glenolam's madness - April passed away

[glenolam]

As you may or may not know - we're refinancing and asking for a little money to build a few smaller barns.

Appraisal for the house came back and I got a call from the bank.

He said the appraisal came back lower than we were thinking it would come in - ummmm....ok.....

But, it's still more than enough to qualify for the refi and excess cash we want.

And - bonus - the town assessed our house/property at a higher amount than this appraisal, so we're bringing it to the town hall today and saying take that tax department - charge us less! HA!

We close in a little over a week then it's off to the lumber store!

 

[savingdogs]

We did a re-fi like that and we really really wished we hadn't. We ended up losing our home because the appraisal dropped so much. It is better to do that based on the lesser value, who knows if home prices will drop more. Our house lost more than 100,000 in value in less than a year. We then lost our cushy paychecks, had medical bills and next thing you know we could neither sell it for what we owed or make the payments.

I'd be really carefull refinancing and taking out money. We used it to buy cars (we certainly needed) but it did not work out for us in the long run at all. Not at all. With our original loan, we could have stayed in that house and had it almost payed off by now.

 

[ohiofarmgirl]

hey baby!

hows you're wormy goats this am?

what else can you tell me about lungworm? vita sometimes coughs - was that your only clue (aside from the skinniness?) - she's milking well and is in good condition. so i'm kinda wondering if i should gather up a big sack of crap for the vet.

hum.....

 

[glenolam]

SD - we built our house for very little money then took a home equity LOC. The monthly amount of the refi plus extra $ (which is only $10k) is actually the same exact amount we're paying now (I pay more each month to bring the principle down and with this new mortgage can still afford to do so). In addition, the original mortgage was a construction loan that went adjustable after 5 years. That ended up working in our favor due to the economy - at the end of the 5th yr it went down to 3.75%, but adjusts annually after that and is only going up. With the way things are going we could only ride that for so long before we missed out on making that a fixed percentage.

Both Big G and I thankfully can afford the mortgage with one paycheck or the other at this time, so if one of us looses our job we'll be OK - both of us, not so much but with his type of experience and what he does for a living he might not have as much of a hard time as some if it came to finding another job.

And, we purchased a tractor a few years back and only have 1 year left to pay that off. When that's done we'll have a HUGE amount extra per month to put towards other stuff.

OFG - the wormy goats start fasting tonight. I wanted to wait until I would be home during the day to make sure I dosed and fed them at the correct times...you know being a corp monkey and all I don't have the freedom to be with them during the daytime during the week

I sure can't wait until that's done. 11 days of giving them crap. Ugh.

 

[savingdogs]

I'm glad you won't be in a "spot" then.....your situation is different.

But we got our financial advice from an "expert" and were also paying off our mortgage ahead of time at the old house before foreclosure. We never anticipated the extreme drops in pay we took, not only ONE income, but both. Hubby took SIX paycuts and you know I lost my jobs. Plus over 30,000 in medical bills and our savings and credit were shot. It will be a long time before we dig ourselves out of this, we are filing for bankruptsy right now.

 

[glenolam]

I feel for you SD....and we wouldn't be doing this unless it was a better deal for us. As I mentioned, the mortgage is now adjustable and, while the current adj rate is lower than a fixed rate, the rates are only going to go up from here so the longer we wait to get locked in at a lower rate the worse it's going to be.

And the bank guy I spoke with said that if I continue paying what I am now, even with the refi, we'd have the house paid off in 18 yrs. Can't argue with that. Even if life gets in the way we can still afford the house - that is assuming we don't both loose our jobs and such.

 

[savingdogs]

Sounds like you have a good plan....we just should have realized that when our income was good, we should have payed everything off instead of investing in that property. We assumed we would get all that investment back, we put in very elaborate landscaping, fencing, decking, awning, trelliswork with roses draped over it, a beautiful patio, upgraded appliances, new floor, new lights and wallcoverings, etc. We thought we "needed" that for that house and consolidated our car loans so that we could pay it off with less interest.

Meanwhile when it was empty, we were not allowed to even go there (short sale) and all the plants died, the window lcoverings and such were just ruined with dust and only the hardscape remains. So much for "investing" in that house. It still stands empty. I cannot even drive by it, it breaks my heart. I loved that house. And what breaks my heart is that we lost almost ALL the pictures of it when it was nice, that is what I lost when my computer crashed, along with the photos of my children growing up and their Christmases and a montage I made of all my foster dogs we fostered there.

2010 was a crushing year for us.

 

[glenolam]

We toyed with rolling in other debt and asking for a bigger mortgage, but I didn't want to do that. I didn't even really WANT to ask for more money. I just wanted to roll the 2 into 1 and lock it in. But Big G wants a spot to put his hay equipment, which I understand, and we need a better spot to store all this hay we're going to have this year (YAY!). So we're asking for the bare minimum to get that stuff.

 

[glenolam]

The weekend was B U S Y!!

Got the majority of the chicken coop painted Friday night. Just one teeny tiny section left to go, but it's supposed to rain most of the week so it looks like that's going to be a weekend job.

Saturday we picked up the milk barn!!! I'm super excited about it. I had so much fun organizing it and making it "mine". But, I realized on Sunday I really need to put some type of floor and walls inside there - something that I can wipe down after milking. I have leftover peel and press type "tile" from the basement bathroom so I may put that on the floor, then get some cheap lanolium (whatever) for the walls.

Saturday I gave all the goats safeguard for the lung worms. OFG!! I realized too that I never answered your questions. I never suspected lung worms; basically the only reason I had fecals done was because people were loosing weight and just not looking well so I figured that I'd better get a professional opinion rather than try to combat something on my own. That way I would know what I needed to fight. A few gals were coughing, so lungworm made sense, but I've had goats that coughed for no reason so I don't really rely on that as a symptom of worms.

Yesterday I went to a local place and showed a man how to trim his goat's hooves. I met his wife at the craft fair in Canterbury and she asked if I'd come help one day, which I was happy to.

They have 2 wethers who are HUGE (alpine/toggs) and are about 4 yrs old. Never had a hoof trim. Ever. I'll admit I was a bit intimidated before I got there, but once we heaved them onto the milk stand (I brought mine along) I was SHOCKED at what I saw.

It was as if their hooves had been trimmed a month ago. Beautiful feet. They have a ton of rocks and stuff to climb on, which helps immensly. And their shelter is the "basement" of a barn who's foundation is the old rock and concrete type. So portions of the walls are actually the floor and they get to stand on rocks, jump off rock walls, etc.

I told the man I wouldn't waste my money on buying fancy trimmers for his goats. I told him to check them every couple of months, but I don't think they'll need trims for at least another 6-9 months...if that. Wouldn't it be nice if we all had goats like that?

Yesterday I also started the DiMethox treatment for my goats. UGH. I decided that I'd trim all their hooves too, since I was in "the mode". 9 goats, 1 by 1. All got pedicures while munching on grain and then BAM. Each was hit with anywhere from 13cc - 30cc of DiMethox. Not. Fun.

And supposedly this is going to continue for another 9 days. We shall see.

Here's some pictures of the new milk barn!!

 

[glenolam]

And!!! I forgot to say that when a downpour happened yesterday I was caught outside.

So....what'd I do? Why, went underneath the new goat barn awning! It was Grrrrreat! I just stood there, while the rain pounded down. Fudgie and Opi accompanied me - Opi munching on some hay that I tossed out there earlier...that was still dry because of the awesome awning.