of it all, I didn’t have a place to move to when we found the renter so I had to move in with my parents.  Nothing like being 27 and asking your girlfriend to marry you when you live in your parents basement. Ha.

Lucky for me, Bird is very understanding.  And technically, I did have a plan to live with my friend T, but as we were looking for places to live, we found out another friend was house shopping and we could live with him once he found a place.  I didn’t want to have to sign a lease on a place with T anyway because I was planning on getting married within the next year. So you see, it was all a very complicated process.

A week ago, our friend did buy a house and he closes on 2/16.  So I only have a couple more weeks with my parents.  Being the saints that they are, they’ve also allowed me to live there rent free for the time and so I’ve tried to save up some money for the wedding.

So that is kind of a wrapup of my housing situation in the last month or so.  I already have a few crazy stories about our tenant, but nothing TOO crazy, which I’m thankful for.

As far as the financials of this whole situation…

I’m not really landlording for the money…I actually still have to pay about $100 a month because rent doesn’t cover the mortgage and association fees….but it is totally worth it to get out of that living situation.

I just received my property tax estimate the other day.

The good news: They went down.
The bad news: They only went down .2%

The good news: At least they went down.
The bad news: It’s still a lot of money.

The good news: I’m still happy they went down.
The bad news: They only went down because my house is less valuable.

In other property tax news: due to an error, a technical mix-up and various other snafus last year – our property tax account is whack. We overpaid them, then we underpaid them, then someone else paid them. It was all very confusing in our first year of house ownership. Anyways, my point is, because of all of that…I owe my roommate and co-owner about $650 in the next couple of weeks.

I haven’t written about my house situation in a very long time, but there is an update and I will write about it soon.