I hate realtors

Let me just start with that simple statement.

Realtor who is selling my condo - uncommunicative (after getting it listed), and seems to not be doing much with it. No feedback to me whatsoever. I have no idea whether or not I have it priced well. It may be I need to drop the price ~5% (more than that seems out of market range, even now). But I don't know. And I don't know what to do about it right now.

Realtor who we're working with to buy a place up here. Is not listening. Is obviously most interested in getting a fast sale. I said we wanted to look at town/cities X,Y, and Z. She shows us town W - 15 miles away from X Y and Z. The reasons I picked X , Y and Z? Good school districts, one of which has a fantastic pre-K/K/and elementary program. This means saving ~$10K a year on private school, which would be required in town W - and then its Catholic school (bleh). I know kids are a little ways off, but preK will probably be about 4-5 years, and its likely we'll be here at least that long.

So, she takes us to town W. Shows us some nice houses. One house we do like - but its the location being town W and not X Y or Z that bugs us. Plus its on a corner with a semi-busy road. Realtor says "Its only country club traffic" oh, so you mean that on the weekends, when we're home, it will be busy with everyone going to play golf when we want to be outside in the yard. Great.

I hate realtors.

Just when you thought it wouldn't get worse

This story (USATODAY.com - NSA has massive database of Americans' phone calls) and this story (The USDA on Iraq: Everything's Coming Up Rosy) just make me shudder. I swear we're living in some neo-Stalinist state. I like the idea of communism (note the small c). I don't like Maoism or Stalinism as they pervert the idea of communism into an all-powerful dictatorship that demands staying on message. Bush has gone so far past the extreme right, he's nearing the extreme left now.

Multi-person Budgeting

While DH and I have similar approaches to money and saving and investing, its becoming quite clear we have vastly different ideas of budgeting.

As my condo has not sold yet (and probably won't for ~2 months, just due to market conditions), I have to keep just over 50% of my take home income dedicated to mortgage, taxes and condo association payments. DH makes slightly less than I, and is complaining about me not paying 50% of utilities and rent at our apartment (which adds up to about 25% of my takehome). The reason he wants me to contribute? So he can put more money into savings. Granted, I spend virtually nothing on groceries.

Now, I agree with saving as much as possible. But, really, to spend 75% of my income each month on housing, while he pays 25% makes me annoyed. So, I'm keeping track of all my expenses this month (DH already does this), and at the end of it, we're going to create a real budget for the two of us.

It will be interesting.