We're her to pump...you up!

It amazes me that there is a business that specializes in just about everything. It amazes me because I always think that you need to have a diverse business or product line to survive. I see things all the time that prove me wrong though.

I just ran across goulds pumps at WeGotPumps.com. Sure they have many different types of pumps but pumps is what they do. Clearly they specialize and it works for them. Perhaps I'm just too careful to think like that. I don't like to put all my eggs in one basket. Thankfully there are the risk takers out there though or we would all have less options.

Excited for 3/1

I'm really looking forward to March 1st. No, it's not a holiday or anything like that, but it is going to be a happy day for me. That is the day that, assuming all works out with our refinance, that we should be able to say that the only debts we have left are our school loans. Goodbye car payment and credit card!

My car payment has been a source of shame and financial regret for many years now and although I can't get the money back, I can free it up on my bottom line. Lesson learned, and not to be repeated. It will be nice to say we have no car payments when there was a point in our lives in which we had to pay almost $800 a month between our two cars.

The Fed?

I read an article recently that said that the Fed had been audited and accused of spending billions to rescue offshore banks that were in financial crisis. Now, I'm not going to pretend that I fully understand the pros and cons of such a venture but I will say that it doesn't pass the smell test.

Why are we giving business funding to offshore banks when there are so many things that that money could be doing here at home? "Sorry, all you unemployed workers out there, we can't help you, we have to pay the bank of Egypt this week."

Mortgage Rates

We are currently trying to take advantage of the low interest rates. We refinanced our 30 year down to 4.875 about a year ago, but given the rates of the last few weeks decided to try to get a 15 year since the cost wouldn't be that much more than we are paying now.

The appraiser was here this morning so I'm hoping we'll get the number we need to get this done. It will cost us about $220 a month more than we are paying now but will save us 15 years and about a $100,000 in interest over the life of the loan.

I'm feeling really good about the financial decisions we have been making and our progress towards becoming debt free. We made some dumb mistakes but we are doing the right things to get us back where we need to be.