Hi everyone, few updates; My husband ended up telling his mom the plan because she kept talking about coming to visit next year about this time of year for our over 1,000 mile husky dog race (Iditarod) and I told him he better break the news gently. It's pretty much assured that he will either get his bosses old job, or at the very least, when his old job opens up (if the guy who is in it now moves up) his former one. We also told our daughter, and she thanked us for letting her know.
Last night I just happen to be perusing a job site with the same organization I'm with now (University of Alaska) and lo and behold there is an admin assistant position, same thing I'm doing now! (well not exactly the same, but similar) and it would be a 10 month position, right now I have an 11 month position with July off. I am applying for it for sure! There is a lot of competition in the area for good jobs like that, I've also applied there before and not got positions, but I am going for it for sure anyway. What do I have to lose? At least I'm already in the system now!! It sounds like a very busy job, but mine here is too, so what the heck. It's only like 5 minutes from our house too! My husband is encouraging me to apply. It's 34% less than what I'm making here, but it's still a very good salary for that area. Oh and it's only 32 hours/wk, which is fine with me as well. The only thing that I don't like is that I think it may be a late afternoon/evening job, I'm used to day shift, but I could get used to it. I'm more of a morning person, but I'm sure I could adapt. They will start looking at applications while I'm on our trip, so ideally when we return, they would want to interview me. We are spending Friday the 17th & Saturday the 18th there (our home), then we head back here on Sunday the 19th (next month) and back to work Monday the 20th. If they wanted me to start working there in say like May, I could give my two weeks notice here, and head back there, work for a bit, and I have a feeling the two months off are June & July, so I could come back here and work for June, then head back in July like I was going to. I have it all worked out, they just need to hire me! LOL!
We got another offer in the mail for a 0% offer, this time from American Express. It's for 15 months, so I'm not sure if it's feasible to do this or not, but it's certainly better than the 12 month offer Discover was giving us. I just got a printout in the mail that I had requested of my credit history. I need to look over it better, I think we still have some cards open that I really don't want to keep, but I don't want to ding our score either. Eventually I want to get rid of some. I know there is a fine line because of the debt ratio thing. We are going to want to open a "new" car loan in the next 4-5 months when we move (see how confidant I sound?) so I need our credit report to be clear.
As much as I hate to pay the shipping, we will probably send our truck from here over there just so we won't have to get 2 car loans. This one is older, but in decent shape, and has low miles. It has a big camper shell on the back that I will want removed when we move. It creates poor visibility. My husband wanted it initially thinking we may use it here for camping, but so far we haven't. It's just the shell, not an actual camper. The payments are low, and we owe about $8900 on it. It will be paid off in the next 3 years. At that point, I would like to get a smaller vehicle for me, I don't like driving big trucks. I'm short, it's hard for me to get up into, etc. It's good enough for me to use in the meantime. Either that, or we can sell it to our son, who has been driving our old 2002 Ford Ranger. Who knows how much longer that will last. I told my husband we should sell the side by side now, that is the payment I am most wanting to get rid of. In a small town, he is afraid someone will wonder why we are selling it, he's paranoid and doesn't want anyone here finding out we are thinking of moving, but I told him it's bound to happen especially if I have to get references from my boss & other coworkers for my potential new job. I sure hope I get to the interview stage! The competition is fierce there. It's so much easier to find good jobs here!!
Yay for FRIDAYS!! I'm so glad it's Friday. I've been working my fingers to the bone this week, and trying to wrap things up before we leave on our trip. We leave on Tuesday the 7th. Very excited about that, both of us are anxious to get out of the cold & into the sun!! What a temperature change though! It's 0 degrees right now, and it will be in the 80's in Vegas. CRAZY!! This weekend I plan on pre-packing (sandals and shorts! whoo hoo!) applying for the job, start to weed out some things I don't want to haul back with us, laundry, and general cleaning.
Also, I almost forgot this important bit of news. We just got notice from our exisiting mortgage lender, Bank of America, that our loan is going to be serviced by a new company, Carrington Mortgage as of April. Have you heard of them? I never had. I called them, and they were very nice, and said we have 60 days to pay our April mortgage. I quickly called BOA & cancelled our auto pay, we pay twice a month, and apparently we are paid up for March, so that is good news. Also, our insurance & property taxes are paid up until August. (included in the monthly morgage). If you have any experience with Carrington~good or bad, please share? The one thing I don't like is that they are on EST time, that is 4 hours ahead of us. It's not that I call all the time, but I liked that BOA had my local time zone. Hopefully it will be a smooth transition, and no hiccups along the way. We are constantly getting refinance offers in the mail, probably because we qualify for that streamline one. I don't really want to start at 30 years again! I also don't want to pay more closing costs. If anyone has any thoughts on this, please share!
Here's wishing everyone continues to do good with debt paydown, to lead a happier and healthier lifestyle! HAPPY FRIDAY!!!