Parents’ move to retirement.

My parents are on their way to retiring. My father, at 57 is planning to retire in 2 years.

What they're doing now to prepare for that transition is selling their house. They plan to move into a townhome, and use the excess cash for living expenses.

I'm helping them with the move by staging the house. Rather than renting furniture at a cost of $6000/mo (and my mom has to move out while the house is on market), we decided to do it ourself.

So far, we've decided on a sofa and an entertainment console. They're both from Crate & barrel. We've also decided on the wall colors.

Why are we doing this? Because, my parents didn't want to invest in their house as we lived there. They also had this notion that if we decorated or painted our walls different colors, our house wouldn't be worth as much because they figured it would make the house look less spacious.

God, are they so wrong, and they're now realizing it.

After seeing the homes sold on our street, all of them have a unique character…they're absolutely beautiful and appraised higher than our home because of that. There was one home that we checked out over the weekend. The floor plan was nearly identical to ours…their house was staged and represented by this realtor who's been dominating our street.

The 1500square feet home is on the market for 940K. It's sure to sell for over 1mil.

I picked up the info sheets that the realtor had laid out on his desk. Info sheets included property spec sheet, property description & photos, floorplan, and a bio on the realtor.

The realtor is good because of his diverse experience & expertise. He was vice president of marketing for Ann Taylor stores, Guess Jeans, & St. John Home. He has an MBA from Columbia and is part of Prudential's Chairman's circle.

My mom has regrets not signing with him to sell her house. I can't help but think, "I told ya so…" And, it's true, I told her to go through Prudential even if they take a higher cut. We would have our house sold right away w/ a mil in my parents' pockets.

House hasn't sold yet, so we don't know…maybe, my parents' home will be up there with the others on our street.

Unexpected savings.

Reimbursement

My bathroom and bedroom are undergoing repairs. A pipe burst at the beginning of the month and flooded our neighbors downstairs. Looks like I will be reimbursed for each day I’m out of the apartment. Thanks to my lovely roommate! She did all the negotiating with our landlady.

I feel like a lucky girl~

With my reimbursement and my frugal habits these days, I can save another $1100 off of my current paycheck and another $600 off the next one. Woo hoo! My boss also paid for my gas when I dropped him off somewhere. Sweet! And, we ate out on three occassions at the company’s expense. This is too good!

X-mas gifts nearly complete

I bought and sent out most of my X-mas gifts to friends, family & coworkers. I used the $5 Amazon.com gift certificate that Boston Gal posted for answering a survey. Definitely saved on some shipping.

Each gift was pretty personalized:

• Nieces – two matching My Little Ponies on Scooters, The English Roses Umbrella (they live in Seattle) and Wallace & Gromits three shorts DVD
• BF- Coldplay piano sheets, Best of Michael Nyman CD set and The Gift of the Magi by O Henry
• Boss – This American Life CD ($14)
• Coworker 1 – The Sea and Cake CD ($13)
• Coworker 2 – Wet Hot American Summer DVD ($10)
• + Each get edible goodies from Trader Joes ($4X3)
• Friend – Supersized black-rimmed sunglasses from Nordstroms ($10)

Still on my gifts list:

• Mom
• Roommate

Free credit report

I obtained my free credit report today. It looks like I am in excellent standing. I don’t know what my fico score is yet, but I’ll check it next week. I thought I would have some bad marks on my report because of credit misbehaving during college. I had a debt problem and sometimes made late payments. My parents took all my credit cards saying they would close the accounts. But, apparently a lot of them still exist with zero debt. Yay!

Retirement option

As I was talking with one of my coworkers about retirement options, he said that he has been talking with our boss about participating in a company-sponsored 401K plan. Awesome! I guess the 401K plan helps out my boss with his taxes, too. This is definitely worth discussing at the beginning of the new year.

Insurance on my ass!

Like a fool, I ignored the woman I bumped into hoping that she would give up dollar bumper claim. Rather, she called her insurance agent, and now I’m screwed. My mom’s premium will be higher..and she’s bitching about it to me. I know! It’s all my fault..and my irresponsibility. Why am I kicking back into the “save me because I’m the youngest child” syndrome? I need to face reality and deal with things right then and there. That’s what Bob Parsons would do.

Real Estate

So, I talked with my brother about my finance progress and my plan to purchase a 1-bedroom condo with friend in a year and a half. He suggests that I should put my cast in CDs with high rates until the market goes down.

After thinking about it, that’s becoming the more logical thing to do in my situation. LA is ridiculous. Maybe if I were making 10K more…

With this in mind, property investments will be either…

Out of state. (not likely though)

in 2-3 years

What do I do with the cash then?
Goals for 2006 and beyond…

Wells Fargo Savings (immediate emergency fund) – $500-1000
ING Direct (Long-term emergency; ex. layoff) – $5000
HSBC (1. Income tax owed; 2. Investments) – $3000 + $7500-18000
GMAC (Property Downpayment) – $35,000+
Future 401K – 10% of my income

Here’s my current net worth

Cash – $9965
Credit Card – $125
Everything between – $0

How to get my dream home.

I had written this long entry on my action plan for obtaining my dream home. Since then, I’ve reconsidered and on this post, I will just list the types of properties I would like.My property wishlist:

• 3-4 bedroom house in a safe & central neighborhood w/ excellent public schools & that is guaranteed to appreciate a lot each year. I also want to live near the beach. By the time I get married, this home will cost me at least $1 million. Possible neighborhoods include Marina Del Rey, Redondo Beach, Manhattan Beach, Santa Monica & Brentwood.

So, I’m a traitor. I grew up on the east side.. and now fallen over to the yuppie beach community. What can I say? The weather’s better on the westside, choice merchandise and less lines in stores, sometimes less traffic, close to the beach, and better school districts~

• 2 bedroom westside income property (currently priced at $575K)
• studio income property in Asia (currently priced at $175K)