I don’t know very much about mortgages but I do know they look at your existing debt load/payment when they decide how much to lend you. So paying down your personal loan might actually be helping you with the mortgage?
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Labor is cheap and land is cheaper.
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Yeah, I’m thinking by the point we are going for a home though it’ll be down to below $5k total debt between us as a couple, so it seems like that wouldn’t be too big of a strike? I guess I don’t know that for sure though!
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The calculation they use is total debt payments (including the prospective mortgage) has to be less than 50% of income (I believe net income). At least that’s what I’ve been told by several mortgage broker/loan officer types.
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The version I’ve heard lately is that they want to see that your debt + house payment would be 30% of your gross income, which is probably about equivalent for most people.
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How much would you tip a house cleaner for a move-out cleaning? Total is $350 for a 1200 square-foot house. The house isn’t starting from too bad of a place, although we haven’t cleaned the microwave or oven in the 5 months we’ve lived there. There are 3 women there, although one might be a manager/owner (?) and may not do the cleaning.
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I’d probably tip $60, so $20 each. It’s almost 20%?
But I have no idea if that’s “correct.” Tipping anywhere but restaurants baffles me.
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Thanks!
How do you all feel about home warranties when moving into a new home? Assume mostly older appliances.
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Will the realtor or seller cover it? We had our realtor gift it to us at one place we bought. Used it on a burst outdoor faucet bib, saved us a couple hundred bucks, but there’s a deductible like with other stuff. I’d say it was nice but not sure we would have bought it ourselves?
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Usually there are a lot of gotchas that don’t make them all that valuable. It’s a fairly expensive form of insurance IMO.
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No, we’d be paying buying it ourselves. I’m doing some reading, and it seems like it might be more trouble than its worth?
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Yeah we ran into a lot of gotchas.
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What are meals that can be cooked one handed?
Mr. Meer injured his finger and needs to not bend it so he’s basically got a hand and a half, and even the half-hand is starting to get twitchy from overcompensating. And of course it’s the dominant hand that’s injured. My ideas so far are hamburgers (I can make up a bunch of patties and freeze them), grilled cheese, and those meal-in-a-bag things if he’ll go for those. And double batching stuff of course.
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Pasta with varying sauces. Can add in pre chopped chicken or ham or ground beef.
Anything that just requires pouring and stirring is good.
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Oh, I just did this! Frozen pizza, sheet pan meals from frozen veggies (slicing fresh was too hard for anything but potatoes) and smoked sausage, pasta if someone else will be there to drain, hot dogs and canned baked beans, tuna melts. Frozen fries - either sweet or white potatoes, also on a sheet pan, for sides.
For me the most annoying thing was not the pain but the inability to get my right hand wet.
Edit: if you have a rice cooker, that’s easy one handed.
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My wife and I had our sellers buy us one. Our furnace is pretty old & the warranty would cover so much towards a replacement so it was our insurance for it possibly dying the first winter. So far we’ve used it successfully for one furnace repair that was almost the cost of the policy, and had other issues we just paid out of pocket instead. Ours is restrictive in that you file the claim ahead of time, then they ask to speak directly to the contractor after they quote you before authorizing a payout amount, and then you have to go ahead and pay anyway while you wait the 4-6 weeks for reimbursement check.
Not sure we’ll pay for a second year, though.
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I have reached the end of my rope regarding our hot water heater.
Has anyone trouble-shooted tankless/gas hot water heaters? Or am I best off consulting dr. google?
It looks like the previous owner installed this one on his own and finding people in town who are willing to work on them has so far been difficult and not gotten us anywhere. So it’s up to us.
The problem:
It throws error codes and consistently cycles between hot and cold every 3-5 seconds. It is not a pleasant showering experience. If we put the tap at full “hot” it gets hot enough to burn: clearly the temp sensor is Not Happy. So we run it at lukewarm which then cycles between Cold and Actually Hot (but not burning).
It has done this off and on for years but this time it does not appear to be correcting itself. It’s done this since December this time around.
Details of the heater:
Bosch.
Model number: 830 ES NG
Error codes it is throwing currently: E1 It has also given out A7 but we re-set it and it managed. This time the reset button is not doing jack all.
The digital manual I looked up mentions descaling for both codes (both are related to heat issues which makes sense).
I’m 99% sure we need to de-scale the whole thing.
Anyone done that and want to reassure me it’s do-able?
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So, I have a (new) condensing boiler that this will have to happen with eventually, as the water is hard (unless I get a treatment system, which there’s a good chance I will). Anyway, my impression is that to do serious descaling you need to hire a professional, as it involves circulating an acid through the boiler. There are kits you can buy, but… just be very careful. It is powerful acid. (Sorry, that was not the reassurance you wanted… and also, yeah, from what I’ve read, not a lot of people are willing to do descale work because it is smelly and takes a long time and you have to use an acid. Maybe you could try to find someone further away if you are willing to pay for their travel time? That’s the only thing I can think that might entice someone to come work on it from further away. 
)
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The manual recommends straight white vinegar. 
Partner and I are looking through things right now.
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