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Patronus? Why we hardly....
Feb. 19th, 2021 10:45 amAs reported, Wednesday was a fairly rough day here. I didn't even mention that we began the day in a bank office looking into Yet Another Refinance, because we just loves them so much. The last time we did it, five years ago, our credit scores were so stellar we qualified for a lower fixed-rate* mortgage that paid off our existing one, didn't require escrow for taxes or insurance, had no closing costs, and could even be used as a line of credit as long as we paid the whole thing off in 15 years. Cool!
Then I watched as my score almost instantly dropped more than 100 points. Because as far as the credit bureaus were concerned, I had replaced a mortgage with a very large credit card, and that balance, not much more than what was on the prior mortgage, was now considered as part of our "outstanding revolving balances" that made them too high and there was too high a "credit in use" percentage. I've built the score back up a bit in the years since, but had we known this would be the result, we would have gone with a different option. Then, a few months ago, after a nice upward climb, it fell again- because the reporting on the prior mortgage that was a mortgage had fallen off our credit report, and we no longer had any such record, which is considered good in credit scoring.
(Oh and right, that *. The new mortgage was variable-rate to begin with, but it had an option to convert the outstanding principal to a fixed rate, which we tried to do later in 2016 when rates started inching up. The loan officer who sold us on this in the first place totally screwed THAT up, and by the time it was finalized, we were locked in three tenths of a point higher than if she'd done it to begin with, and we lost a quarter-point discount we had supposedly earned by agreeing to pay the mortgage directly from a linked checking account. Eleanor still sees that loan officer in the store- she's remarried and moved to a new bank or mortgage company and is always trying to sell her on whatever their Product of the Month is. Um, no thanks, dear.)
So we began the process of either adding an additional credit line type mortgage to replace what we have- which has a lower variable rate but no fixed-rate conversion option- or replacing the existing one with something more like what we had before the current mess. But, banks being banks, they couldn't tell us anything over the phone and nothing would be locked in until we formally applied. That process began, after digging out pay and tax and current mortgage/insurance information, at the local bank office on Wednesday morning. Nice guy, but he was only allowed to discuss the equity line option; "Tom the Mortgage Guy" would have to talk to us about the mortgage-mortgage alternative. Since I was going on the road for the day (unfortunately), and Eleanor was off for the rest of the day with just an easy call to schedule the dryer warranty (same unfortunately), we told them to call her number that day or mine yesterday.
So of course he called Eleanor yesterday, while she was at work and I was the one at home. Hopefully we'll get that sorted today with him calling ME.
----
Anyway, that was the start of our troubles Wednesday. Then, in addition to dealing with the dryer kerfuffle, Eleanor was also trying to get through to a phone number about the COVID vaccinations. A friend of ours who works at the local state-arranged vaccination site has told us there are often same-day cancellations and we might be able to get in sooner than early April, and without the drives to Syracuse, if we just keep checking. But the number she gave us didn't work, and when the friend finally got back with the correct one, it turned out to be just the general number to schedule appointments with a major drill-down to get to the information about cancellations. But we'll keep trying.
On the other hand, when another friend told us about CVS running a site in Hamburg, I decided to pass on that option. I didn't want my vaccination record to be on a receipt that's seven feet long and filled with coupons for adult diapers.
----
Plenty on the plate, then, that day- so after turning in early Wednesday night without even a movie being watched, I got up in the middle of the night, went out to the kitchen for a glass of milk- and there were two deer in our front yard, Mama practically pressing her nose up against the picture window glass. I decided she was my patronus to give me some calm and hope after what had been a long day.
It seems to have worked. The windshield appointment got scheduled for next week without a hitch- they didn't even ask for the kid's information- and the warranty company is sending someone to fix the dryer on the same day. I got to watch the last of the Trump casinos blow up real good, and then watched the parade of memes as Lyin'-on-the-Beach Ted Cruz dug a deeper and deeper hole for himself in the Cancun sand:
And we landed on Mars again! Just pray he doesn't destroy it with his Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator!
----
Unrelated to any of that: we made up for Wednesday's Not Movie Night by watching one last night on Hulu titled In and Of Itself. It's a magic show and a philosophy lecture all rolled into one, and we really enjoyed it. Maybe that's what the deer were trying to watch the night before.
Then I watched as my score almost instantly dropped more than 100 points. Because as far as the credit bureaus were concerned, I had replaced a mortgage with a very large credit card, and that balance, not much more than what was on the prior mortgage, was now considered as part of our "outstanding revolving balances" that made them too high and there was too high a "credit in use" percentage. I've built the score back up a bit in the years since, but had we known this would be the result, we would have gone with a different option. Then, a few months ago, after a nice upward climb, it fell again- because the reporting on the prior mortgage that was a mortgage had fallen off our credit report, and we no longer had any such record, which is considered good in credit scoring.
(Oh and right, that *. The new mortgage was variable-rate to begin with, but it had an option to convert the outstanding principal to a fixed rate, which we tried to do later in 2016 when rates started inching up. The loan officer who sold us on this in the first place totally screwed THAT up, and by the time it was finalized, we were locked in three tenths of a point higher than if she'd done it to begin with, and we lost a quarter-point discount we had supposedly earned by agreeing to pay the mortgage directly from a linked checking account. Eleanor still sees that loan officer in the store- she's remarried and moved to a new bank or mortgage company and is always trying to sell her on whatever their Product of the Month is. Um, no thanks, dear.)
So we began the process of either adding an additional credit line type mortgage to replace what we have- which has a lower variable rate but no fixed-rate conversion option- or replacing the existing one with something more like what we had before the current mess. But, banks being banks, they couldn't tell us anything over the phone and nothing would be locked in until we formally applied. That process began, after digging out pay and tax and current mortgage/insurance information, at the local bank office on Wednesday morning. Nice guy, but he was only allowed to discuss the equity line option; "Tom the Mortgage Guy" would have to talk to us about the mortgage-mortgage alternative. Since I was going on the road for the day (unfortunately), and Eleanor was off for the rest of the day with just an easy call to schedule the dryer warranty (same unfortunately), we told them to call her number that day or mine yesterday.
So of course he called Eleanor yesterday, while she was at work and I was the one at home. Hopefully we'll get that sorted today with him calling ME.
----
Anyway, that was the start of our troubles Wednesday. Then, in addition to dealing with the dryer kerfuffle, Eleanor was also trying to get through to a phone number about the COVID vaccinations. A friend of ours who works at the local state-arranged vaccination site has told us there are often same-day cancellations and we might be able to get in sooner than early April, and without the drives to Syracuse, if we just keep checking. But the number she gave us didn't work, and when the friend finally got back with the correct one, it turned out to be just the general number to schedule appointments with a major drill-down to get to the information about cancellations. But we'll keep trying.
On the other hand, when another friend told us about CVS running a site in Hamburg, I decided to pass on that option. I didn't want my vaccination record to be on a receipt that's seven feet long and filled with coupons for adult diapers.
----
Plenty on the plate, then, that day- so after turning in early Wednesday night without even a movie being watched, I got up in the middle of the night, went out to the kitchen for a glass of milk- and there were two deer in our front yard, Mama practically pressing her nose up against the picture window glass. I decided she was my patronus to give me some calm and hope after what had been a long day.
It seems to have worked. The windshield appointment got scheduled for next week without a hitch- they didn't even ask for the kid's information- and the warranty company is sending someone to fix the dryer on the same day. I got to watch the last of the Trump casinos blow up real good, and then watched the parade of memes as Lyin'-on-the-Beach Ted Cruz dug a deeper and deeper hole for himself in the Cancun sand:
And we landed on Mars again! Just pray he doesn't destroy it with his Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator!
----
Unrelated to any of that: we made up for Wednesday's Not Movie Night by watching one last night on Hulu titled In and Of Itself. It's a magic show and a philosophy lecture all rolled into one, and we really enjoyed it. Maybe that's what the deer were trying to watch the night before.