but fortunately my realtor was willing to do whatever it takes to close such as begging her husband to get out of bed early this morning and go into the cold and cut bars of my windows.

Backing up a little, last night we got the all clear on the loan, 20 minutes later we were told we weren't going to be able to close until the security bars on the windows were removed. With a mere 5 days before the drop dead date, that wasn't good.

A flurry of phone calls and the sellers claim they will take care of the bars that night. I am in shock. These are the people who couldn't even sign the first contract on time. But hey, if they say they will....they didn't.

Realtor does a flurry of calls this morning, no one knows anything. She yanks her loving and very tolerant husband out of bed and has him accompany her to the house. The bars are still on. They begin work, more calls and emails ensue as people search desperately for the appraiser to confirm their removal and fortunately all is cleared with a mere 1 1/2 hours before closing.

All said and done, closing was the easiest and least stressful part of the day.

Both realtors saw the value of not trying to wait till the drop dead date. This is why I am always early and always prepare for potential complications. Life is less stressful if complications have time to be worked out.

Needless to say, we made sure to grab a thank you card and some gift certificates to a restaurant we know they go to alot. Funny part was, she had a card ready for us with a gift certificate to home depot. She takes very good care of her clients.

My net worth is down 5k thanks to the purchase but its worth it to have a place of our own. Hurray!

I suppose I should start with a little background.

I went to college for five years to get my bachelor's degree, survived on a job that paid 6k and met my husband while there. Knowing that the Michigan economy wasn't exactly hopping, we decided finally on moving to Denver, Colorado. The day after we both graduated, we were in a moving van on our way.

We have been out here for nearly three years now, both have decent paying jobs and we now need to pay for all the luxuries and necessities that we have acquired between now and then. I started trying to clean the mess up about a year ago and we are currently on track with our budget (I will be posting real numbers in the next post).

Our biggest set back so far was helping a lifelong friend of mine get herself started out here. She had been jobhunting for a year in Michigan with no luck but after having her out here for a month and a half, she is now employed, has a job in the field that she got her associates for and is living on her own.

We just finished this and it set us back 4k but it was worth every penny knowing that my friend can have a job outside of retail. Don't worry, she is on her own now though I have been teaching her about budgets.

The biggest challenge in our household is that I am the spender but my husband can't say no to me. So really, this is about me learning that I don't need everything that I want.

Especially since I had been teaching my husband some very bad spending habits and he was starting to pick them up.