Two weeks ago, Adam’s brother Eric and his girlfriend Kristen were in town for a visit. Eric also had an interview for Case School of Medicine.
Of course the Cleveland Museum of Art was still closed, but Adam, Kristen, and I went to go see the Monet exhibit. We visited the West Side Market and had many great meals.
This weekend Adam’s college friend Dave and his wife Olivia came to visit on their way to Indiana. We played alot of Wii tennis, bowling, and golf. It’s amazing how a video game can make your arm sore. 
This morning Adam and I went to sign all the papers to close on our new house. All the signing and initialing made me feel like I had signed away every last bit my life. In the end it was all good.
About 5:00 PM tonight I got the call that the title had officially transferred so we are now truly homeowners. Oh, and landlords, since the previous owner will be there until the end of March. I’m excited to move soon.
So all in all, it was a good birthday.
I’ve spent the last 24 hours doing nothing but being lazy and watching the Golden Girls. However, it must come to an end soon, I’ve got homework to do.
I’m not exactly sure why anyone would care that Walmart’s video download site doesn’t support Macs. It’s Walmart, the most evil retail corporation on the planet. I would certainly hope that no self-respecting Mac user would ever spend a penny there.
Now Netflix’s download service not supporting a Mac, that’s another story.
As the time to close on our new house is getting closer, I’m both excited and terrified at the same time.
The terrified part comes from all the buyers remorse and second guessing that comes with spending that much money. Did we really make the best choice? Will we really be able to afford it? And all those other questions that go along with a big purchase
Of course I know that we can afford it and we found a perfect house in the city where we wanted to live. We were really lucky to find something for such a great deal and the entire process so far has been rather painless.
But mostly I’m excited to finally be a homeowner.
Why is it so hard to find a good bank? It seems that magical combination of a bank that offers great customer service and great products is elusive at best. Of course, there are some better than others.
We’re on the hunt again for a bank. We tried National City because of a special with work, but I’ve so far not been impressed. Their online site seems to be down more than up and twice now they’ve had major issues with direct deposits. I mean how to you “misplace” everyone’s direct deposit when it’s the same bank that the employer uses?
We’re probably going to go back to KeyBank. I had them for a long time and always liked them. I just hate the whole switching process though. So much paperwork, so many places to update, so many automatic payments to change (well ok, not that many). It just makes the whole process not very enjoyable.
As a side note, Key approved us for $8000.00 in overdraft protection. Now if I were to overdraw my checking about by $8000.00, I think I’d have bigger things to worry about than whether I’m going to get an overdraft fee. 
This week has been absolutely frigid, winter has definitely arrived. I miss those 55º days in December.
I’m starting to get more excited as it gets closer to closing on the house. Even though we won’t be moving for a month after closing, it will be a relief just to be done with all the paperwork. Once that’s done I’ll be able to relax and begin packing for the move.
The hard part will be picking the colors to paint a few of the rooms. Oh and learn how to paint since I’ve never done that before.
Adam and I signed the purchase contract for a new house yesterday. It’s exciting and scary at the same time to be honest. Neither of us have ever owned a home before and the entire process just seems so complicated and overwhelming.
The good thing was that after only looking for a few weeks, we easily found the “perfect” house. Both of us knew it was the house we wanted when we first looked at it. We also got if for a very good deal.
Here’s a picture:
So as long as the closing and everything in between goes well, we’ll soon be the proud owners of a new home.
I’ve been a longtime user and advocate of ING Direct. They consistently have outstanding customer service, a very intuitive and easy to use website, and a well above average rate on their savings account (currently 4.5%). They do this with absolutely no minimum account balances or fees of any kind.
ING has always been primarily a savings-oriented bank. They’ve always offered savings accounts and CDs and have more recently introduced brokerage and IRA accounts and mortgages.
To my surprise the other day, I noticed they also are now offering a checking account, Electric Orange. It turns out they’re just testing it until mid-February or so, but I was lucky enough to get offered a chance to sign-up.
It’s an “electronic” checking account meaning they don’t have any paper checks which is fine with me since I’ve used about 6 checks in the last two years. They do offer free online bill pay, a debit card, 32,000 ATMs, $1000 in overdraft protection, oh , and a 3% yield with no minimums.
One drawback is that, like other ING accounts, the only way to deposit money is via direct deposit or through a linked checking account (although I expect that might change in the future). Not a huge hassle for me, but it will be something I’ll take into consideration as I test this out.
