Still here, just busy!!

I'm still here, but it's been a crazy week to say the least. There's a lot going on in the Andresen household as of late.

I worked from home last week and the connection from my work computer to my home computer is ridiculously slow, so I really didn't find an opportunity to blog from home while I was working and now that I'm physically back in the office, it's a bit crazy since I'm playing catch up.

Then on Saturday night around 10 or 10:30 we stopped in Edmonds/Shoreline area to get gas because we didn't have quite enough to get home. We powered down the car to pump gas and then when I went to turn it back on it wouldn't start. The lights and radio still worked so I thought we had enough power to be jump-started... that didn't work. Then someone tried to check our starter, but still nothing. Ah, nothing like being stranded at a random gas station 10 miles from home late at night with your two very tired, screaming young children while you are pregnant. Luckily, we were able to park our car overnight and have it towed the next morning to a shop and my mom was gracious enough to lend me the use of her car until last night. I just picked the car up today and it's running fantastic!! After all that, it was determined it was the battery but it was originally going to cost us close to $300 for the repairs because our car requires a "special" battery. I was able to negotiate the price of the work done, so it didn't cost us as much as we thought. Now we get to just turn around and trade it in for a minivan in about 2 months, so yay for us.

In addition to the new expense of a car, we are currently looking into the possibility of buying a home within the next 6 months. We need a bigger place as it is with having another child and with some of the rent prices in the area it might not make sense to continue renting. Aaron and I together make a good amount of money that could easily support a mortgage payment if we are smart about our options. There are a lot of great deals out there with low interest rates and programs/options for first time home buyers, etc. Plus, from what I've heard they have extended the $8000 home buyers credit for now, so it would be a good time to take advantage of the buyers' market. I have a feeling that if we buy now, we could end up getting a better deal in the long run versus waiting 3 more years to pay off what debt we have before getting into a house. If we did buy and got the $8000 credit, on top of the credits we would get from our income and having our kids, etc, we could easily pay off BOTH of our credit cards and my remaining student loan, as well as any miscellaneous medical bills we might have. That would only leave us with a small car payment, a mortgage, daycare (which might be next to nothing if Aaron's mom would watch the kids for us---or at least the 2 younger ones), and our cell phones.

We didn't really think that this was an option for us, but after talking to quite a few people who are in similar situations as us, it's possible to find something within our price range and still afford to live. Money might be tight but it would be doable. So, I will be calling around to some lenders to see what we would even qualify for before we jump into a home search.

Keep your fingers crossed for us!