Hi {{first_name}},

I don't want to alarm anyone, but I think something's wrong.

It was 70 and sunny all weekend. In October. In Chicago. The Bears beat the Jets and are somehow 3–1. The White Sox, the same White Sox who lost 121 games two years ago (a number I still see when I close my eyes), walked into Cleveland and shut out the Guardians in Game 1 of the ALDS.

This is how every horror movie starts. A family moves into a beautiful house, the weather's perfect, everybody's happy, and nobody checks the basement.

I've been doing this for 15 years. I always check the basement.

I love a good horror movie. The creaky stairs, the music telling you to get out, the guy who says "I'll be right back" and is never right back. Give me all of it.

Real estate surprises are a different story. An inspection turns up a cracked foundation. An appraisal comes in $40,000 short. A neighbor mentions at the closing table that the last owners "had some trouble with the basement." None of those come with ominous music, and nobody in the audience is yelling at you to turn around.

My job is to be the guy yelling at the screen before you open that door.

Here's my problem. Every week I sit down, write this thing, and send it out into the dark. I'm the guy in the movie walking down the hallway with a flashlight, calling "Hello?" and hearing nothing back.

In a horror movie, that's a bad sign. In a newsletter, it's just a little lonely.

So this week there's no pitch. Nothing to buy, nobody to call. Just three questions.

Answer the three questions here →

It takes about a minute, and every answer is just a click. I'll read all of them. Tell me where you are, and I'll make sure nothing about it turns into a plot twist.

This week's sponsor: Finance Buzz. Speaking of things hiding in the basement: credit card balances. They're one of the first things a mortgage lender looks at, and at 25% interest they grow back faster than you can pay them down. If that sounds familiar, this one's worth a click.

(One note from me: if you're about to apply for a mortgage, talk to your lender before opening any new card. New credit right before closing can cause problems.)

Halloween is three weeks out, and Lake County is already committed. There's a twelve-foot skeleton on every other block. One of them is on my route to the office, and I'm fairly sure it's closer to the sidewalk than it was last week.

We put that stuff out because fear is fun when it's fake. The real stuff, we'd rather not look at. Which is how a lot of people treat their house.

I get it. Nobody wants to find out the water heater is 14 years old. Nobody wants to look up what a new roof costs. It's easier to assume everything's fine, right up until a Saturday gets eaten by phone calls and a check you didn't plan on writing.

I'm not going to tell you to go inspect your attic. (You should probably go inspect your attic.)

In my experience, the people who handle surprises best just knew what they had. How old the furnace was. Roughly what the house would sell for. What they'd do if life changed on them. It's a low bar. Most of us can clear it with one afternoon and a flashlight.

Thanks for answering this week's questions. I'll tell you what I hear.

Until next week…