The Titus 2 Homemaker

If I had made a trip to Paradise recently, I’m thinking I’d be wishing I’d bought travel insurance; Paradise doesn’t seem like much of a Paradise, anymore.  See, a mama in Paradise, California went temporarily crazy a few weeks ago.  Apparently suffering from postpartum depression and pesticide poisoning, she left her infant son on the golf course (after watching to make sure someone was there to find him).  When her husband found out, he immediately went to retrieve his son - and was told that the son would be going to child protective services instead.  He has not been charged with anything but, after several court dates, I am still awaiting news on whether he has gotten his son back or not.  (They did not give his son back to him at the first court date.)  When an infant can be separated from his parents, causing irreparable lifelong harm, because his daddy is “guilty until proven innocent,” then Paradise has most definitely been lost.

For more information, you can follow this situation at ParentalRights.org.

After all the craziness with the bank over our house contract, we are finally moving forward!  The bank apparently finally just paid off the auction company, and relisted the house (for our offered price) so we could put a straightforward contract on it.  We had a home inspection last Wednesday, and didn’t find anything major wrong.  Now we just wait on the bank (at our end) to underwrite the loan and all that good stuff.  The closing date is officially set for December 30th, but we’re hoping maybe they can move things along more quickly than that.

I’m getting ready to head out in a little while to run errands.  Here are the really good deals I found this week.  (I apologize I don’t do a good job of keeping track of what week which coupons came out, or which insert they’re in.  But most newspaper coupons will be from the last two Sundays, as I didn’t have the newspaper before that.)

CVS
Garnier Fructis  $2.99 - $2.00 ECB - $1.00 coupon = FREE
Palmolive 11 oz.  $1.49 - $1.00 ECB = $0.49 (I hear there is a 25-cent coupon, too, from Sept. or Oct.)
Bliss 8.6-9.6 oz.  1@2/$6.00 - $2.50 coupon = $0.50
Glade spray   2@$0.99 - $1.00/2 coupon = 2@$0.49

Walgreen’s
Libby’s pumpkin  $0.99 - $0.50 printable coupon = $0.49
Clabber Girl baking powder  2/$1.00 - $1.00/2 coupon = FREE
Blue Bonnet margarine (not very healthy, btw)  3/$2.00 - (3) $0.50 coupons = 3@$0.16
Glade spray  2@$0.99 - $1.00/2 coupon = 2@$0.49

Rite Aid
Crest Pro-Health toothpaste  $2.69 - $2.69 SCR - $1.00 coupon = FREE + $1.00 overage
(Plus any month-long free-after-rebate deals you haven’t picked up yet.)

Food Lion
(Okay, so some of these are not as awesome.  But if you need these groceries, the not-quite-such-good-deals are still pretty good deals.)
Scotties tissues  3@$0.69 - $0.50/3 coupon = $1.57
Chex Mix 8.75 oz.  B1G1 - $0.50 coupon on each = ???
Duncan Hines carrot cake mix  B1G1 - $1.00 coupon on each = ???
Quaker Chewy granola bars  3/$5.00 - $1.00 coupon on each = $0.66 each
Activia 4-pack  2/$4.00 - $0.50 coupon on each = $1.50
Pillsbury Grands biscuits  3/$5.00 - (2) $0.30 coupons = $1.46 each

Martin’s
Betty Crocker muffin mix  1@2/$4.00 - $1.00 coupon from back of cereal box = $1.00
GE Reveal light bulbs $1.99 - $1.00 coupon = $1.00
(Plugins and Glade 2-in-1 candle are pretty decent deals this week, too, if you use them.)
GM cereals 2/$4.00 - miscellaneous cereal coupons= ?
Vanity Fair napkins  2@$1.79 - $1.00/2 coupon = $1.29 each
Plus, I have four coupons from a Martin’s sale flyer for doubling a single $1 coupon each, so that’s $4 more off, plus a Catalina for $2 off any 5 GM cereals.)

We are in the process of buying a house.  Well, “trying to buy” would probably be more accurate.  The house is bank-owned (a foreclosure).  It has been on the market for over a year, been to auction and not been bought, and gone back to the “regular” real estate market.  Several weeks ago, Michael placed an offer on it: x amount “high bid” + 6% closing costs + 5% buyer’s premium (that’s the auction company’s fee), for a total of y amount.  We were told verbally that they accepted our offer, except that they would only give us 3% closing costs, rather than 6% (which wasn’t particularly unexpected).  Over a week later, we finally received the addendum for Michael to sign.  Turns out, they didn’t really accept our offer; they counter-offered (although apparently they don’t think so).  They increased the high bid by 3%, keeping the total (y amount) the same.  This would actually cost us thousands of dollars more, as we would have to pay the same total amount, plus the additional 3%.

So, Michael countered, with (x + $1,000) + 3% closing costs + 5% buyer’s premium.  This would give them an extra $1,000 (over our original offer), but still only cost us an additional $1,000 out of pocket.  The (semi-)immediate response we got from them was, “We already have a contract on this house.”  Well, duh!  It’s ours.  So, after plenty of back-and-forth between our realtor and their people, she (our realtor) was finally told that they had never received our counter-offer.  What in the world?!  If they never received our offer, to what did they respond with, “We already have a contract on this house”?!  It has been over a week.  They still have not been able to figure out what is going on and get back with us.

Is it any wonder we have a banking crisis in this country, if the banks are this inept?

"Does responsible citizenship require voting for irresponsible candidates? To ballot in favor of irresponsible candidates
as though it were one's duty is to misconstrue the meaning of duty. To cast a ballot for a trimmer, because no man of integrity is offering himself, does as much as one can with a ballot to encourage other trimmers to run for office. Can anyone conceive of any element of protest in such balloting? To vote for a trimmer goes further: it would seem to urge, as strongly as one can at the polls, that men of integrity not offer themselves as candidates."
-Leonard Read