About sixteen years ago, I met him for the first time. My trainwreck sibling brought home this adorable puppy he had no business adopting because he had not one thing in his life that wasn’t a mess. I was furious at my sibling – he didn’t even take care of himself, how could he drag
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August 15, 2014
Change from July: 0% increase
Change from January: 265% increase
Our investments took a hit this month so interestingly, between that and our savings, we had exactly no change (except for, literally, some change) since last month.
On Money
I’m working away at Swagbucks to earn Amazon money for household and dog things we need. Feel free to join using my referral link if you like!
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Since the addition of another unbudgeted mouth to feed and body to, well, not clothe, but to get up to medical snuff, all (meager) proceeds of the blog now go to fund Dog#2’s ongoing medical care. I’ve got some saved, but he may bid well to run right through all of it since this isn’t really your standard money-makin’ money blog 😉 We’re calling him Seamus now, Shamey for short when he transgresses, as he has done on occasion.
So if you have to purchase from Amazon and wouldn’t mind using one of my links in the sidebar there, Seamus and we would be most grateful. Every penny really does count!
***
I finally secured a CPA to get started on our much-delayed 2013 taxes – wazoo! Once that’s filed, we can get started on the 2014 tax planning; we’ll have a few things to do there.
I have gotten a few recommendations on an estate planning lawyer, so I think that’s my September goal: Get our paperwork nailed down.
***
Having had no retirement plan through my employer for a while, I really ought to have done this before but I’m just now getting myself in order on that front. I did manage to fully contribute to a 2013 IRA and will do so again for 2014, while quietly kicking myself for not dealing with this much earlier. I think between income, married filing jointly, and having one spouse have access to an employer-sponsored retirement plan, we won’t actually be able to take a deduction on it but whatever. Saving is the key here.
***
Reflecting: You’d think I wouldn’t have to squeeze every penny and point program to fund everyday life. ‘Where the hell did all our money go??‘ pops up an awful lot in my head since we do make a decent income between the two of us, after all! I keep finding myself thinking it’s time to create more income and/or get a second job. But seriously…
Reality Check. We’re still paying for two households, four adults, and two dogs. The Bay Area isn’t cheap by any means, even as frugally as I try to keep our home. And we would like to be in a house that we can reasonably afford to pay off and maintain, someday, so I’m still aggressively saving our cash. And there’s really only so much health/energy I have for THIS life, forget one that includes yet more work.
On Life
We will manage a vacation this year. A semi-actual vacation where I take a few days off instead of just going off to some place and just work while we’re there late into the night and play during the day and come home and collapse.
I’d be excited about this but I’m still in “prep and take care of everything” mode.
SOON.
August 11, 2014
Hattip to Kelly for suggesting the code name, it gave me a chuckle over a rough time.
We recently took Sibling’s dog (we’ll call him #2 for now) home with us.
The most stressful part, the extrication, was almost as stressful as I had anticipated, though I’m grateful it didn’t have to turn into a dognapping. My dad wasn’t terribly helpful, and in fact I’d asked PiC to hang back with him since Sibling is historically belligerent when it comes to anyone else asking him to do anything. That, as it turns out, was for the best. The conversation was difficult, meandering in and out of his delusions – as if I needed further confirmation that he wasn’t mentally stable – but I was able to state pretty clearly the terms of the extrication: this was all to help #2 as best we could and we didn’t know how long it’d take. He was compliant which suggests that he only sort of listened but I had reiterated the very few talking points multiple times, and stated them again in front of my dad so that he’d be aware of what we agreed to, once Sibling agreed to let him leave with us.
I’d secured appointments for #2 two weeks in advance, adding to an already jam packed week: a slew of appointments for me and PiC together, me solo, and guests in town to boot.
So of course, the best laid plans …
Originally, we were slated for:
Pre-surgical Bloodwork: $80
Rabies vaccine: $15
Distemper/parvo vaccine: $15
Neuter: $150
Microchip: $15
Nail Trim: $5
Then we were going to address the bigger things.
After an initial exam, we were advised to deal with the bigger problems first instead of looking at the routine stuff. We visited the vet and $400 later, we came home with a slew of medications to alleviate #2’s pain and discomfort and I’ve been on the dogs’ schedules ever since.
The biggest adjustments:
Learning #2’s signals. He had an accident in the house because he’d asked me to take him out but I was so sleepy I didn’t understand what that particular tail wag meant. This is further complicated by the side effects of the medications he’s on, they increase his thirst and need to urinate. He’s doing his best to signal properly and we’re doing our best to take him out a lot more frequently to help his transition from being an outdoor to indoor dog.
Sharing time and space with Doggle. We now have two large dogs, who both want to be petted at the same time if you’re petting one, or walked together (even though they walk at totally different paces and don’t match strides at ALL), or fed together. They don’t fight, thank goodness, and #2 is great at BEING at Number 2, always deferring to Doggle, but you’re still now tripping over two dogs who want to be Right There. Doggle’s also not terribly sure about this interloper so he shoulder bumps #2 out of the way a lot. Again, no fighting, though.
Energy. Five. Walks. A Day. Two. Baths. A Week. *falls over*
I think we’re heading toward $600 so far, and we haven’t even gotten truly started on the serious veterinary stuff yet as it looks like his allergies may be the least of it. :/
Still, given how badly this could have gone, we’re mildly optimistic so far.
August 7, 2014
I crack myself up.
Mostly I’m doing the jig of success: I adore PiC and his dedication to fitness but I can’t stand the reek of his abused gym clothes. Of course we wash them regularly but the smell just doesn’t come out with any amount of detergent OR my magic elixer (….vinegar…just vinegar) after he’s logged hundreds of miles in them.
It looked hopeless, and I was plotting to burn and bury all his clothes just so I wouldn’t have to smell the “freshly washed” gear air-drying and still smelling. GR.
I’d caught a note somewhere hereabouts on the internets about tea tree oil and in desperation I grabbed a $10 1-oz spray bottle with my $2 off coupon at Walgreens for an experiment.
Experiment 1, Round 1
- 15 sprays and 2 gallons of hot water. The scent just billowed out of the bucket as I was filling it, almost like eucalyptus.
The worst offenders went in for a soak first. Some sources said to soak for an hour, I left it in for three. I started to wring it out, but the second I caught a whiff of some stench under the tea tree scent, dumped everything right back in. Go back in and stay there until you stop stinking, shirts!
The next day (nearly 24 hours later), I wrung everything out and tossed it in the wash. It didn’t make a full load, so I moved on to the next batch.
Experiment 1, Round 2
- 10 sprays and 2 gallons of warm water.
This batch wasn’t nearly so bad, so the full bucket soaked for about 3 hours.
That joined Batch 1 in the washing machine. In a fit of desperation, I combined the detergent with the usual dose of vinegar and added a few more sprays just to be sure. Those clothes were going out the window if this didn’t work.
A single wash on delicate and 44 minutes later, we hung everything up to air dry, smelling very strongly of tea tree oil.
An experimental sniff was promising but the real test would be how they smelled once they dried. Odors always seem to reveal themselves more once the garments have dried, so I was reserving judgement.
24 hours later, I am singing hosannas. The clothes are clean, dry, and actually smell FRESH.
Experiment 2:
- 4 sprays and 1 gallon of warm water
This time, we were keeping a bucket of oil/water to drop the clothes into as soon as they’re shed. Tea tree oil isn’t cheap! I wanted to reduce the amount of oil needed at each wash and figured if I kept the sweat from permastenching the garb that should do the trick.
It worked! I just kept adding the gear to the oil/water bucket throughout the week, and then did a new load with only one or two sprays of the oil and everything came out smelling clean as clean can be.
Laundry is way more fun than it sounds and even more fun when you win.
August 4, 2014
Part Two of the Real Estate Chronicle
The rush to get all the paperwork submitted for the loan approval kept me too busy to think much. There was all the checking of the fine print (hundreds of pages’ worth!), running the numbers, and signing document after document, but there was a moment right around the time I’d done all the paperwork and signed all the closing docs. A looooong moment, as I sat at my desk wondering if I was getting in over my head, taking on the responsibility of a loan and a property and renters and and and ….
Don’t get me wrong, I am absolutely hiring a property manager.
I can just about keep and maintain my own home, I also have Dad’s home to maintain and worry about long distance. Forget being a hands-on, DIY, LandLady! While the point of this is to make money, it’s also to make money in case my ability to hold my current 60+ hours/week job falls through. Killing myself on a semi-risky side gig would just be dirt stupid.
The fees involved in a real estate transaction are boggling, by the by. Having been around the PF block a few times, most fees weren’t a total surprise but they still seemed to add up ridiculously quickly. I’m reminded of all the times, in my 20s, I vowed to buy my first house in cash. Ah, youth!
Of the people working for me, I paid my real estate guy a fee ($400) upon completion of the purchase and the property manager is, of course, paid for services rendered. The mortgage guy was paid by the lender so I saw that fee, but that didn’t technically come out of my pocket.
Transactionally, there was: the appraisal ($575), the rate lock fee (aka origination charge), the title and title insurance charges, recording fees, and transfer taxes. Just to give you a SHORT list. Of course, the interest rate was higher as this was an investment purchase.
My monthly commitment to this property now includes: mortgage, insurance, property taxes, HOA and the property management fees.
There’s just something unsettling about making this big (for me) leap. Luckily, I had the support from my friend, as he answered all my questions and guided me through the process. The number of “is this normal” texts doesn’t even bear thinking on.
There was a bit of a lull between completing all the docs and arranging the down payment til we closed escrow and we got there in the end: I’m the proud owner of an investment property!
To be continued ….
July 29, 2014
If so, what are they? @SingleMa posed this question on Twitter the other day and I thought it was a good one.
I still have … concerns.
She and I both worked our way back up from just about rock bottom, so you’d think we’d feel the same way about this, but we don’t and it was interesting digging into why.
I don’t have the sort of nightmare-inducing, heartgripping, horrifying fears that I used to, feeling just half a step away from ruin as the only breadwinner for a family of four, suffering from chronic but undiagnosed health issues.
That, thankfully, has passed with a combination of good financial habits, good salaries (TWO of them!!), and a pretty healthy savings account. I’m looking at building our wealth, not avoiding poverty and ruin, and that’s a huge difference in mindset.
Even so, I’d be lying if I weren’t still looking over my shoulder askance.
What’s the next problem to blindside me?
What’s the next disastrous accident or occurrence or loss?
The wheel never stops turning, Badger.
That only matters to the people on the rim.
– Firefly
After some discussion, it makes sense. My rock bottom situation was nearly entirely due to other people.
It wasn’t my overspending, my overcommitment or rash decisions that led to 100K of debt. I didn’t have piles of designer clothes or expensive cars or .. well, anything to show. Anything at all, as it turns out.
Ed Note: This is NOT to say that SingleMa’s situation was due to those things at all – I was thinking solely of my family who’d done those things.
I did choose to stay and help instead of leaving home to make it on my own, but the entire swamp of sucktastic was down to their crap luck, their business decisions taking bad turns, their unfortunate job losses followed by other bad financial decisions while dragging their debt behind them like a lodestone for more bad.
Add to that the severe health problems that plagued mom, my parents’ refusal and inability to rein in my Sibling while he wasted money and refused to grow up, and you basically had the perfect recipe for awful.
And now?
Well, PiC and I are doing really well, in comparison. We can’t do everything but we can support everyone without feeling stretched beyond sanity, and we can do some good for others.
And yet, since Dad won’t stop smoking, I have to wonder when his health is going to fail, and how badly? When and how much is it going to cost me to supplement the lousy state health insurance?
He recently thought he was helping by paying off his traffic violation tickets instead of doing traffic school at higher cost, only that caused the car insurance premiums to double. They’ll stay high for THREE YEARS until those violations fall off his record. *headdesk* What else is he going to “help” with?
Meanwhile, who knows what foolishness Sibling’s going to pull. Until I’m willing to put him out on the street to live or die, he’s our albatross. That day may come but until then, he’s still family and that’s the way it is.
Difficult times may come again, and I’m capable of working our way out of them more than likely, but it’s clear that I’m far more concerned about the choices that other people make that will adversely affect our finances and our wellbeing far more than anything we do.
Is it any wonder, then, I’m such a control freak over anything within my power to affect??
Tell me, do you have money fears? What are they?
July 21, 2014
Brace yourself, it’s hot stuff!
In my ~ 4 good days this year, my friend and I put our heads together in a massive information dump. He taught me everything he could about his investing plans which we’d been discussing on and off for a few years. Once I felt on relatively firm footing, he put me in touch with the people he’s done business with and if you ever doubt the value of a great referral, well, don’t. I was well taken care of and due in large part, I’m sure, to the email that said I was his “VERY good friend, so take care of her.”
The strategy was basic:
1. Find a property in a good neighborhood with good amenities at a decent price;
2. Rent only to the best possible tenants [steady income, good references];
3. Maintain the property well, and if the value steadily increases, eventually sell it.
4. Result: Rake in the income. [Hahah… no, not really, as you’ll see.]
My loan preapproval only hinted at the paperwork nightmare to come. I’d asked about what sort of documentation would be needed so that I could prepare it ahead of time but irritatingly, the broker didn’t tell me until he needed everything yesterday. Nevertheless, the preapproval was completed really quickly and we were off to the races.
We vetted more than a couple dozen possibilities and I was prepared to take several more weeks in trying to find the right fit but in surprisingly short order, much much more quickly than I expected considering we had to raise my initial ceiling on how much I wanted to spend, we were able to place several bids.
[See what I mean about the value of energy? If I had a few months of that stuff, I’d be flying high!]
The “favorite” of the four, ideally located and best-priced, required a bit of back and forth, but nothing critical. The property wasn’t perfect, what ever is? but it was fine for the purpose: renting it out for income.
I then spent the next week digging out every piece of possible paperwork they could demand going back two, sometimes three, years and discovering that my records weren’t actually as good as I thought they were – it’s both humbling and frustrating to realize how much better my recordkeeping needs to be.
Another humbling realization: Buying outside the hotbed of Bay Area real estate is a huge eye opener. Properties elsewhere look ridiculously affordable in comparison. I had the down payment sitting in my bank account! Now we’re neither rich nor poor, we’re somewhere in the middle. But if I were to try and buy here? I’d need ten or twelve more years of savings, roughly.
To be continued ….
July 15, 2014
Change from June: 35% 125% increase
Change from January: 118% 262% increase
On Money
I’m still focused on Swagbucks to earn Amazon money for household things we need. Feel free to join using my referral link if you like!
How is our total net worth increasing when I know we just paid big bucks out this month to the tune of $5000+? I don’t think “gift horses” apply here. I’m half convinced there’s something wrong with my math, but I haven’t found the error yet so we’re going with it. I found the error. And good gravy it’s in our favor again. It’s amazing how just being one cell off in these spreadsheets can make the numbers wonky so I’m both grateful that I’ve caught it and that it went up, not down.
We’re looking at a heck of a lot of expenses coming up too, short term and long term, so I’m doing my best to ensure we maintain growth as long as possible before our finances start taking body blows.
In the meantime, I have our 2013 taxes to face down, 2014 taxes to plan for, and it’s well past time PiC and I got our act together on estate planning. I’m locating a good CPA to help with the taxes because I don’t have the time/energy to devote to winkling out every last detail anymore and an estate planning lawyer to start getting our estate plan in place. It could be done online, sure, but I’ve seen some reports where paperwork done improperly through the online forms didn’t hold up and left the estate in disarray. I’m not comfortable enough to go on my own research and homegrown expertise on this.
On Life
We’re in the middle of needing a lot of things: furniture, rugs to replace the thrashed rugs that mainly serve Doggle’s needs, an entire set of second-dog things, and it’s got me beating the bushes for ways to clear out space (donate, donate, sell on Craigslist, donate, trash) and earn some more cash to pay for these things.
PiC’s in charge of the Craigslisting while I’m in charge of the donations. I’ve found a homeless shelter that will take the household things that aren’t really Goodwill material but are in good shape for use: utensils, toys for kids, etc. Then again, he’s also in charge of buying from Craigslist by common consent, he loves searching CL and has this whole system going, while I’m much better at other kinds of bargain shopping. So that’s keeping us busy.
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No sooner do I make the travel arrangements for one trip, another one creeps up demanding my attention. We have some major travel (in terms of time and money) coming up and it’s got me wishing to take Doggle and absconding to a hotel for the weekend where I don’t do any work, thinking or anything other than eating, walking and sleeping. Now *that’s* a vacation! (inspired by Lauren’s weekending, actually.)
***
I had some pretty scary weeks when breathing wasn’t…so possible, I guess that’s an accurate description. It felt like a 30 pound cat sprawled on my ribs so every breath was a struggle and unsatisfactorily oxygenating. It wasn’t so bad that I wasn’t getting air at all but it stank. The nurse made me feel stupid asking why I waited two days to call but I was working! And it didn’t seem like an emergency. Usually sort of broken, I can’t be dropping everything to run to the doctor when I feel awful, I’d have to move into the hospital! Anyway I was vindicated when the doctor declared it another mystery because I wasn’t actually suffocating. It just felt like it.
These days, I’m grateful for being able to breath fully. The little things are great.
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The Roku experiment continues apace. No real complaints other than the occasional hiccup or freezing that may be blamed on the internet.
