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Archive for July, 2017

spoiled children

July 23rd, 2017 at 11:55 pm

When you think about spoiled kids you think of things like buying fancy toys, clothes, etc. But I'm starting to think there are other ways to spoil a child non-financial but that can lead to financial problems. Mostly it's the fact that it's easy to learn never being told no.

I've been watching a friend's kids a lot recently with her going through a divorce and packing. They enjoy playing with my kids. But watching them this Friday and Saturday it was hard. Friday her mom watched the kids for dinner and had to make do with what we had. It was an unexpected dinner and I didn't have anything her kids eat. They eat chicken nuggets. and that's pretty much it for real food. They eat candy and snacks and some fruits. So on Saturday she dropped them off with chicken nuggets and tortilla. I made a quesadilla for the kids and they told me they don't eat it. They didn't eat any veggies or anything else. I said there wasn't enough chicken nuggets for them to eat only that and there wasn't. She said to feed them anything because if they don't eat they wake up in the middle of the night demanding food and milk. She can't deal with it.

I get it now. She talks about having outrageous food bills and never having food. After seeing what her kids eat I get it. Everything is processed and packaged and expensive.

But real problem is that catering to every want and need I think could lead to problems. Yes it's food only but never being told no and having every whim catered to can lead to not understanding you can't have everything in life.

I tried to guide my friend to a budget. But she ignored it. That's fine but I pointed out that calling herself poverty stricken while getting $2500/month support seems a bit much. I pointed out that DH and I live on not much more a month. Yet she isn't responsible for anything but groceries, gas, and utilities. Plus she's working and making $1000/2 weeks. So it's a lot of money since she isn't paying mortgage, car, insurance of any kind. But it's hard to hear that other people live on a lot less. I pointed that out and she's like but "my kids will be deprived."

I can't help but wonder how people think kids manage when their parents make less? What happens to people who make the average?

Estimate #1 and #2 oh dear....

July 23rd, 2017 at 04:50 pm

So we put in the gas line for $700 and water pressure regulator valve for $700. I am feeling like things are crawling along. But slowly.

What we need to do is drywall/sheetrock the garage because it's a fire hazard and not up to code. The garage doors don't open and are also not up to code. The estimate from Costco for the garage doors is $3500.

Then redo the laundry room and put in new cabinets and windows and tear out the paneling.

And redo the bathroom downstairs as well.

So all new windows and paneling, moulding, trim, walls and ceiling. The ceiling is broken in multiple places. The garage is overinsulated but without the fire barrier. The rec room in the basement needs the same too.

So yes these are wants/needs. But we need to get the fire barrier up it's for our safety. It's grandfathered in since the house is 1966. But hey who wants to die in a fire? Plus the garage opener is improperly placed in the garage and could easily catch fire.

Long term fixing the windows will make it more efficient to the heat and cool the home. But the cost? We also are getting insulation put in the attic and 2 tube skylights.

So we got our first two estimates. The first estimate was completely over the top. It was $75-90k rec room, Laundry $20-30k, Bathroom $25-30k, and garage $7-10k. Meaning we were looking at low end $127k. That's ridiculous.

The second estimate has come in at $54k. I'm not sure if that's more reasonable or low. We still have two more bids coming in.

So DH is now suggesting he gets back into home repair and start to tackle some of this himself. I think we have someone do the drywall and sheetrock and moulding and then we do the cabinets and stuff ourselves. We haven't sat down yet with the estimates since we're still waiting. He's also suggested he do the fan and insulation in the attic since he's done it on our last house. He can also do the cabinets but we'll need to hire a handyman to help him since last time I did it. This time with the kids it's a lot harder to find the time.

I'm struggling because we can afford it. Should we just pay someone else to do it? Should we do some of it? Stuff we've paid so far well we've never tackled real plumbing. Not changing a flap or new seal on toilet or tightening a bolt. But valve and gas lines? I don't think we can do the garage doors ourselves either but maybe I'm wrong. And for $3500 I thought it wasn't a bad price for 2 doors, 2 openers, installation and disposal.

I always hear about how people did their renovations on the cheap. I don't understand how it can be done so cheap.

Spending free fall

July 17th, 2017 at 02:52 am

Well since we bought the house our spending has been in free fall. Not unexpected nor unplanned. It just is something that happens. Everything we knew about but it's a bit insane to see the bills. We've never spent this way and I am going to guess most people on here haven't either. Otherwise they wouldn't be on savingadvice.

So we started with a playset for the kids. That was installed from costco for $1000. It was discounted when I ordered it memorial day weekend and set up within a week. They love it. They play on it daily. I wondered whether we should do it because they will age out of it. But then decided we might as well. We've been promising it for a long time.

Got the backyard cleaned up for $1200. I'm going to try and maintain it and have spring and fall cleanups but apparently the people before us never took care of the yard in 3 years. The fruit trees are overgrown and in poor shape both neighbors and the yard guys told me. We've even got a fire pit that we've used for s'mores 4x already. The yard is fantastic. We love it. We have 2 cherry, 3 apples, 1 pear, 1 apricot, blueberry bushes and raspberry bushes. Seriously I never imagined having this opportunity.

Patio Furniture just got on Friday was $500 from Amazon. DH put it together in 2 hours and it's amazing. The deck is lovely. I had my morning tea out there.

New TV above the fireplace $600 from costco. Our last TV purchase was in 2005 when we moved to our last house. It's interesting to see how much bigger and lighter and cheaper it is now. We also bought our much wanted king mattress for $1000 from purple. We love tempurpedic. When we bought our last mattress 10 years ago a king didn't fit up the stairs and it didn't come the way it comes now. Technology has changed a lot since 2005. Can't wait to try it but we haven't got a bedframe. That's next on the list to order.

Those were our big ticket items of spending thus far and we aren't done. We're renovating our basement and garage and I'll explain with photos what's going on later and price and decisions.

I'm not sure how long we are staying in this house but it really is lovely.

Other items on our list to order is a gas grill Weber summit series $2000, new couch, dining table, bedroom sets for us and the kids, and building the closets. The kids have our old queen size beds we had and it doesn't fit in the rooms. Until we moved here we decided to just make it work and they barely played in their rooms anyway. And until recently they slept in our room a lot. Well it's time to make rooms for them and let them have a say and maybe they'll feel more adult and "their" rooms. So far we've spent $4300 and another $2000 earmarked already plus the gas line for the grill I'm seeing numbers around $1500 installation.

This is not going to be a cheap summer. But this is down the street from me. The location is to die for. Both how we live and DH gained a minimum of 1 hour a day back on his commute more like 1.5 hours a day. His commute is now 30 minute both directions instead of 1 hour and 1.5 hours. He's really enjoying it.

More photos to come.