November 10, 2020
After struggling to get things in order since we moved, 2020 has been an oddly productive year-long decluttering and organizing period.
After the 2019 winter holidays, I had a truckload of stuff to deal with: secondhand toys, books, art supplies, workbooks, clothes, and some presents. After visiting the homes of loved ones who are hoarders and just have plain too many things for anyone’s peace of mind, I was especially fired up to clear up and clear out all the things!
I asked PiC to feed me the boxes languishing in the garage from when we moved, one at a time. If we haven’t looked at them in 2 years, I’m almost certain we don’t need anything in there!
He got curious and pulled down three instead, so I took them all. I made quick work of two boxes – sorting them into a donation box and a bag of baby stuff that will go to a friend. The third has some electronics I have to figure out. I’m also sorted through another box of books that were passed on to me to donate to the library, the Little Library, and regift (the like-new copies) to young kids. (The pandemic has put a halt to the local regifting and donations for the moment, but the piles are sorted. The trick now is to keep them hidden from JB so they don’t raid it looking for things to clawback.) (more…)
October 26, 2020
If you’d like to join me in helping Lakota families and/or rural libraries this year, please read this post. Over 6 weeks in 2019, we raised $2669.94 for the Lakota families, touching 27 lives. What can we do in 2020?
Current total: Lakota, $1,905.47; Rural libraries, $346.69.
NOTE: I started this post many months ago and added to it as I researched options but events 2020!! got the better of me.
Item 1: water heater
After a grueling weekend of social obligations that had my legs seizing up, I drew a bath for myself for the first time in 2 years. No joke. And by the time the tub was partly filled, the water was tepid. Disappointment.
Now that the furnace installation, oh luxurious furnace bringer of warmth and comfort inside, is well behind us, I’m looking ahead to another old appliance that we knew was on its last legs when we bought the place. To be honest, I was hoping it would crap out in the first year when we still had our warranty purchased by our agent.
Of course it chose not to oblige during the warranty period so I’m debating whether it makes sense to replace it before it dies or if we should just use it til the bottom falls out. I’ve skipped many a comforting and soothing bath because it’s just not warm enough for my bones but I sure would like a real bath.
Linda ventured into the world of the tankless heater a couple years ago, and our former neighbors were talking to us about them before we moved too.
My internal debate has gotten this far:
Tankless pros: smaller footprint, lower energy needs
Tankless cons: PG&E doesn’t give rebates for tankless water heater units, it won’t work during a power outage, it’s 3-4x as expensive as a traditional tank heater.
They did offer incentives for solar water heating which would work alongside conventional water heaters, but we live wreathed in fog most of the year so I’m a bit skeptical that this could work for us. They state: You might get a rebate of up to $4,366 and a 30 percent federal tax credit. We already missed the boat on the 30% federal tax credit, that expired Dec. 31, 2019, but it looks like there are lower tiers of tax credit through 2021 according to TurboTax.
I’m pondering if it makes sense to have solar alongside tankless, would that help us with the power outage non-availability of water? Though thoroughly inconvenient, I can deal with multiple days of power outages if we still have hot food and hot water. I’m not so sure of my equanimity without. I don’t want a solution that requires us to give up more room in the garage then we already do with the existing old style water heater though.
Does anyone have experience with replacing water heaters? Are you using solar, tankless, or conventional heaters?
Item 2: The Exterior
Our front and back yards are a travesty and not at all useable. We also have a TON of other exterior work to do:
– Bolt and brace
– Replacing dryrotted boards
– Replacing our gutters
– Fixing the drainage problems
– Painting
– Functional landscaping to remove and prevent the resprouting of the jungle that has sprouted after all my efforts at weed eradication last summer
PiC has a lot of aesthetic interior projects he had wanted to tackle this year in addition to the functional stuff, painting and putting up hanging hooks and suchlike, but it’s been too much of a year to get into it. I have zero interest in painting, myself. He did commit to some hanging hooks though.
We drew up a master list to figure out our priorities because we needed to budget for maintenance spending and still hold back some cash for the inevitable surprise something happening, but honestly, I have no clue what we will be able to get done this year considering we will need help for the bigger things. Getting a contractor / sub-contractor has proven to be nearly impossible.
I’m also not prepared to have PiC risk himself on a high ladder to do gutter work during this period where our city is again becoming a hotspot for COVID.
Item 3: The Interior
We had some big ticket items on the list.
The (used when we bought it) sofa was aging badly.
I love our bed but the mattress was at the end of its life for me (my pain issues are very affected by mattress quality) and we just don’t have enough real estate. I had lobbied for a king size bed when we had to replace this mattress but it wouldn’t have fit. With me the size I am, and with the back pain ramping up to a high screech, the need for more bed had my tiny voice squeaking I TOLD YOU SO.
We spent money on both bed and sofa at the same time which was a heck of a hit but well worth it. Not that the sofa has actually ARRIVED *glares at Joybird*.
I’m still thinking about how long we can get by with this washer and dryer. They each have issues but they still work so I’m hoping to push replacement well into next year. 🤞🏼
:: Did you have any must-do maintenance around the home this year? Did it get done? How are you prioritizing?
December 16, 2019
I’m still working at preparing for a disaster and creating coherent and complete kits. We’ve been working at this for years and we’re still not done because it takes time to fit these expenses in the budget. I’m not willing to just buy one of those big kits because I’m looking for long-lasting value which means spending a bit more for quality.
Background
I shared my friend’s expertise on hurricane insurance in 2013. I summarized what we had on hand and what I was thinking for 2017. Things we already have:
Hydration:
- Two water filtration systems purchased almost a decade ago for cooking and drinking if we have no potable water
- 3 days of water packets
- I wonder if a lifestraw would be good to have as well.
Food:
Light:
Energy:
- An outdoor only generator that could keep our refrigerator (and maybe internet assuming those towers are still up) running plus two extension cords to keep it far away from the house. We need some extra gas for the generator and a safe place to store it not in the house.
- I picked up a massive power bank for the household to share and to have a back up to our smaller more portable power bank that I use regularly. This can be used to (very slowly) charge my computer when we just have a power outage, too.
Heat/warmth:
- Sleeping bivvies in case we have to sleep outdoors.
Health:
- A tourniquet for major bleeding,
- Swiss army knife,
- Bandaids,
- Gauze and medical tape.
(more…)
April 3, 2019
We’re developing a steady rhythm of moving things out of the house even as we add things that we need and use. I’m looking at a steady state that should trend lower over time.
This almost cleansing ritual is at odds with my borderline hoarder nature that wants, nay craves, the security of having everything I might need ready to hand. I hate having to buy things when they’re not on sale. But the purging is necessary.
Without this outflow, I’d feel stifled and overwhelmed by STUFF. I hate that feeling. I want to have stuff, I don’t want it to have me. I want to have our own purely practical Warehouse 13, but not live in it. I’m not sure that compromise is possible but nevertheless, I persevere.
Less stuff, more stuff, just the right amount of stuff: a lesson in mindfulness
Some things have to be pruned daily or they multiply LIKE TRIBBLES:
- Junk mail
- ALL of JB’s art which is sometimes represented by scribbles on 39284829 sheets of paper, a wad of paper taped up 17 different ways, or a stack of papers stapled together. If the latter, I secretly unstaple them and stash them in a bin of art supplies so ze can reuse the other side.
- Anything that’s been in the trunk of the car for five years but hasn’t been used (except the emergency gear).
We bid farewell to:
- A broken coffeemaker that’s been taking up room in the garage – with grateful thanks to our local disposal company
- 6 of 12 pairs of trouser socks. Haven’t worn them in 6 years, probably safe to assume I won’t in the next 6.
- We rarely get takeout for a lot of reasons but I especially like to see how long we can go without adding to our plastic takeout containers stash – we are down to an all time low of only 4 sets! They were used mercilessly, then sent home with potluck dinner guests filled with delicious leftovers.
- We use our clothes the same way we duel: to the death! Often, the things we’re ready to give up aren’t in any shape to be sold or donated. Any clothes still in good condition go into my Sale Bin in hopes of finding them a good home. About 15 lbs of clothes have languished in there for a year, it was time for them to move on.
Areas of concern
- We definitely have enough tote bags but I struggle heartily with not adding more to our collection. I can resist a great tote bag about as well as I resist street tacos. (Hardly ever and with bad grace.) I love the feel of sturdy canvas, the clever art, the easy breezy “shovel all the gear into the tote and go”-ness of a great oversized tote. The non-preciousness wherein you can sling it any old where, because it’s sturdy canvas, so no worries about scuffing. I resonate with a great tote bag.
With all this going on, it seems counter-intuitive to be adding things to the home, doesn’t it? But we have and it’s eased our day to day lives too. We’ve added:
- A good quality garden shovel.
- A pair of tough gardening gloves that actually fit my hands. Begone, ye thorns!
- An extra set of sheets – I don’t have to strip the beds, do all the wash, and remake the beds all in one marathon day! I can rotate our extra set in and take my time. It’s amazing.
- Three bowls and platters for dinner service. We’ve squished many a dinner into 2 solitary 1-quart casserole dishes for quite a lot of guests. It’s ok to make serving up meals a little easier. This is also a sideways investment in social capital. We are starting new traditions in the area with local friends, trying to build community, and one of them is having select groups of people over for dinner. By “tradition” I mean, we’ve done this once before and by golly we will try again. We might even host as many as TWO dinners this year! But even if we don’t, we have house guests every month so these items won’t be mothballed during the year.
- That new Pyrex set – I’m over the moon about it! It makes me feel warm and fuzzy and like an adult. We’ve had a longstanding need for more containers with lids that can serve many purposes, and these are just the ticket: oven safe, freezer safe, microwave safe, dishwasher safe. Now that my hands are less painful, I can actually use the heavy duty Pyrex instead of relying on flimsy plastic containers that aren’t oven safe and having to dirty an extra dish. I actually picked up two sets and I serve our dinners in them so that after meal cleanup is as simple as popping a lid on. It’s fabulous.
PiC continues to be our Craigslist selling whiz as well as the secondhand gear guy. I buy new but search every nook and cranny for bargains, sales, and savings. We try to be extra conscious of not resorting to the reflex to buy something to fill a need until we’ve considered all possible alternatives first.
:: What have you been buying, selling, keeping, or getting rid of? Are you happy with the amount of stuff in your home?
January 28, 2019
In 2017, we took on a HUMONGOUS loan. (Was that really two years ago??)
After we signed those papers, we sold our previous home and applied a small chunk of those sales proceeds toward our loan with an eye on recasting the loan – recalculating a new monthly payment based on the new principal amount while keeping the same terms (interest rate and length of loan) at no extra charge.
I made sure, when we were researching loans, to confirm that Chase would do this at no charge and there were no limits on how many times we were allowed to do it.
That first recast, and the second one with double the payment to principal when more sale funds were available two months later, brought down our monthly payment a total of $700. Not TO $700, reduced it BY $700. The remaining payment is still in the multi-thousands. That gives you an idea of how high our mortgage is! YEEKS.
Making those two moves not only reduced the total balance and our monthly payments, it also saved $102,599.54 in interest! (I used this calculator to figure that savings out.)
I continued to pay a little over the monthly payment due to cut down the principal further, little by little, and made the equivalent of half an extra payment last year.
We don’t have any huge chunks of money coming in this year (that I know of. Feel free to bless us, universe) so I was only aiming to pay down a set amount to principal this year but then I got this email from Chase inviting me to enroll in their New flexible mortgage payment options!
Ok, I’ll bite.
I went in to explore and see if they could offer me anything better than we could do on our own. (I can never resist a do better with money challenge.)
(more…)
November 26, 2018
I miss being warm. Our old home was always warm without heating because of amazing insulation which is great 99.8% of the time. Those five days a year that climb over a hundred degrees suck, but they always suck. I miss having easy access to dog poop bags without having to think about it at all, and trash cans that are emptied without needing to remember what day it is. Our new place is cold all the time and I don’t like that at all, nor do I love our maintenance list $50,000 long. Our old place was full of firsts: the first place I felt safe and secure physically and financially, the first place we felt like a family, the place I went through a tough pregnancy complete with all my worries and anxieties about an ugly terrifying world and then we became parents to a small human.
But I do love living here. There’s a sense of peace, and lack of tension, we didn’t have in the old place after things went wrong.
We had new neighbors move into the old place who were quite frankly bizarre and that was in addition to the evil one who we never have to see anymore wheee! The way the old place was set up, we were in uncomfortably close quarters with some of them, close enough that I had to smell their trails of overly perfumed and cologned selves whenever they went to work, and be on guard against being accosted by their strange parents who have no working familiarity with boundaries. Here, we can load up in the privacy of our own home and only socialize from afar with a quick hello and goodbye if we want. We had a few creepy stranger-intrusion instances but they stopped after we were totally moved in. I’m still creeped out by people who thought that was ok but, again, it’s stopped. I just keep a wary distance from those people.
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August 27, 2018
Talking to my dear mentor-friend about living spaces, I was mulling over my wish to have just a bit more.
We are usually perfectly comfortable with what we have for 2 adults, 1 child, 2 large dogs, and hosting 1-2 adult guests for a week at a time multiple times a year. But there is still a bit of me that wishes we had just a tad more.
She declared that buying too much house was just a waste. She’s absolutely right.
The “more” I want is just a bit more luxury. The ability to comfortably host 1-3 of JB’s friends at a time (at this age, a friend means the whole family with siblings) or even just our own friends and their families for birthdays and other celebrations – 300 square feet inside. The ability to have spacious grass for the dogs to play AND a food-producing garden – 200 square feet outside. The space in the garage to fit two cars without playing Tetris each time we pull in – 50 square feet. Room to plant tall and thin plants along our side walls so that our neighbors can’t just glance over and see everything we’re doing – 50 square feet.
Even if we had to pick just two, we would have been paying a whole lot more money, though. Let’s say we got a bigger place which has, on average a lower price per square foot. Not low, mind you, just lower than our current PPSF. There’s a place listed for 1.25M in our neighborhood with about 2400 square feet. It’ll sell over list price, they almost always do, so call that a 1.3M/2400 square foot = $540 per square foot.
Just skipping the garage Tetris? $27,000. Hosting space? $162,000.
Put it that way, paying $200-400 a year to rent out space a couple times a year, for the kids to play or to host a birthday party, is looking like the far more affordable option. We usually celebrate birthdays with a special home cooked dinner and a couple of friends over, so really, it’s just big milestone birthdays we’d host.
And honestly, though I get a pang of envy whenever we visit friends in the Midwest who have 3000+ square feet, I don’t want to be cleaning all that! Our hands are full with what we do have right here. If we were actually rich then we could stimulate the economy to hire a house cleaner, a gardener, and what have you. But we’re not so it’s all DIY for the daily living chores.
So in the end, my mentor-friend stays right. At a much bigger footprint, our house would own us, not the other way around. That’s no way to live.
:: How much room do you have? Is it enough, too much, or do you wish for more?