Today is another chapter in the Dividend Diplomats mortgage series. Time flies and surprises pop up where you least expect them. I’ve written a lot about my house hunt recently, starting with reasons why my wife and I were not in a hurry to purchase a house all the way to the process of finding the institution that will provide us with the best mortgage. We were always told that lightning strikes and when you find the right house, you need to move quickly. Well, that was the case here and I could not believe how quickly things moved. In all honesty, I’m a little shocked about it all here and I’m still finding myself trying to process what went down. Mostly happy, with some doubts (as always), but her is the story about how my wife and I found our house. I’m going to have a two-part series about this process – one about the purchase and one about some of my emotions/feelings after the offer was accepted. So here is Part 1 of my mini-series!
Category Archives: Frugal Living
Finding the Right Mortgage
It shouldn’t be a secret for too many of you. After nearly a year of marriage and our desire to wait as long as possible to purchase a house, my wife and I are now actively searching for our first home. We have toured over a dozen houses within the last two weeks and we have not found one that we like enough yet to make the plunge. It may be another three years before we find one that checks all of our boxes at this rate. This will be a long process and I’ll have a lot of different topics to write about along this journey. So today, I wanted to write about my recent process for finding the perfect mortgage and finally getting our pre-approval.

Three Painful Housing Expense Increases
Ah, the house never ends! I seem to find myself writing quite a bit about the cost of living in a house and the controllable/sometimes not so controllable costs associated with home ownership as well. After various discussions with people and bills being paid – I’ve decided to write about the surprising increase in housing expense over three areas of living in a house – Insurance, Property Tax & select Utilities! Come check out the “fun”!
Buying My Wife’s Next Car
Despite my disdain for the costs of owning a car, I find myself in a familiar situation…looking for a new car. This time, it isn’t a replacement for my dented Toyota Camry. Instead, my wife is looking for a new car. With the prospect of having a family being in the not so distant future, we are looking to upgrade my wife’s Honda Civic to an SUV. This article will summarize some of the discussions my wife and I had about car ownership along with discussing our final options that we are looking to purchase.

Debt Paydown Plan: Paying off the Auto Loan in 6 Months
The plan is done and set in place! I am happy to finally get on the right feet and automate the plan as well.
5 Ways to Save on a Vacation – Diplomat Style
Okay, so now that busy season is over, my wonderful girlfriend is doing quite a bit of a “fun” full court press for a vacation or a trip of some sort. With the stress that’s occurred over the last few months – an all inclusive deal is being talked about. Now – I won’t go off and pay for or book any vacation on the spur of the dime, the first mention of doing one or the knee jerk reaction. The old-old Lanny would have done this maybe 10 years ago or so, but not Mr. “on the path to financial freedom” Lanny and how much further can we save for it and/or reduce the cost? However – I do agree a trip, new adventures and a break is WELL needed and definitely think it would be a perfect idea, right now, yesterday and tomorrow. So what did I/We do to analyze this?
My Annoying $100 Loss
Over the last few weeks, my wife and I have been dealing with a slightly annoying situation at our home that in total, has put us about $100 in the hole. Usually on this site, our non-stock annoyances are a result from the expenses of owning a car or some service provider unexpectedly increase their bill. Not this time though and unfortunately, my wife and I had to bite a $100 bullet and accept the loss.

