I don't know what to tell you. I wasn't crazy about the look of the Kenmore either but it's growing on me. I also got this unit for a little over $1K not the usual $2K so I couldn't pass it up. I know someone here had problems with the oven temp on the Bosch. I didn't really bake much because of my problems with the oven fan. I did make cookies using convection and was able to bake the 3 trays without a problem. The oven was a little bigger and I did like the rack positions better. I haven't really baked in the Kenmore yet things have been really busy here. I've only used it for chicken fingers and oven fries. Things come out crispy and well cooked. If I bake this week I'll let you know how things turn out. Since I can compare the Bosch and the Kenmore, I would have to say I like how the Kenmore cooks. Like I said before the cooktop seems better. With the Bosch my pans took forever to heat up. I thought maybe it was my new pans until I had the Kenmore installed. Another thing to consider is where you purchase your appliances. I could have purchased mine from Sears for a slightly cheaper price but decided to give my business to a local store. It was a bad move on my part. With Sears I could have returned the defective unit. The local store was no help at all. I had to fight for over 5 months to get the thing out of my house. Does any of that help?

Hi Jock Ewing, Being a furriner - I have no useful advice to offer regarding your Incentive funds, tax refund, etc. ... sorry about that. However - I'm with dadoes ... wouldn't it be a good idea for you to plan to reduce your tax refund to close to $0.00? Over the years that I've worked as a personal financial advisor, one of my major suggestions to clients and others was that they reduce their income tax refund to $0.00. Even at low rates of interest ... money in your bank account does develop a small amount of interest, during the year and a quarter to a half or so that some of it would be there. I'd like to suggest that, during the year while your extra large withholding is being held back and sent to the IRS as an interest-free loan, you check with your bank as to the amount of interest that the extra amount withheld would have earned. Then when you receive your tax refund, suppose you take an equal amount and, in the presence of your family, throw it into the street. Do you figure that they would, on the strength of that act, judge you to be a wise manager of money? Not only are you losing the small amount of interest (let's call it a "pittance") that that amount of money would earn if you'd taken it and put it into a separate and inviolable bank account ... it would have been available in case of need to deal with a major emergency expense. The IRS wouldn't have been too sympathetic had you, facing such a need, asked them to pay you a portion of that potential refund during that year. Which relates to another major suggestion that I made to my clients ... that they try to have at least 3 months' income available in easily accessible asset in case of an emergency. With six months', nine months' or a year's amount being built up in case of substantial unexpected need - including, in recent years, a possible extended period of unemployment. I shared with a number of them the information that I often did not have that on hand myself during my years of recent employment, as I held a "credit" (really "debt") card with, usually, zero or almost zero owing, with full amount paid off monthly prior to due date, plus a line of credit at the bank, usually sitting unused (with no set-up or maintenance fee if unused) which I could draw on to pay off the credit card balance due after use to cover an emergency. Actually, I recently signed up for another card, with 1.9% interest rate for 9 mos. on transferred balances, to use to purchase stock, should I so choose, as I would have to pay 5.00% currently on my line of credit but can buy the stock using the first card, then transfer the balance. But - the first card will charge interest at regular rate (about 18%) from the date that I draw on it till the date that it moves to the second card. By the way - I'm 80 and live on less than the income from my three pensions (one governmental with residence requirement, so housewives qualify, a second contributory related to my former income, and a third private contributory one) plus a small annual required amount of withdrawal from a tax-deferred retirement account. That income is much more secure that most employment income, as all that I need do to qualify is ... ... stay topside the grass! Which makes my pension income almost a guaranteed income (as long as the private carrier and the government stay solvent - and ours is a lot closer to that than yours). Do yourself a favour, Jock, please - set up a bank acocunt that you promise to leave alone except in case of extreme emergency ... and deposit the amount of withholding overcharge from every paycheque. With a name such as yours - you may have a drop or two of Scottish blood in your veins ... and you know their reputation for being careful with the use of money. Good wishes for what's left of winter, the spring - and the rest of the year. ole joyful

Our realtor said he wanted to put the house back on the market for 2 reasons: 1) to show the buyers that we didn't want to play games anymore and 2) so that we wouldn't lose a valuable weekend of possible showings. I don't know if he's playing straight with us or not. He's part of a large firm with who knows how many realtors under the broker. I do know I've been to their office twice and it's in a very pricey new building in a pricey part of the county with many many mail slots for realtors and a lot of front-counter people. Long marble-floored corridors with private offices for each realtor. I don't think it's the kind of place where the broker would sit down with our realtor and say, "Gee, are you being fair to these folks?" This realtor sold us our house 4.5 years ago and he's changed brokers twice in that time. I don't think he's as hungry for business as he used to be. I'll call an attorney on Monday just so I know where I stand.

elmer, am I supposed to be flattered that you pay so much attention to what I post here at the KT? And, really, I would expect you to be more of an equal opportunity snark. I am not the only person who has posted that they own Maui Jim sunglasses (and more than one other person has posted that they own just as many pair of MJs as I do, yet you've said nothing to or about them), and I'm not the only person who has posted that they paid their insurance premium in full, yet you say nothing to or about them. You just love to pick on me. I must intimidate you. Or you're insanely jealous. And, by the way, nowhere did I say what the length of our policy term is.