Bree Blogs and Clips Coupons While Roxiticus Burns

As many of my loyal Roxiticus Desperate Housewives readers know, I'm actually not a housewife....I'm an investment banker....but not the kind who deals in public securities day in and day out, so I usually don't spend much of my day watching the stock market. Today, though, it was such a rollercoaster that I couldn't help myself. Mortgage rates are on everyone's mind, so Brent and I were actually counting down to the 2:15pm EDT Fed rate cut and then wondering whether 75 basis points would be enough for everyone by the end of the day.

Last night my hairdresser, who is also a realtor, came over with haircuts and highlights for all. She bought and sold her own house over the past month and closed on her mortgage (through her employer) last week. The hoops they made her jump through were horrible and made her sick to her stomach. Same thing happened to Brent when he bought a house late last year. As soon as he closed with a fixed rate, the Fed lowered rates to try to bail out some of the sub-prime borrowers and mortgage interest rates started to come down, too. The lower rates would make the uninitiated believe that we should all be jumping to refinance, but the paperwork and headaches make me want to stick with my 30-year fixed rate mortage. A poll by Mortgage Monitor revealed that five percent of homeowners had become physically sick from worrying about their mortgages.

This morning I declared that I am in a personal recession, with a ban on significant purchases until the market appears to stabilize. Today had a happy ending, with the Dow up 420 points, but I can't help feeling a little silly to be "blogging for dollars" and clipping coupons to save 75 cents on breakfast cereal while my net worth rises and falls with the daily tidal swings of the stock market.