Home Insurance

Our home insurance policy will be renewed on Dec 4. And I saw the there is a 10% increase, again, from last year to 189. I don't understand why, I mean 10% is quite significant. It is not a big amount because we only need to insurance our household stuff instead of the whole house since it is a coop unit. We called Nationwide to ask them why there is a 10% increase and to see whether there is anyway we can get it back down.

We insurance the household stuff up to 45,000 and Nationwide automatically adjusts this amount by inflation every year. Keeping the 45,000 without inflation increase will only reduce the bill by 3 dollar! That is really not any better!

So we discussed about reducing the amount to 35,000 which would knock 10 more dollars off the bill. Is 35,000 enough to ensure everything inside the house including such big appliances as fridge, washer, dryer, stove, dishwasher and TV. I think it should be.

We don't live extravagantly. Some of our furniture and personal stuff are all quite old, from our unmarried days. Most of them are free or second hand. We got them from yard sales and dumpster diving. We rarely buy anything new other than food. Even clothes we got them from thrift stores or Walmart. So they are basically worthless.

So we finally decided that we would insurance the amount up to 35,000 and reduce the bill by 13 dollars.

I imagine we will move to a new and bigger single family home next year and will be hit with a bigger home insurance bill by then. But now, I will enjoy my small adobe as much as I can, although at the last several days with all the mess.

2006 CPA Renewal and CPE

It is the time of the year. For my CPA license to be renewed and studying for CPE.

It is not my favorite time of the year.

CPA license renewal is easy. I pay $24 for it ever year at the end of Nov, on the VA Board of Accountancy website. Ethics exam is easy too. I usually buy the PDF exam from PES (Professional Education Services, LP), costing me 34.5 and I spend no more than 20 minutes on the exam. Grading is online, quick and fast. In less than half an hour, I have the certificate already.

Ah, if only the other part can be so easy.

As for CPE, that is a different story. Last year was quite painless, I bought some tax material from PES site, studied for one Saturday morning and I was good to go. But this year, VA BOA increased the CPE hour requirement to 90 every three years which means I have to get at least 30 every year starting 2006.

I searched and searched. The cheapest material I could find is from CPE Store , 30 hour credits costing me 149.55 including shipping. I bought online the day before Thanksgiving. And I received it yesterday. Pretty fast.

But Gosh, that book is thick, I mean, really really thick. I guess I get my money's worth! It may be cheap, but it sure aren't light!

And I have TWO HUNDRED multiple choice questions for final exam. Where in the world do I find the time to read them?

I think I have a sneaky way to get around reading the whole book and still get answers right. I will talk more once I start working on it. I took it to work with me. I will work on it on my lunch break.

Now, with the license renewal and CPE, it costs me about 200 each year just to keep my license. It is worth it?

So far, I think so. We, me and husband, debated whether I should just let the license lapse to save the money, like our CFO. But I think this will really help me in my future job hunting and career advancement. I mean, our CFO is old, approaching 50 and he has a lot of work experience in big companies, so I think he can afford to let it go, but I still have a long way with my career. It will be a good investment.

Better Mood

OK, I am definitely in a better mood today than Monday. House is still a mess. We talked to coop maintenance this morning, right after they opened office. They informed us that they would go into our house today to unplug the dehumidifier and start working on fixing the wall. But they still couldn't tell us a time line or schedule of exactly what would happen in the next few days. We will call them at 3pm to know more after he has a chance to access the situation this morning.

The bad thing is there are several similar emergencies in other coop units that really stretch the maintenance team to their limit.

Great, wouldn't you know it? Misery loves company.

My husband tutors on the side for some extra cash. He tutors Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. He told the family last night that he might not be able to make it on Thursday night depending on how bad the house situation was. They were very understanding and even told him that they had a similar incident themselves, costing thousands of dollars. They asked him how much we had to pay for this, he said none since the coop is responsible for all structural repairs. They exclaimed "oh, you are so lucky!"

OooKkk, I wouldn't put it that way, but since you think so...

We went to Boston Market last night for dinner. It was a little better than Quizno, costing us 5.24 for a small turkey sandwich, a chicken noodle soup and a drink. It is a combination meal. The turkey tasted much better than Quizno's, meatier! The order lady first murmured that it was a lunch menu when we showed her the combination meal ad. But I don't see anywhere on the ad says limited for lunch only. So she eventually did give us the stated price. I think I am converted!

Yesterday's Stock Market Drop

I started to get really interested in investments since 2005. And have learned a lot since then.

All market's down yesterday except metal which was up because of USD was traded lower. Medias blamed the market downturn on Walmart's announcement that Nov same store sales is 1% lower than last year, which didn't bode well for the retail sector leading to Christmas season, which clearly sent investors to profit taking after several weeks' market uptrend.

My portfolio was down less than 1% because I have quite a bit of investment in precious metals and cash. One closed end fund on my watch list is Central Fund of Canada (CEF). I have been watching it since May of this year, but it has always been too expensive for me, trading for a premium. It was up more than 5% yesterday, with a YTD return of 51%! Precious metals are an important part of a person's portfolio. Experts recommend about 5-10% of a portfolio. I have about 7%.

I will keep monitoring CEF's price movement and hope one day soon that I will be able to buy into this fund!

A Messy Kitchen Contined

Came home Monday night, an even bigger mess in the house depressed me. All the cabinets, oven, stove, dish washer are lying around the living room floor. Misc stuff are on top of everything. Kitchen sink is resting outside on the front yard under a tarp. A huge dehumidifier was humming along loudly inside the kitchen. One side of kitchen wall has been stripped down to bare wood and pipe. A huge tarp is hanging on the kitchen door to keep the dirt out.

We just came home for a few minutes to access the damage and then would head out to buy some dinner after cleaning out the fridge. I went upstairs to wash my hand and found out that no water came out of the facet in bathroom.

I panicked. Coop didn't say anything about not able to use bathroom and shower!! Husband called the emergency contact number and they said they would page the person responsible.

Nothing else we could do. We went out to a mall to find a sandwich place to eat.

While we were in the mall, maintenance guy called back and said he was on his way to turn on the water upstairs. I was hugely relieved! Otherwise, we have to get a hotel room and that would be expensive. I work for a real estate firm and can get free hotel rooms. But not at 6pm for the same night! It is a blessing that at least I have the option if needed.

We went to Quizno. Oh boy, aren't the sandwiches expensive or what? We spent 7.85 on a regular roast turkey sandwich and one small salad with free drinks. I must be out of the world for too long. Of course I could get a dollar meal at McDonald, but I am trying to eat healthy. I can't imagine spending money like this for too long.

After that I went home, read a little bit and generally just was depressed. I cried on husband's arms and said repeatedly" I want my house back!"

Luckily the weather has been nice, high in the 60s and no rain until Friday when the weather will turn nasty and cold. Hopefully by then, we will have everything back up and running.

A Messy Kitchen

We live in a townhouse style co-op community.

Sometime early last week, our neighbour found water stain on her kitchen floor and after investigation, co-op maintenance team determined that the pipe between our kitchen wall had a leak. When we came home Tuesday night after work, we found a business card left on our door by the maintenance team telling us to call them ASAP. But of course by then it was too late. So we called on Wednesday right after the office opened, and was told, that a repair team was on their way to fix the leak. We weren't really given a choice to postpone until after the holiday! I mean, it was Wednesday right before Thanksgiving! Luckily we don't have guests coming or plan to cook a fancy dinner because all the kitchen cabinets were taken off and put on the living floor!

I have to clean the day before Thanksgiving. On a day, I thought I could come home early and relax, looking forward to a four day weekend with husband.

Naturally I was very upset but couldn't do much about it. We were informed that they would come back on Monday and pull out the sink as well. Then they will put a dehumidifier in there for two days and hopefully will fix the dry wall and all those stuff by this Wednesday or Thursday.

I can't use the kitchen until then!

This is really a coming out of no where emergency.

What do I do for lunch and dinner? I can't cook. Kitchen will be a mess. House will be a mess. I have dishes lying around all over the place.

Husband and I will most likely go out and get some cold sandwich or Subway. I hate this. I hate a messy house and I hate having to spend money to buy food while stuff will rot in the fridge.

Oh well, I guess this is called LIFE!