Money and Financial Business

For a few years now, I have kept a list of DVDs/movies I want to buy and own sometime in the future. This "To Own" list has become a rather long list. But whenever I give in to the urge to buy something (arrgh..I must control thee!), I tend to go over to Blockbuster's and search for any of movies I've put on my "want" list on their "get 3 DVDs for $25 dollar deal" shelves (available with previously viewed DVDs).

While I'm aware that $25 to spend on movies at any one time is expensive, I try to find three that are already on my list. Also, there are usually recent big releases in the pre-viewed section as well. Last night, I got Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Sin City -Extended Edition (whoever traded it in....Thank you..Thank you!!!), and Empire Falls miniseries for $25.00.

Not bad if you're patient, don't mind browsing every single row, can adhere to buying only the ones you really want, and have time on your hands.

The Condo I wish I can buy soon is in Chino, located in Riverside County, where cows still add fragrance to the air. However, Chino seems to be where the cheaper two bedroom condos are still at (in the $220,000 to $350,000 range). Also, the cows are reported to be on the move by 2007.

I've thought about Long Beach as well, however, condos in Long Beach are more like converted apartments and the neighborhood's crime rate is higher than in Chino. Of course, I can't afford any of it now but I've been keeping watch over the price ranges in order to get a feel for the local trend.

Last weekend, I counter-proposed this to my dad. The answer was vague. In fact, I'm still confused now as to what the answer was. I believe it might have been a maybe...a possibility. I think it's along the lines of "I'll believe it when I see it". Ah, well, it's still worth the try!

I've been sick lately and been in a haze the last couple of days. I don't like taking cold medicine so I've just been loading up on water and vitamin C. Here's saying goodbye to nearly two years of illness-free living!

Holy Moly HSBC is now 4.80% that beats ING's weak 4.75% for 3 months promotion on new deposits. http://www.banking.us.hsbc.com/HICServlet?cmd_ViewDepositRates=&accept-language=en-us

Nick over at http://kweee.blogspot.com/ is my first friend he extended a welcome to exchange links! Thanks Nick!

Holy cow. This is one day that I wished I had a driver. I usually am a pretty patient (non-agressive) driver, but today my patience was really pushed to the limit. There were atleast 2 cyclists, 3 motorcyclists, and 2 lady (and newbie) drivers, who had death-wishes and emerged in front of my car. They all were saved, because I did not pronounce their death sentences yet. *Phew* Man, today was stressful.

The day was ok -- one training and one meeting, and a little bit of work. Night conference call, and I should hit the sack soon.

Tommorrow is Feb 1, and I intend to start my personal finance journey in full earnest. Firstly, I will be paying off my credit card bill - this will pay off my laptop.

I have asked myself this for a long time - what's the point in DJ's or becoming an amateur DJ?

In my day an amateur dj was someone who wanted to earn a few extra quid putting on tracks down the village hall disco for someone's 13th birthday etc. How did it turn into a hobby? how come, when you can buy CD changers, or now have ipods with a selection of music on, even pre-programmable tracks. I can't understand it. Its not like the average DJ will take requests. They hide in the corner of a bar it seems to me, and play their CDs or vinyl or whatever.

OK there may be some skill in choosing music for the ambience of the bar, but I used to work in a bar and this was always carefully done by the brewery! who used to send a set of CDs to play religiously until it drove the staff mad.

To my DJs are like being subjected to some geek's record collection, and I may not disagree with it. I might concede that some 'artists' are very good and remixing and creating music by recycling other people's music, but this seems to be rare in the pub scene - its just geeks hiding in corners putting on obscure tracks - no-one really gives a f*ck about them or their music, they just seem to be into their own groove.

My question is this - why don't the p*ss off and do it in their own bedroom like most aspiring musicians do for a few years? eh?

But! I can see the point in DJs in nightclubs, and people who dig that can go to listen. But why do I have to listen to someone in a bar who seems to be merely putting music on with little interaction. Seems bizarre.

I recently did some sound engineering at a do where there were bands and DJs, and the DJs didn't seem to have a clue about sound. I was pretty clueless myself, but they seemed perplexed when I said that they should get off stage, get to the middle of the hall and have a listen. They seemed glued to their decks, in their own little world. The folks at the event didn't care, they just wanted to dance, and they would have danced to anything.

Personally - when I see the DJ in the bar I think of Bukowski's poem about the piano player.

This blog will start detailing the musings of a newly married engineer (in his late 20s) living in the Delhi area (India). I will dabble on mostly rantings of a young engineer. I will also focus somewhat in my quest towards saving some money. So you might call this a pseudo-personal-finance blog. I will try and post some stuff that I could save money on. Some stuff that I read about that I tried etc. Why, I might even blog about some cool household hack.

Well, reader, without too much ado, welcome to this blog.

If you have a blog and would like more traffic we could trade links! Post your blog in my comments and add me to your favorite blogs lists so we can help each other.

I believe that the propensity to learn new things decreases as a man ages (ie) a 1 year old kid learns a lot more in a day as compared to a 10 year old, who instead learns a lot more as compared to 25 year old.

“A high school teacher drew a dot on the blackboard and asked the class what it was. ‘A chalk dot on the blackboard,’ was the only response. ‘I’m surprised at you,’ the teacher said. ‘I did this exercise with a group of kindergartners and they thought fifty different things it could be: a squashed bug, an owl’s eye, a cow’s head. They had their imagination in high gear. As Picasso put it, ‘Every child is an artist. The challenge is to remain an artist you grow up.”—Creative Whack Pack (card no: 16)

I think one way to maintain our artistic caliber as we grow up is to learn to think gray, and free. I will draw the lessons from my understanding of an excellent book “The Contrarians Guide to Leadership” by Steven Sample and this wonderful post by Prof. Sanjay Bakshi.

Thinking Gray:
“The essence of thinking gray is this: don’t form an opinion about an important matter until you’ve heard all the relevant facts and arguments, or until circumstances force you to form an opinion without recourse to all the facts (which happens occasionally, but much less frequently than one might imagine)”—Steven Sample.

Understanding why ‘thinking gray’ is difficult to follow can help us overcome the difficulty. One possible reason could be social conventions. For ex: we generally tend to relate a successful person with good instincts, quick judgments, being decisive… Those are indeed some of the pre-requisites to become a good decision maker, but we should not forget to bring in an important factor, situation. There are situations when one has to think black and white (ie) make instinctive decision, say playing tennis. On the other hand there are situations where the best decision is to not decide at all. (Please read this excellent post by Prof. Sanjay Bakshi in which he has discussed ‘preserving optionality’ at length)

“Never make a decision today that can be reasonably put off till tomorrow”—Steven Sample.

Thinking gray requires us to overcome the tendency of being decisive just for the sake of it. For example we have a tendency to record first impressions of people and try to check if our impression is right or wrong. This when supported by anchoring bias can lead to Munger’s ‘man with a hammer’ tendency. Thus it can be said that instead of reaching conclusions, we can just record the events or news as pieces of information and preserve our options to reach conclusions.

“The test of the first rate mind is the ability to hold two opposing thoughts at the same time while still retaining the ability of function”—Scott Fitzgerald

Thinking Free:
“Much of our thinking is associative: one idea makes you think of another—no matter how logical the connection. Use this ability to generate new ideas. Look at something, and make associations based on whatever you can think of: function, location, size, shape, sound, personal, opposite, weird, etc…” Creative Whack Pack (card no: 15)

The importance of the above paragraph lies in the fact that it advises us to overcome first conclusion bias, which when combined with inconsistency avoidance tendency results in human mind functioning like a human egg (ie) when one sperm gets into a human egg, there’s an automatic shut-off device that bars any other sperm from getting in. It is fine with human egg, but when something of that sort happens to human mind; it tends to hold onto its beliefs irrespective of their validity. Thinking about the consequences of such a condition reminds me of a wonderful quote by Ben Franklin.

“When you’re finished changing, you’re finished”

Understanding why ‘thinking free’ is so difficult to follow might help us in our endeavor. One possible reason could be people’s aversion to failure. I mean to say that just as people prefer avoiding losses over acquiring gains (as explained by ‘Prospect theory'), people tend to avoid experimenting with thought process if it carries with it the possibility of embarrassment. This could well be the reason behind people blindly falling prey to ‘herd mentality.’ That is, fear of getting caught as a group is very different from getting caught all alone, whatever be the pursuit.

It is easier said than done but with persistent practice we can learn to overcome such shortcomings and learn the art of thinking free. This reminds me of a quote by Warren Buffett,

“Practice does not make perfect; it makes permanent”

Conclusion:
All in all, I think that we should have these important cognitive tools in our repertoire of mental models. The more we practice with such tools, the better informed we can become of their limitations and eventually their advantages.

"Just as a man working with his tools should know its limitations, a man working with his cognitive apparatus must know its limitations"—Charlie Munger.

It seems that they are revising how they support businesses in London. "The Business Support Review" was launched by London Development Agency last week.

I think the jist of it is to tailor support more to London's needs, as it has previously been designed by central government that is not always appropriate.

See more here on documents and how to submit your views:

http://www.lda.gov.uk/businesssupportreview

I have been off blogging for a week so I don't know if this has been posted already but if not, this is a pretty cool deal. Blockbuster has a new rewards program that you can sign up for at $9.95/year. It offers you several ways to get free rentals. Now it doesn't completely beat Netflix as I will explain in a second but it does come close depending on your rental habits. Here are the highlights

JNPR, as we all know by now, missed consensus estimates for the first time in last two years; resulting in a nice 21% hair-cut to the market cap. JNPR has been plagued by the acquisitionmania- acquiring five companies in last two years, starting with NetScreen and the most recent Funk Software. Recent acquisitions of Redline, Kagoor and Peribit contribued no growth during the quarter- that's

Any respectable fund nowadays will compare itself with the benchmark index that most matches its holdings. There's a few problems with these types of comparisons, though.

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Havent posted in a while got some good news now. I am now making 45k and got a promotion. Below is my updated financial status. Account Totals Banking $47,852.68 Credit Cards $0.00 Investment $28,734.84 Total Value $76,587.52

Apologies to my regular readers for the long hiatus, my posts should pick up in frequency again. Also, want to thank Forbes for mentioning this site as one of the top Investment Blogs on the web.

EXTR has been one of the cheapest networking stocks for a while, trading below 1x EV/Sales for some time. Trading in a range between $4 and $5ish for almost a year. EXTR has seen nice improvements in revenues for last few quarters, improving gross margins, better operating margin and even some buy-backs but the stock gets little respect. Today EXTR reported revenues that missed its own guidance.

At the end of last year, my dad proposed that he will pay for liposuction as well as stomach stapling surgery if I will seriously choose to have them to shed excess weight this year. At first, I felt insulted since I feel that all he sees of me is a fat woman who is "running out of time"...his words. Although, I do see that this is one of his ways of showing me that he loves me and wants me to be healthy.

I'm big but I'm not grotesquely obese! I don't qualify for a stomach stapling surgery anyway. But I am thinking of couter-proposing on his offer. I would propose that if I can lose the excess weight this year via regular exercise and healthful eating habits, he can just give me the money he would have spent on my liposuctions, and allow me to save that money! I am not sure how he'll respond to it. Probably a "no...or a maybe". It won't hurt to ask. What he doesn't know is that I've already lost four pounds since the time of his proposal, and I am confident that I will lose more.

Gosh, I am so spoiled. *Note* The First Odd Money Opportunity was as post in November, 2005. Somehow, that post is not showing up as its own html page and I don't know how to link to it.

*EDIT*

Thanks to Jane Dough at Bostongal's Openwallet , here's the link to the other Odd Money Opportunity .

Earlier this month Fidelity Observer talked about various types of mutual funds that invest in foreign stocks.

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Well, I finally got my funds to show up in Roth and made the distributions (FCNTX, DOD and SBUX). Which is good because I probably wouldn't have had time in the next few weeks to do anything if they hadn't shown up now. I will be taking a break from blogging till the end of the month because of work related activities. I am busy interviewing, hiring and training replacements (they decided they

After I recovered from the weekend trauma, involving a horrible "friend" who left me stranded on Friday night at her boyfriend's place until six a.m. on Saturday, I decided that I'm going to tinker with the funds I have in the Roth IRA account at American Funds. I know...I know...I need to figure out a better way to release anger :)!!

from "Financial Success Requires Saving, Spending Discipline," by Jonathan Clements, The Wall Street Journal, May 5, 1998.

(h/t HOBNOB BLOG)


1. Sign up for your employer's retirement plan. (make savings a habit)
2. Pay off your credit cards. (leave your cards at home and stick to cash)
3. Set up an automatic investment plan. (dollar cost averaging)
4. Make a ritual sacrifice.
5. Organize yourself.
6. Invest all financial windfalls.
7. Round up your mortgage check.
8. Manage your cash for maximum return. (don't leave extra cash in a savings or checking account)
9. Act your tax bracket. (or, better yet, act BELOW your tax bracket)
10. Invest for the long haul. (five years)


Hobnob Blog's tips:
Spend less than you earn. We do now.

Pay off your credit cards in full every month. Once we pay off the debt we have accumulated thus far, we will not even use credit cards unless it is a dire emergency and we have exhausted every other resource.

If you use a credit card, use it like cash and get a no-annual-fee-cash-rebate card. See above.

Save at least 20% of everything you make, starting with the first dollar you earn. This is wonderful advice and I plan to teach my children this and make this a household rule.

Buy used cars. We do.

Buy the cheapest house in the most expensive neighborhood you can afford. When the time comes, we will.

Take full advantage of your employer's retirement plan and medical-spending and dependent-care reimbursement accounts. Ah, if only the military had these...

Don't borrow against your retirement savings or withdraw from them until you retire. Never have, never will.

Invest for the long term, in index mutual funds and in companies that have a history of increasing earnings.We have some wonderful mutual funds that I rolled my PERS plans into when I quit teaching. They are well-balanced and we will resume contributions as soon as we are debt-free.




Every little bit counts.

Those of you with a number of mutual funds know the overwhelming amount of paper mail you get from these companies. Most of the time there is no way to keep up with it. That said, I always read the publications from Selected Funds. The Davis Family runs the company ...

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Bad news if you are a Fidelity 401K account holder: Some Fidelity customer service reps are apparently not so good at protecting customers' account information, and in a few cases have emptied the account holdings to con men. That's not all: It's not entirely clear if Fidelity will reimburse people ...

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Think a gallon of gas is expensive?
Here are some figures that put costs in perspective.


Diet Snapple 16 oz costs $1.29 ......... that’s $10.32 per gallon
Lipton Iced Tea 16 oz $1.19.....................$9.52 per gallon
Gatorade 20 oz $1.59............................$10.17 per gallon
Ocean Spray 16 oz $1.25 ........................$10.00 per gallon
Brake Fluid 12 oz $3.15.........................$33.60 per gallon
Vick's Nyquil 6 oz $8.35........................$178.13 per gallon
Pepto Bismol 4 oz $3.85.........................$123.20 per gallon
Whiteout 7 oz $1.39.............................$25.42 per gallon
Scope 1.5 oz $0.99..............................$84.48 per gallon

Good thing our cars don’t run on water, because here’s the REAL KICKER..
Evian water 9 oz costs $1.49..........that’s $21.19 per gallon!

$21.19 for WATER – no wonder “Evian” spelled backward is “Naive.”




- courtesy of WIFE.org

My Wednesday ultrasound determined my offical due date of Sept 13, 2006! Today I am 6w2d along, so the baby is about four weeks old and the size of a grain of rice. My weight yesterday was 136, and the doctor says to expect to gain 20-30 pounds over the course of the pregnancy, almost all of which will be in the last few months.

I budget $200 per pay period (about 2 weeks) for food, not including going out (that comes out of our spending money). Not bad given that Hawaii's cost of living is something like 49% higher than parts of the mainland. I hit the commissary today and did my bimonthly shop. I will have to get back there a few times before the next payday for milk, bread, and other perishables (mainly salad) but for essentially two weeks worth of food, I spent $129.94. Not bad especially considering I did not have many coupons this time around (only $3.35 worth...about 3% of my food bill. Usually I get closer to 10% and sometimes as high as 20%).

I did a good job sticking to the list and only bought 3 things that weren't on the list: 2 Lunchables for the kids as a reward for their stellar behavior today, some shredded cheese (I know...I'm living large!), and the makings for Pineapple Dump Cake.


Here is our menu for the rest of the month:

* spaghetti with homemade sauce, bread, salad
* black bean soup, rolls, salad
* homemade tequila lime chicken, mexican rice, corn (we're having friends over for dinner)
* turkey apple meatloaf, peas, bread
* pecos pasta, cornbread, green beans
* teriyaki salmon, lemon spaghetti
* turkey with cranberry-pineapple sauce, wild rice, salad
* YOYO night (you're on your own - scrounging for leftovers)
* pizza (from Costco - we're babysitting a friend's children)
* out (Parents' Night Out at the local day care center...dh and I will use a gift certificate for dinner and then hit the dollar movies!)
* lime and hg salmon, steamed cauliflower
* rosemary-orange pork chops, teriyaki noodles, salad
* pineapple rum chicken, jasmine rice, snow peas


I still need to hit Costco for the salmon (frozen) and the pizza and the local market for the jasmine rice. But I still should be able to stay well under my $200 budget for food this time around.


Every little bit counts!

First of all, thanks to everyone who commented on my last post about where to fine cheap airline Web fares. It was very useful information, and I tried a few of the services. However, none of them beat the prices advertised on Yahoo Travel/Travelocity, and I found out why: Fine ...

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Earlier this month I wrote about a nasty email exchange involving Alan Lewis, a European money manager, and Daniel Loeb, a hedge fund manager here in the United States. Following in the same vein is an exchange between Business Week journalist Timothy Mullaney and Patrick Byrne, CEO of Overstock.com:

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The deposit came through and was posted to our checking account so I just turned around and paid off ANOTHER $1050 off the MC!!! Woohoo!!!


So, as of January 18, here is how it looks:

VISA $4,085.68
MC $6,656.37
TOTAL $10,742.05


We're getting there! At the end of the month, if there is any leftover cash in the checking account, it will immediately be paid toward the MC bill as well.

This weekend, the eBay auctions and Craigslist listings go up. I'm also going to make another pass through the house to see what else I can scrounge up to post.

The funds are still conspicuously missing from my Roth account. After 4 phone calls and 4 assurances that the transaction is there, it just hasn't "settled" yet, I am beginning to bristle. I came this close to yelling, "Just give me my fucking money!" to the Fidelity rep on the phone. Thankfully, years of breeding kicked in just in time and I bit down on my tongue before the words could

As of January 15 (well, January 17) the credit card balances are:

VISA $4,085.68
MC $7,706.37
TOTAL $11,792.05


I am waiting on a $1,050 deposit to clean and then I will put that toward the MC balance as well.

The balances have been written on an index card and will be posted on the fridge for us to see every day. We're on our way!

At the cost of alienating a lot of frugal minded people everwhere, I'd totally buy this. The $20 per bottle pricetag doesn't faze me at all. You can't put a price on something this adorable. It's like a piece of art all ready to be displayed in some pop culture museum! It even has its own necktie! Besides, isn't it time we rescued water, that precious life-giving fluid, from its ignominious

eBay items: (I will list these this coming weekend)
Johnny Jumper - goal $15
scrapbooking kits - goal $5 each x 9
scrapbooking stickers and die cuts - goal $5
scrapbooking frames/mattes - goal $5
scrapbooking bag/Crop in Style Jr. - goal $15
Creative Memories Page Patterns x 2 - goal $7.50 each
Crock Pot (used 2x) - goal $10
TOTAL (goal) - $110


I also have several items I want to list on Craigslist:
sippy cups
little photo albums (most still in their shrink wrap)
toys the kids no longer play with


And some things to list on half.com/Amazon:
old Accounting text books
novels
CDs




All in all, my goal for all of this is $200. Every little bit counts.

Around lunch time I made a quick jaunt to the nearest Starbucks to pick up a bracing cup of coffee. As I seem to have graduated from erratic sleep patterns to not sleeping at all at nights a strong cup of mid-day coffee to bolster me is a must to get me through the day. While I was waiting my turn at the counter I suddenly noticed something. Could it be? Yes, there they were. Lovely glowy pale

If you are interested in investing in an index fund, be aware that not all index funds are the same when it comes to indices covered, fees, and rates of return. A website that can help you sort through the bewildering array of index funds and ETFs is indexuniverse.com. It ...

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Ok, so I set up the funds transfer yesterday. I know it takes a while but I am transferring from my cash core account to my Roth account so it's not like it's coming from another bank. Checked this morning and the money still isn't there. Given that I have recently developed the sleeping patterns of a nocturnal animal and am still required to stay up all day, compounded with general professional

Summer is around the corner and a reader offered to submit my resume with her very well known company (thanks N!) If that isn't reason enough to celebrate this has to be: I finally signed up for magazine subscriptions. Vogue - 2 year - $12.95 Money - 1 year - $19.95 Kiplinger's - 1 year - $12 Budget Living - 2 year - $8.99 Acc. to MS Money I have spent $94.62 since mid-Aug on magazines.

This is Part 2 of 2 on my Business Model Changes, prompted by a reader email. You can read Part 1 here.

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Way back in November I received an email from a reader named Jason who wrote, "For a couple of years now I've been desiring to setup a small financial planning practice. I have no desire to pick stocks, insurance policies, etc. for people. However, what I had in mind was ...

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Reader "CPA1298" commented on my 0% exploits here. I'm going to take this opportunity to dissect his points and offer my comments.

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I wanted to write another followup on my 0% APR credit card experience. For the previous history read the posts here and here. I've received a lot of email and comments from readers on these posts. Before I get to those I'll offer my personal feedback about 2 months into ...

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J & I had our first money talk today. He wants us to go to Lake Tahoe in February. Possible sticky Valentine’s Day expectations and subsequent ramifications aside, I am girlishly excited about this. Sure I am an emancipated woman and I don’t need a man to take care of me but that doesn’t mean I don’t want one who likes me, a lot. What can be better than a romantic gateaway with someone who fits

Is the rally in foreign markets over? Is the S&P about to get a boost after another lackluster year? Depends who you ask. Jonathan Clements of the Wall Street Journal seems to think the overseas rally may be about to lose steam.

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A good article on New York from the Center for an Urban Future here

"The mayor deserves the most credit for recognizing that the old way the city handled economic development no longer makes sense in today's ultracompetitive economic landscape, and for quickly implementing a new, more growthoriented strategy."

I was in NY last year discussing economic development, and things are definitely changed there with Bloomberg. Its interesting that they don't embark on major tax incentives for businesses like other local governments - they told me that they just couldn't afford it and it was pretty pointless in the megabucks real estate world of NYC. They are focusing on small businesses.

Payday has come. In addition to the payment I had budgeted for one of our two credit cards, I had an additional $500 left over from the last paycheck so I threw that into the payment as well. Starting off on a GREAT foot here! $1,500 toward our goal in 1 day! Awesome.

I am going to write down our credit card balances on an index card and stick it up on the fridge. Every month, on the first of the month, I will adjust the balances and note what the change was. It *should* only be a DECREASE but life has a funny way of throwing curveballs.

We adhere to Dave Ramsey's plan of a bare-bones emergency fund of $1,000 and that *should* be enough to cover just about any emergency that life may throw at us. My husband has a secure job - even if the military were to kick him out (not that that would ever happen but for those of you who like to play devil's advocate...), that process takes months and that would give us time to cover our financial bases. In addition to job security, we have Tricare so medical bills aren't really a concern. The two biggest emergencies I can forsee are car trouble (husband is mechanically inclined and right now, we have more cars than we need) or death/illness in our family that would necessitate travel back to the mainland. If that happens, I am pretty confidant that I can find plane tickets for myself and the kids for under $1,000. The husband might have to stay put (or *I* might have to, depending on whose family member it is) but only for a short while until we came up with some extra money.

Now, for the weekend...I read about a challenge on another blog (can't remember which one) about identifying and posting SIX (6) items for sale on eBay. I already have at least two, if not three identified: a Johnny Jumper and a bunch of scrapbooking supplies. I need to figure out how to divvy the scrapbooking supplies up. I also have several books to sell but I think I'm going to cross-list those on Half.com and Amazon rather than eBay. That leaves me with 3 items to find to sell. I'll post more on this after the weekend.

I am also going to try out a homemade marinara sauce recipe. I found it in the book,
Everyday Italian. I need to also sit down and figure out the cost of the ingredients so I can compare it to the jarred stuff.


Off to bed.

I attended a Barbara Stanny seminar yesterday called Overcoming Underearning (which incidentally happens to also be the title of her new book--smart). The event mostly centered around her own experiences with anecdotal references to her climb up from the bottomless pit that is creditors-knocking-on-the-door kind of money worries to the kind of financially secure future that many people dream

While many Sellers chose to take their homes off the market in late 2005 and wait till Spring 2006 to relist their homes, many Buyers came back into the market right after the first of the year.  Showings have been extremely brisk and these buyers are coming ready to make an offer.  With the recent warm weather, the housing market seems to be warming up right along with it.