b.rox

Just got off the phone with our mortgage company, US Bank. Right after the storm they told me we’d have a six-month moratorium on payments. But I just learned two important points:

The moratorium is only three months. In other words, it’s already over.
They want those three months paid back over the next six months. In [...]

A check arrived from our insurer via FedEx today in the amount of $3,000.
It says, right on the check, that it’s “partial settlement of contents damage arising from loss on 08/29/05.”
The date issued, again printed right on the check itself, is October 18th. Note that it is now November 25th.
All of this I found somewhat [...]

A fire broke out at the local A&P yesterday, and the store was still closed today. So I went to the Sav-A-Center on Tchoupitoulas to buy ingredients for curried tomato bisque.
Wow. All registers were open, yet the lines were so long that they extened into the grocery ailses. The wait was so long I had [...]

Just talked to Roland Graybill, our flood adjuster. He assured me that he completed our claims last week. It’s just a matter of waiting for Fidelity, our insurer, to cut us a check. Then things will get really complicated, because our mortgage company wants to put the money in escrow and dole it out piecemeal [...]

Just got a call from Mr. McCann, the adjuster for our homeowner’s policy. I call him “the wind guy” because he’s covering the damage to our home caused by Katrina’s winds. Flood is covered under a separate policy with a separate adjuster.
Anyway, the wind guy says we’ll be getting $8,688 plus tax and some extras [...]

My mother-in-law is faxing the following claim to our insurance adjuster for the contents of our house which were ruined by floodwaters. I estimate our losses at $43,000. We were insured for $25,000, with a $1,000 deductible, so I’m expecting a full payout.

Utility Room: $13,000
Washer, dryer, bicycles, power tools, desk, magazine rack, Sunsetter awning, wall [...]

Just met with Roland Graybill, the adjuster for our flood claim, a lean, long-haired Southern dude. Affable. He took some measurements and some photos and some notes.
I learned that the insurance will not be “paying limits” as previously intimated. Instead we’ll get some lesser amount which Mr. Graybill seemed to think would be enough [...]

I talked to our insurance adjuster the other night, a guy named Roland Graybill. I told him that to the best of our knowledge the first floor of our home was flooded with up to six feet of water, and has been sitting in water for a couple of weeks now. He said that in [...]

As a rule, Parade magazine is remarkably devoid of interesting content. But Xy found the following tidbit in today’s “Ask Marilyn” column:
Q: If our country decided to pool everyone’s weekly paycheck, then redistribute it equally, to what would our income amount? — Ed B., Virginia Beach, Va.
A: We’d make about $37,784 annually.
I’ve toyed with this [...]

I guess it’s a good thing I filed Chapter 7 back in 1997, because it looks like Congress is finally tightening up the bankruptcy laws.
This sucks. This will hurt people who are already hurting. It only helps big money. When will the people rise up and demand justice?
I’m in favor of any reform that holds [...]

By purposefully having way too much withheld from our paychecks, Xy and I got our biggest tax refund ever — almost $3,000.
Combined with most of our savings, I just now used the refund to pay off the $4,000 remaining on our car loan.
This all happened electronically — the tax filing, the refund, the loan pay-off [...]

I stopped by the bank on my way home today and opened a savings account. (I also got soaked by the rain but that’s neither here nor there.) Ever since my personal bankruptcy, I do not use credit cards; therefore, if Xy and I are ever to make that trip to Amsterdam, we [...]

After years of procrastination, today I finally sent in the necessary papers to enroll in the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association and College Retirement Equities Fund, commonly known as TIAA-CREF. The university will match my contributions up to 6% of my salary, so if I was feeling particularly masochistic, I could calculate how much [...]