So many awesome comments and questions.  I’ve added them to the list that I’m bringing to the meetings on Friday with People That Know.

But, suffice it to say, we’re going to, in good AA style, “Act as if.”

As in: “Act as if we’re moving in March, and start purging the house of crap.”
As in: “Act as if we’re staying forever, and not talk about anything to the kids until a decision is truly made.”

I’ll have a better idea of where we’re at on Friday, but I’m pretty comfortable saying that we’re not renting until we sell, and we’re not able to put the house up for a couple of months.  And lord knows how long it will take to sell.

Oh.  The other dark horse is my company.  As of last week, our run rate is $1.3MM In sales.  Run rate means shit, really, but still… encouraging.  We’re not there yet, but we’re moving in the right direction.

Have I said thanks to you for listening to this craziness?  If not, thanks.  A whole lot.  Seriously.

Love to all.  Even you, Mr. 7/1 interest-only.

Okay. There’s a lot of math to follow. Apologies.

Here are the variables.

Current Housting Costs (CHC), Mortgage (M), Property Taxes (T), HELOC (H), Proposed Rental (R), Renting out Current House (CH), Net Housing Costs (NH)

Numbers are representational, but they make the point with a sledgehammer.

M=$5
T= $3.6
H=$3.6 ———–> CHC = M+T+H = $12.2

R= $3.6

Sound good, right? Because $12 - $3.6 = $8.4, and that’s a huge savings!

Life, though, is different.

We have to options. Rent out our current house (CH) or sell our curent house.

If we were able to RENT our house for the cost of taxes + mortgage ($8.6), we’d still save money, and hold onto the house while we saw how the business went, right?

$12(CHC) - $3.6(R) - $3.6 (H) = savings of $4.8, for an NH of $7.2  This is because we’d still have to service the HELOC.

But let’s say it took two months to rent our house. You’d have to spread the costs of paying for our house over the cost of the rental to see how much it really cost, right?

2 months @ $12 (CHC) = $24. $24 / 12 months = 2/month double dip penalty (DD).

So, with that in mind.

12 (CHC) - 3.6(R) - 3.6 (H) - 2 (DD) = savings of $ 2.8, or an NH of $9.2.

Now, the rental we were about to take has been on the market for 6 months.

If it took THAT long to rent our house, the penaly would be:

6 months at $12 = $72. $72/12 months = $6 (DD)

12 (CHCs) - 3.6(R) - 3.6(H) - 6(DD) = loss of $1.2 or a NH of 13.2!!!

If the middle ground held true, and the house took 4 months to rent:

12 (CHCs) - 3.6(R) - 3.6(H) - 4(DD) = savings of $0.8, or NH of $11.2.

Now the savings don’t look so freakin’ hot for renting out our house, you know?

And the final blow. Rental income is fully taxable.

End of story.

If we were to sell the house, staying until it’s sold is a no-brainer.

1) We couldn’t afford to rent while selling. See above.
2) There are houses we might be interested in buying in our town, for which we would need the $ from selling our current place.

So now, we wait until Friday, run this all by the financial planner and the Realtor, and see what they say.

Math, you fickle bitch.  I still love you, though.  You always show me the truth.

Love to all.  Even you, TRW.

I’m running the numbers. Again. Trying to figure out how to stay here.

I live in a sweet place, but it’s not a mansion. The taxes are insane, but I love the neighborhood.

I’m working from home since my youngest has a fever of 102.. maybe I’ll take a little video for y’all of Chex Championable.

Love to all. Even you, the real estate person who told me some disturbing stuff that I can’t independently verify.

Stupid, stupid headline. Stupid, stupid people make writing such a headline necessary.

At the Quaker church near my house, there’s a huge black banner with simple white lettering “Torture is wrong.”

James wrote a quick entry explaining how and why waterboarding is torture. I started to comment on his entry, but then my comment got too long, so I’m writing it here. My comment started with:

See! See!

You’re still a Republican, I’m still a Liberal, and we both agree waterboarding is torture! Agreeing me doesn’t make you a Jimmy Carter wannabee, and my agreeing with you doesn’t make me jump on the Romney Express. Yay!

At my office, I like to joke that it’s really important to be nice to everyone, so that when the time comes when someone does us wrong, we can be self-righteously angry.

Although said in humor, there’s some truth to this. After all, it’s kind of hard to get angry at someone for screwing you over if you’ve been nailing everyone else for years, you know?

The same logic holds true here in the U.S. By holding ourselves to higher standards, by accepting that there is real risk associated with freedom, we used to be in a place where, if we ever needed to kick the shit out of another country, we could do so with something akin to a purity of motive, and the understanding that even when we won, we would treat our enemies fairly and according to international agreement.

Now, we’ve completely lost any moral standing in the world, and rightly so.

Now, I’m no fool. I realize that Gulf War I was largely about American interests, but our politics dovetailed with the region’s, and we didn’t try to effect “regime change.” Heck, we didn’t steamroll in to Baghdad because, as Dick Cheney pointed out, the result of trying to do so would have resulted in a quagmire exactly like the one in which we’re mired right now.

After our Anti-American, Anti-Constitution, Anti-Due Process, Anti-Speech, Pro-oil, inarticulate, murderous President was properly elected (for the first time, in 2004), one of my first thoughts was:

“Oh, boy. Now we really deserve whatever we get.”

But I no longer feel this way. George Bush isn’t a Republican. I don’t know what the fuck he is, beyond being a criminal who should be impeached, convicted, and jailed. The Republicans got snookered, man. They should revolt against this high-spending, pseudo-moralist, war-for-the-family felon.

When Bush was elected the price of oil was what, $26, $28 a barrell? Now it’s hovering in the low-mid 90’s. Oh, he’s done a FANTASTIC job. For his friends.

America? Not so much.

Love to all. Even you, Michael Mukasey.

Kizz just called me a “serendipity magnet.” I don’t know if I’d agree, but it would be nice if it were true.

However. I’ll take a little if it comes my way. And it appears, God willing, that it has.

We just agreed to a two-year lease on a three bedroom house in our own town. It was a sudden opportunity that we couldn’t possibly refuse. The rent is exactly the same as our current mortgage. However, there are no property taxes (bye-bye, $2000/month!), and if we sell our house, we can also say goodbye to servicing our line of credit (bye-bye, $1500/month!). It’s also within walking distance to the train station, and is served by precisely the same schools that my kids attend now.

There are a LOT of downsides. I’ll discuss them later. There’s a lot of different emotional responses ping-ponging around the house, here. I’ll discuss them later. There are a LOT of potential double-paying expenses while we get our house sorted out, but I’ll discuss those later, too.

I will admit something, though. I wasn’t allowing myself to think this, but I can say it now: I didn’t WANT to commute from Burlington to NYC via Jet Blue. I didn’t WANT to not see my kids five days out of fourteen.

I will do anything to give my family what it needs. ANYTHING. But that doesn’t mean I want to do those things.

I need to make sure I go to Church tomorrow, and to more AA meetings, and to be extra kind to people to whom I don’t feel like being extra kind. There are lessons, here. Don’t know what they are, but there are.

Love to all. Even you, the copywriter who “hates ads.”

In the middle of all this craziness, it turns out someone we know has been trying to rent their carriage house for about six months.  It’s a 3 bedroom place within walking distance to the train station.  We’re going to see it tomorrow.  I don’t want to say more, because I don’t want to screw anything up.

This could be a strange turn of events.   More later.

Love to all. Even you,  Orbit.

Me? I’ve done the math. I’ve run the numbers. I know the score.

Maggie? She’s examining options, coming up with alternatives, weighing the pros and cons.

See, I’m wired to make life-changing decisions the moment my information-processing units have JUST enough data for the scales to tip.  Maggie likes to take things in slow, measured, steps.

The good thing is, we’re following things through to their logical conclusions.  So, while I’m agreeing to weigh all the options Maggie wants me to weigh… she’s also going to Waitsfield Thanksgiving weekend to look at houses.

Oh.  I picked up my Miata from the repair shop tonight, and promptly turned straight into a 1-foot-high, totally-invisible-to-a-driver, concrete wall, which ripped off a 1.5 section of the body.  Whee.

Then, while playing around with the “X-Me” application on Facebook, I accidentally “provided leeches to” five of my friends.  Or, I guess, ex-friends.  That’s a big percentage of my friends.

Okay.  That’s enough from me.

Love to all.  Even you, Mr. Upsell.

I am on the right. My VP is on the left.

Love to all.  Even you, the phoneless service department.

Okay. This may be the first time I’ve ever done the eBay thing rationally. Normally, I sell something for $100, and somehow justify buying $140 worth of crap with that $100. Sensible, yes?

17-inch MacBook Pro: Predicted Selling, $2400. Actual selling: $2599.
12-inch PowerBook G4: Predicted Selling, $400. Actual selling: $525.
Dented 2.3 Ghz G5: Predicted range: $600 - 1100. Actual selling: $910.
Paypal Fees of $122.25
eBay fees of $117.02

Total income: $3794.73.

Outflows:

Mac Pro Quad Xeon: $2039.05
2GB Ram for MP: $104.00
500GB drive for MP: $107.89
MacBook 2.2 Ghh / Santa Rosa = $1414.13
2GB RAM for MB: $128.44

Total Outflows = $3793.51

This means that I replaced my laptop and desktop with new equipment (although the laptop is a signifcantly lower end model… but with WAY better battery life and an easier-to-read screen. And I can’t BELIEVE I need a screen that’s easier to read) and made enough money to buy a pack of gum,

Mmmmm. Gum.

Love to all. Even you, the dude who would clearly pee on everything, if he could.

Five days in NYC. Travel to Vermont. 9 days in vermont. Travel to NYC.

I may be deluding myself, but part of me thinks this suits me quite well.

When in NYC, I’d get to work late every night. I’d get to go to different AA meetings. I get to wake up later. I get to be the obsessive workaholic freak, without the guilt.

When in Vermont, I’d be there every morning when the kids wake up (vs zero now). I’d be there every day when the kids got back from school. (vs. zero right now, and with the caveat of “After the hello, I have to go back to work.”). And I’d be home every weekend, although I’d want to sleep in the first Saturday, and I’d have to leave in the afternoon on the second Sunday.

Am I deluding myself?

Love to all. Even you, tardy parents.