Can't Sleep, Clowns Will Eat Me

Did you know that phrase originated from the Simpsons? Me either... This whole only blogging on Saturday crap has to end soon. I'll see what I can do about that, and try my best to get more crazy thoughts up during the week as well.

Turns out Andrea and I both couldn't sleep from 2am-4am this morning. We've both had trouble sleeping lately, from the Megan coming into the bedroom incidents, to stress, to everything else in between. Usually for me during the week I wake up and start thinking about work and CANNOT SHUT OFF MY BRAIN. Eventually I just have to use, I guess what you might call, focusing exercises. I have to basically concentrate on thinking about nothing. Trust me, it's not fun.

Last night for my 2am tossing and turning, I got into my usual thinking (worrying?) about the future, finances, work, and all that. You see, Andrea and I are on the brink of refinancing. We locked in a very decent rate of 5.875% on a 30 year fixed, along with a secondary interest only loan at U.S. Prime+1. That means the secondary will start (and have a floor) of 5%, due to recent cuts that have the current U.S. Prime at 4%. Needless to say, it's a decent set of loans.

The bad news, and the part that makes the decision harder is that we had the official appraisal, and it wasn't pretty. Our home value came back at $1,000 more than we paid for it. That's it. 0.13% value increase over 4 years! I'm trying to look at it in a positive way, and think, we'll at least in this worst period of home value, my home was able to maintain?

Overall, any refinance has associated fees and taxes, so there will be some costs associated with it, which in effect, cause us to "take a step back" in terms of overall loan debt. And with the home value what it is, our second mortgage is not going to go away any time soon, which was the whole goal of the refinancing to a 30 year fixed. (only have 1 mortgage) So if we go through with this refinance... it's going to have obvious long term implications. But not refinancing now could lead to even worse situations in 3 years, when our 7/1 ARM expires.

Hands down, the biggest impact is this: If we go forward with this refinance, we are basically in effect saying, Yes, we are going to live in this house for the next 5 years at a minimum. I have no doubts that we can make that work, and that ultimately, it is probably the better decision right now in our life (to stay put). And the truth is, back when all the home market shit hit the fan, I knew right then I would be unable to move for a long time. So it's not like this is some big surprise.

Now, if only gas could stay at $2.06 for the next 5-10 years... Maybe the commute wouldn't hurt so bad.