I won’t do a link but the post about the cat food is on October 29, 2008 with an update at the end.

If I were a bit more motivated and my cat didn’t have issues with poultry/duck I might try it.

I decided against it for the consistant time commitment and actually use duck and green pea related to the salmon and green pea mentioned above.

Jim, regarding #16. I had no non-disclosure agreement at all, so I should be okay there. It sounds like my best option is to be cautious with my wordings and go through a real publisher and let them handle the libel legalities.

Trent: Thanks for answering my question!

I also love the new format. So much easier to read.

No one can give you a better estimate online than your local sources because insurance rates differ from state to state and even from town to town. The property taxes are also specific to your area. Find a local house similar to what you hope to buy and get the numbers on it, add them together then divide by 12 and add to the 482.77. You don’t need to know HOW they come up with the 482.77, just know that it depends on the loan amount, the interest rate and the 30 year term. That part of the monthly payment doesn’t change unless you pay off the loan early.

If your credit is bad and your husbands is worse then you might look into owner financing. This is a plus for you if you can convince an owner to carry the financing because you no longer need to “qualify” for a loan. Spend some time reading up on how to resurrect your credit rating, it can pay off big-time if you do it in advance of your home purchase!! Good luck.

Taxes and insurance are fixed costs that change yearly and you may choose to pay them yourself instead of including them in the mortgage payment. Most people opt for the inclusion so that they are NEVER overlooked (non-payment could cause you to default on the mortgage allowing mortgage-holder to require immediate payment in full of entire mortgage). The total amount estimated for the year ahead is calculated and divided by 12 (assuming you make a monthly mortgage payment). As each payment is made the money is placed in an escrow account and held until the actual bill arrives so that enough is on hand to cover the payment when it is needed. At the end of the year the amounts are reviewed. If they collected too much then they will adjust the amount downward for the next year, and vice versa. This is one reason mortgage payments change from year to year. So let’s assume $550 in insurance and $650 in taxes or $1,200 a year for both, for $100 per month.

Take your 9% interest rate and divide by 12 to get .0075 (.09 / 12). Multiply your current principal total amount by this number ($60,000 * .0075) for $450. This is the interest you will pay this month. If your monthly payment is $675 then subtract $100 for tax/ins = $575, subtract $450 interest and $125 will be on principal.
In real life the numbers are never even like this. But next month you will see that. Lets say that was January’s payment.
Your Feb principal becomes $60,000 – 125 = 59,875. Multiply by .0075 = 449.0625 which rounds up to 449.06. Again 675 – 100 = 575 but now subtract 449.06 and 125.94 is applied to the principal. In March it becomes 59,875 – 125.94 = 59,749.06 principal * .0075 = 448.11795 rounded up to 448.12 interest. And again 675 – 100 = 575 – 448.12 = 126.88 goes against the principal (59,749.06 – 126.88 = 59,622.18). So each month as you pay down the principal the interest amount is a tiny bit less and the principal payment amount is a tiny bit more.
Unless you chose a variable rate loan the interest rate NEVER changes. The taxes and insurance amounts change every year, usually going up just a few dollars every year as taxes gradually rise and insurance rates also rise. The monthly payment amount was calculated based on ONLY the principal and interest, so as tax/ins rises the actual monthly payment rises slightly almost every year. Sometimes it can drop slightly, all depending on the rates.

If you think you want a $60,000 loan to buy a $75,000 house find out what the annual property taxes on a similar house are right now. Realtors often have this info, so does your county assessor (to whom you make the payments via your mortgagor). Next call your insurance agent and ask him for a ballpark estimate for home insurance. And don’t forget when you make an offer on a house make the offer contingent on you getting both a mortgage and insurance! If you can’t get insurance you won’t get a loan.
With the known loan amount and interest rate you can use estimated taxes and insurance to calculate monthly payments and your bank can help. They have tables that show exactly what payments will be at different interest rates and different terms (15 year, 30 year, etc) but they often gloss over the tax and insurance part.

Trent did all this WITHOUT the insurance and taxes part, which does affect all your plans. Also he assumed that the interest is calculated for the entire year and then divided by 12, which is easier but less accurate. Suppose you want to pay an additional $50 a month on principal: how will this affect your calculations? Okay, here we go. April principal is 59,622.18 * .0075 = 447.16, then 675 – 100 = 575 – 447.16 int = 127.84 prin and 59,622.18 – 127.84 = 59,494.34. Any principal payments are always applied AFTER the current monthly payment, so 59,494.34 – $50.00 = 59,444.34 is your starting principal amount for the month of May. Be extra certain it is being correctly applied as it affects the next month’s calculations. Banks are infamous for not doing this correctly.

Also when planning for expenses in purchasing a house realize that there are all kinds of little additional expenses included in the mortgage contract. For a small instance, the property taxes are paid by the seller only up to the date of the sale, you are responsible for paying them in advance to the escrow agent at the time of closing. Along with things like title insurance they can seriously cramp your plans if you are not prepared for them. Plan on something going wrong and needing to be repaired as soon as you move in too. Have at least 2% of purchase price set aside for emergencies and/or unexpected costs that pop up during closing. Better to have too much in the emergency fund than not enough.

High quality homemade pet food is likely not cheaper because you’ll want to include lots of high quality proteins (chicken/fish/etc.). The upside is they do not need to eat as much and are healthier so there might be savings in vet bills.

You completely skipped the concept of escrow which was part of her original question (“does the bank pay the taxes?”)

Answer: Usually you pay the bank an amount over and above the principal and interest ($482.77 in this case) and this is held in your name by the bank to pay your property tax and property insurance, which are both based on the value of your property. You can get loans where you are responsible to pay these expenses yourself, though this is less common and not recommended by most professionals.

Ultimately the bank pays it with your money. They write the check against money they are holding for you.

The new format is great. Thank you.

Based on your response to Q2, I suspect you haven’t really thought hard about what cats and dogs really are and why we feed them pet food. I’m going to limit myself to talking about dogs as a dog owner, but much if not all of this applies to cats as well.

Dogs are scientifically classified as wolves. They share the same physiology and therefore we can assume share the same nutritional needs.

I’m not going to claim to know the answers 100%, but here are some questions that may open your mind and eyes if you think about them seriously.

Q1: What did dogs and cats eat until the industrial food system started making pet food?

Q2: What do wild dogs (and wolves) and cats eat?

Q3: Based on jaw and tooth shape and conformation as well as intestinal physiology, are dogs and cats herbivores, omnivores, or carnivores?

Q4: Are there examples of dogs and cats living on a raw meat (meat, bones, & organs) and living long, healthy lives?

Q5: How is kibble made? What types of ingredients are commonly included in kibble? What are the quality standards for kibble?

Here is one good starting point to learn more and consider your options:
-Link omitted to avoid moderation-

What do I do?

I buy raw, unprocessed meat of a variety of types (chicken backs, turkey necks, pork hearts, meaty beef bones, etc.) and feed this to my dog (a Shiba Inu) as is. I aim to give him about 3/4 of a pound of meat each day and keep the organ meat to once or twice a week (about 5-10% of the total weight). I try to source from local meat producers who raise their animals ethically in a clean environment since I know about the horrors of industrial meat. I haven’t tracked the cost closely, but suspect it is close to or perhaps even less than the cost of a “high quality” kibble. I will track my food costs for my dog for the next month and report back if anyone is interested.

As a practicing lawyer, also, I second (#4) Shannon’s opinion. I graduated from law school in ’09 and had a horrible time finding a job. I ended up with a great job simply because of good networking. However, equally and greater talented classmates of mine are still unemployed in the legal profession and had to seek out other employment while they spend the next decade paying for a wasted education.

On the other hand, my husband is a registered nurse. He spent the requisite 4 years in college, graduated with less than $6,000 in student loan debt, and has had ZERO trouble getting a great paying job. He works 3 days a week and makes more than I do!!! Consider nursing. Seriously. I’m considering it myself somedays. :)

Trent: Thanks for posting my question! Keep up the great work! ^_^

One of the things that’s tricky about cats is that they need a special amino acid called Taurine in their diets or they will get very sick.

Instead of making my own cat food I started buying Natural Balance Limited Ingredient Green Pea and Salmon dry food. The ingredients are clearly listed (green pea and salmon are the main ingredients) and Natural Balance is the only thing that took my very lethargic kitten with serious gastro intenstial issues to healthy playful cat.

Natural Balance is more expensive but it has almost no fillers and so the animals eat less and get full faster. So I go through less cat food than when I was buying other brands.

Trent probably has just not gotten around to approving your comment.

Blogs like this will usually have a SPAM filter and some level of moderation. If you had links in your reply it may be forwarded to moderation automatically. Or the SPAM filter may be confused and thinking theres some reason your reply may be SPAM. That is all automatic and not something Trent did. If the SPAM filter didn’t exist then we’d probably have a dozen comments here offering to sell us viagra, porn or help someone in Nigera move money to the US. I’ve also had blogs ‘eat’ comments due to bugs in the software and again that is nothing to do with the blog writer, but just goofy software.