Haha, relatable. I once thought changing a bathroom faucet would be easy after watching a 5-minute DIY vid. Two hours and one flooded cabinet later, I...

Good points about risk tolerance—it's easy to underestimate how much uncertainty can mess with your head, even if you've done all the prep. When I bou...

Yeah, calculators are decent for ballpark numbers, but they're rarely spot-on. Our county had a similar issue—updated senior exemptions weren't online...

Totally get this. We went back and forth on refinancing to a shorter term too. Ended up sticking with the 30-year because we wanted breathing room in ...

Glad it worked out for you, but tapping into home equity always makes me a bit uneasy. You're swapping unsecured debt for secured debt—if things go so...

Went through something similar last year. I opted for the bigger down payment to lower monthly costs, but then a pipe burst and drained my emergency f...

Went the HELOC route myself last year because it felt more flexible. Liked that I could draw money as needed instead of lump-sum refinancing. But gott...