His Hers Money

There are some purchases which are fun to make and you can thoroughly enjoy making them and enjoy the item to it fullest after the purchase, and then there buying a vacuum cleaner. Nothing fun there. Our vacuum cleaner pretty much sucked, well actually it didn’t suck enough or we would have kept it. The on and off switch had stopped working long ago and now the suction was quickly disappearing. So, we had to buy a new vacuum.

His would loved to have bought a Dyson, as if we had just an abundance of disposable cash lying around. I was heavily leaning towards the adequate, does the job type of model. My budget was $200 and I hoped to stay as far below that number as possible. We have two cats so cat hair is always a concern so I understand the need to have a decent vacuum. We ended up with a Hoover, which on sale came out to be around $165, a price I can live with.

I did have to pull him away from the over-priced Dysons in the store to settle on the Hoover though. He is all about the gadgetry things that cost way too much and are definitely not needed. It really doesn’t matter what the item is, if it’s touted and the “thing” and it’s expensive, he’s all about it. If I can just get him to think of women’s shoes this way!

Below is a paragraph from a poker-playing friend of mine from California who has so simply summed up the majority of my feelings concerning the entire subprime housing ‘crisis’ that I had to share it with everyone. Head over to Blinders’ site to read the entire article and to share your comments.

Blinders: Subprime Mess - Who Are The Real Victims?: “Now if interest rates were rising it would be a different story. If the fully indexed rate is 6% and you can afford to make those payments when you take out the loan, but interest rates rise to 8% by the time the payment adjusts up you can have unplanned issues. The problem is that interest rates are not rising. If somebody took out a subprime loan exactly 2 years ago the federal funds rate was 4.75%. Today the rate is 2.25%. Two year old sub-prime loans adjusting today are adjusting to a rate that is 2.5% below what was planned. The fully indexed non-teaser payment is much less today than what would have been planned for when the loan was taken out. How this can lead to massive foreclosures is beyond me. Adjustable Rate mortgages get more affordable every time the fed lowers rates, and rates are dropping fast.”