thousands before breakfast

There's something surreal about the home financing process. There I was this morning, sitting in a lawyer's office before breakfast, signing a bunch of papers to arrange for bank A to pay the lawyer nearly a quarter of a million dollars, directing them to send it to bank B to get them out of my life, and I promise to pay bank A nearly half a million dollars (if I make the standard payment every time) over 30 years. Anyways, interest rate is down under 5%, and if I keep paying the same amount I've been paying on the old loan, I should have it paid off a *whole* lot sooner than 30 years (more like 15); otoh, if I end up in dire financial straits, I have a way to grudgingly drop some monthly expenses lower in the short term.

Completely unrelated, I've been grooving on Longform.org which collects links to a whole bunch of really good long-form journalism pieces. Some really good stuff over there. I recommend starting with the editor's picks and going from there.