Mapgirl’s Fiscal Challenge

But you might have guessed that already as a regular reader.

Via Escape Brooklyn, it’s official. I scored a 17 on the Time Out New York quiz.

I took this quiz about being cheap at timeoutnewyork.com/livecheap, and my cheapness quotient rated as 17.

Here’s what they said:
Finally! A sane person. You’re careful with your money, but never cheap. You know that what goes around comes around and that a thank-you goes a long way.

Try the quiz and let me know how you score:
Cheap Quiz

Most of my knitter friends are not young hipsters who rock out. They’re mostly moms with kids who are edging towards college admissions and retirement. One of them has had breast cancer on and off the last few years. She’s doing her third round of chemo now. It’s spread to her bones. I’m really worried about her.

I bring this up now because one of my favorite under the radar blogs disclosed her breast cancer diagnosis at the end of 2007, but I’m only just catching up on it now. I’m totally freaked out since she’s way way cool and I can only aspire. At any rate, I hope both of these women get better soon.

A third very dear friend of mine is having weird breast issues. Strange discharges and lumps, but nothing cancerous. So far, it’s all benign. But she’s way too young. (Under 35 for pete’s sake!)

Get involved with your money, your feet, or your mouse-click:
Sponsor someone who’s doing a Breast Cancer Walk.
Do a Breast Cancer Walk. (The Walk links are different. The second one I suggest you do, is actually a 2-day walk vs a 3-day one.)
Go to the Breast Cancer Site and click the button.
Encourage NIH funding of cancer research. (All kinds please.)
Support the American Cancer Society. (Jump-A-Thon anyone?)
Knit a Chemo Cap and donate to a hospital.
Make a some meals and spend some time with a friend who has cancer. (Chemo makes you very tired.)

For entertainment: A woman dyed her dog pink to promote cancer awareness and was fined for it. Awesome! Free press for the cause! How’s that for awareness raising?

Finally, if you are a woman, do your monthly exams. Early detection can save your life. Yes, that means you have to check all the way into your armpits and your under neck lymph nodes too.

(I’m actually thinking about doing the 5K run in DC in June because I’m getting so damned fat.)

I am exhausted from the morning gift orgy.

Two little babies got more than a lot from Santa, Mom, Dad, Auntie Mapgirl, Grandpas (2), Grandmas (3) and Companion (1). *sigh* Honestly, I am glad all I gave them was clothes. Dino jammies always rock.

The big winner toy that both the 2 year old and 7 month old liked was a Push n Go Crab. It plays music, wiggles its eyes and claws. Then it moves across the floor, sideways. It is a crab after all.

I hope everyone had some sort of happy holiday this season, whatever your proclivity is. (My that’s a very bland sentiment. Once more. WITH FEELING!)

HAVE A HAPPY HOLIDAY!

*WHEW*

That’s better.

FMF serves up the chuckles. His advice is spot on, “Come on, people, control your spending!” Just the reminder I needed before splurging on a trip to London for NYE with friends. I have to remember to keep my pennies tightly clenched in my fists. What is it he says in Croupier? “Hold on tightly. Let go lightly.” (Let it be known that despite my well-established fetish for blonds, Clive Owen is simply ridiculous looking with blonde hair. Ah ladies, but he’s dangerous. Very dangerous. I wish he was 007 instead silly, pouty-mouthed Daniel Craig. Twit.)

I wager FMF doesn’t really listen to rap music. I don’t really think of P. Diddy as a “bad boy rapper”. Then again, the last and only serious rap album I bought was Fear of a Black Planet. What do I know?

I’ll just keep repeating to myself, “Come on, people, control your spending!”

Totally free.

Go to Google News and type “gnome”.

Garden gnomes make me laugh.

For more, watch Amelie.

Did you guys ever play Fortunately/Unfortunately when you were a kid? This was an imaginative story exercise I did in first or second grade. I had a lot of fun and I still remember it. You start a sentence “Fortunately” or “Unfortunately” and then write something to move the story along. For instance, “I was walking along the woods when fortunately I found a pretty looking egg. Unfortunately, it was a dragon egg. But fortunately, my dad is a dragon trainer. Unfortunately my mom didn’t want me to have a dragon, etc.”

You get the idea. Well here’s a fortunately-unfortunately story for you.

Unfortunately, my computer died.
Fortunately, I was planning on buying a laptop anyway.
Unfortunately, I won’t be getting it for a few weeks.
Fortunately, I’m not too computer ignorant and can do some repairs.
Unfortunately, I don’t have backups.
Fortunately, I will be getting an external hard drive for free or cheap soon from a friend.
Unfortunately, I may not be able to retrieve all my data.
Fortunately, I don’t consider photos to be irreplaceable.
Unfortunately, this is going to take a bit of time.
Fortunately, I still have computer access by other means.
Unfortunately, I cannot always control when I can use it.
Fortunately, this is all a temporary condition.
Unfortunately, I am impatient and wish it would resolve sooner.
Fortunately, I am determined to get through this.
Unfortunately, I have to take my car into the dealer for a check up and I think I will be spending a lot of money.
Fortunately, I have stopped the 401k contribution so I have extra cash each month.
Unfortunately, the extra money is budgeted for something else.
Fortunately, I have an emergency fund CD expiring in December.
Unfortunately, that’s far away from now and I am not sure this is a true emergency because it’s maintenance.
Fortunately, I have been trying to save money by dining out less.
Unfortunately, I made extra chicken stock but have been lazy and let it spoil.
Fortunately, it doesn’t really mean anything to my grocery budget to lose it.
Unfortunately, I committed to going to a yarn show in NY next weekend.
Fortunately, I know I am not allowed to buy anything but food, gas and hotel.
And even more fortunately, my friends and I are cool with taking lots of snacks and drinks for the hotel.
Unfortunately, there will be a lot of temptation to buy neat things.
Fortunately, I am taking a green shawl project of handspun wool to remind me I don’t need anything.
Unfortunately, it’s the second time I have tried a shawl out of this yarn, and I still don’t like it.
Fortunately, it’s for me and it doesn’t matter.
Unfortunately, this trip means I won’t be going grocery shopping the next few days.
Fortunately, I have stocked my shelves with food.
Unfortunately, I will still need to buy lunches to round out meals.
Fortunately, I have coupons I can use to buy food at the new office location.
Unfortunately, that means my old punchcards are useless because we’re too far from our old location.
Fortunately, the new cafeteria still has food by the pound.
Unfortunately, I can eat a lot and they have a wide-variety of juices and soft drinks.
Fortunately, I am committed to bringing my own drinks from home right now.
Unfortunately, I am a sucker for Tropicana orange juice.
Fortunately, my team still keeps a fridge hidden under our desk and I can buy half gallons if I want them.

And on that upbeat note, I’ll end this post because as you can see, it could go on endlessly in a silly fashion.

Hat tip to Boston Gal for pointing out an article in USA Today about homeowners who can barely afford their homes.

The person in question is Sydney Lasry of Severn, MD. After doing a public records search and checking Google Maps, I know where this guy lives and I can guess who his employer is. It’s not that hard since the US Government is one of the largest employers in the state of Maryland. (Apologies to Mr. Lasry for using him as an example. I don’t mean this as an attack on him. It’s more to further my understanding of the math surrounding mortgages and the mortgage crisis in America.)

With that in mind and some of the statistics in the article let us do a quick analysis.

1) He’s paying 70% of his gross pay towards housing.
2) His property tax bill is $3,200.00.
3) His insurance bill is $1,100.00
4) His home is $400K.
5) Guess: He works for the Federal government.
6) He is a ’systems engineer’. N.B. I put #5 before #6 for a reason to be explained.
7) The tax rate in his county is 89.1 cents per $100 of assessed value.

Alrighty. I have confirmed, his home’s sale price was $400K. His tax bill is actually closer to $3300, so I will adjust for that. Given 20% down and standard 30-year mortgage at 6.25%, per Bankrate.com’s calculator, his mortgage payment is principal and interest at $1969.80. His monthly escrow and insurance is 274.30 and 91.67 respectively. The total is $2335.77 per month in housing.

If that is 70% of his gross income. He’s making $40,041.80 a year.

Now here’s what does not add up about this at all.

That salary would make him a GS-6 or a GS-7. Now this is where it’s very weird that his title is ’systems engineer’. I am considered a systems engineer, but basically I write Oracle reports, making a very decent salary. My pay grade is more like a GS-11 and higher. But when I search USAJOBS for ’systems engineer’ at GS-6 to GS-12 in his neighborhood, I actually found a listing for an electronics engineer that is GS-5-GS-14, i.e. $33K to $104K a year. What kind of range is that?

So yes, it’s really crazy, but he could be making $40K a year in the DC Metro area as a systems engineer. It’s shocking to me, but I guess that’s what happens when you work as a civil employee.

Moving along, there was an assertion in the comments that even before the rise in his property taxes and insurance, he was paying 60% of his gross income to housing. My analysis shows that a mortgage payment of $1969.80 a month, by itself is 59% of his gross salary.

A lot of this analysis is contingent on the mortgage payment. I played it really conservatively and wrote that his mortgage was as traditional as possible, 20% down, 30 year fixed, reasonable rate. But I think that assumption was wrong. He’s paying PMI. So he probably put down less than 20%. What if he had really crappy credit? I ran the numbers again with a 30-year fixed at 9% and his gross salary is then $50K. Hm. I don’t know that I would have bought a $400K home while making only $50K a year. I mean, I was making about $45K a year when I bought my condo for under $200K. I just didn’t think I could afford a bigger home than that. And the bank didn’t think I could either. They pre-approved me for a mortgage around $190K.

So with that further information, I started running numbers at 5% down payment, same terms and rates as before (30-year fixed at 5%, 6.25%, 7.5% and 9%). The highest salary range I get is almost $60K. Now taking that number and punching into the mortgage affordability calculator, with $40K downpayment, and 5% rate, I see that he can afford a mortgage of $300,794.26. Now I’m starting to think this guy has a creative mortgage. I think he might have an interest-only ARM because I don’t know how he can afford to have this home whatsoever.

Ok. I’m done thinking here. But very fascinating stuff. This guy has a mortgage that he can barely afford right now. If he’s lucky, the assessment will fall and his tax bill is reduced. However, then he’ll be holding the bag on his place because the mortgage might be more than the home is worth. If he really does have an ARM, he’s toast.

I hope he has some roommates, because someone is going to have to pay for the electricity and cable bills around that place. (From what I can tell, his home is quite spacious and could handle a few extra people living there.)

Apparently he’s been notified by the FBI of a criminal investigation.

From my very limited experience, he’ll probably only go to jail for 3 years and then like the defendant on whose case I worked before, he can get out of jail and go right back to fraudulent practices and get indicted again about 5 years from now.

Rob thinks I am obsessed with Mr. Serin. It’s not that. I have schadenfreude and I have enough knowledge of what the feds do to prosecute a case like this. The banks should be so lucky that it’s only 8 properties he bought and not the 50 or so that I had to process. I read through HUD-1 after HUD-1 (These are settlement sheets used in real estate transactions) and saw the fishiness over and over again. I feel bad for the settlement attorney and appraisers who might have worked on these transactions. They may be dragged into the much for associating with such an idiot.

Who knows if any creditors will actually see any money again. I worked on this from the bankruptcy side, which is how the defendant was undone basically. Since Mr. Serin hasn’t actually done a filing, there may be no civil remedy here for them, only the satisfaction that he is in jail.

Disclosure: I worked a the case for the bankruptcy trustee who administered the defendant’s bankruptcy proceeding, and we were cooperating with the FBI to serve justice properly (and find a missing Mercedes). As part of the federal indictment, the defendant had to cooperate with the trustee to recover as much money as possible for the creditors because the jerk made a lot of preferential payments. If you really want to know who it was, I can tell you if you want to email me privately. There are several news articles or court documents you can easily Google to verify what I am saying.

In fairness, I give you this article on where to find the cleanest water at North Bend Middle School in Oregon. (Which is near Mt. Bachelor, a brutal place to ski in deep powder if you are a novice like me. I wrenched my knee there many years ago.)

Heh heh… Makes me laugh, but this is pretty disgusting. I’ll never drink out of the fountains at work again. I’ll take my corporate schwag hot/cold 20 oz travel cup to the kitchen first.

Tap water you bottle yourself. Couldn’t be cheaper than that.

I was at a barbecue on Sunday. I found myself drinking water all afternoon in the heat and not wanting much beer at all. Water really is best.

A new exhibit of his papers in Jerusalem.

More prosaic documents on display show Newton keeping track of his income and expenses while a scholar at Cambridge.

Fancy that. A student mindful of his money.

If you didn’t know. He was also Warden of The Mint and engaged with finding counterfeiters, often wearing disguises to gather evidence.