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Archive for July, 2021

thinking about a/c

July 13th, 2021 at 07:02 pm

DH and I were discussing what it would cost and whether we should put in a/c in our place.  We moved in 2017 and didn't do it when we did a major remodel of our house.  We had a furnace and I had a few HVAC guys come and talk to us.  They said our furnance was old and would have to be replaced within 5 years.  It was 20+ years at that time.  They said if it were them they would wait and do it later because we were spending a lot and why not just wait until it started to give problems then do everything at once.  Made sense right? 

I mean we had just poured in $50k in our place in cash, then we had $10k for the driveway coming up after we finished the renovations, and we ended around $60k for the renovations then we waited a year for the stuff to settle and poured the driveway.  During this time we totally forgot about the A/C.  Then last year covid happened and we built the shed that was around $20k.  So we've now sunk like $90k into our house. 

I will say every penny of the renovations I have enjoyed. I am so glad we did it as soon as we moved in and lived upstairs while we did downstairs and garage.  Even if we don't see a return on investment we enjoyed it that the $ for $ value of the renovations are worth it.

The question now is whether the new furnance with A/C is worth it?  I mean I don't know how long we'll be here so we probably won't get as much pleasure out of it as if we had done it back in 2017.  But at the same time we did save the $10-15k it'll cost us then for now.  On the con side we have less money now than we did then due to our circumstances.  The pro side is our house has appreciated a ridiculous amount in 4 years and we made back our renovations and more by a lot.  

So will this renovation pay off? I have a call into costco to get pricing on what it will actually cost us to do this replacement.

how to get a new car - it's easy

July 11th, 2021 at 01:31 am

Interesting thing happened today. I drove up and used my prepaid Toyota Sienna oil change packet.  It is synthetic and they had a deal of $300 for 5 oil changes at the dealership.  Cost about the same as going to a jiffy lube. Oil changes are expensive now!

Anyway I drive up and the guy comes to my window and say they'll be with me.  How do I like my car?  I say it's great I have no complaints.  Just got back from a roadtrip and planned it this way.  He says your car is very desirable.  AWD minivan. I say great.  He says they just redesigned the toyota and it's a hybrid. You would have saved a lot of money on the road trip. I say probably true. I'll get to that post tomorrow.  I say that's amazing.  He says would you like to trade in your vehicle?   I can get you in for only $200 a month or maybe even less.

I'm sitting there in shock. I'm like not really.  I can't have payments right now.  But he's like we can work with it.   I tell him but here's the deal I don't think you can.  I want the highest model with all the bells and whistles and leather and DVD player and hybrid.  He says you can afford it more than you know.  All of them come with hybrid batteries.  Nice the mpg is 36/38 city and freeway driving.  But a new car?  Another payment?  No thanks.

But it was crazy to see how smart the dealership was.  Asking about my car and telling me how much I liked it and how great the new car was.  I could easily see how it would be to want the new car.  I will admit for a second I was tempted.  But then I remembered. I just refinanced to afford saving easier. I have a paid for car for almost 1 year of no payments.  Wouldn't it be nice to never have payments again?

Spending, saving and more

July 1st, 2021 at 04:58 pm

Where do I start?  Well I guess our retirement is on track at $1.5M we breached the number, up $280k from the start of the year.  We completed our refi to $845k @ 2% for 7 years.  I saved June and July difference of $720 into Robinhood and have $1443.  I'm investing it into VIOO (small cap index).  It'll be an interesting experiment if I can significantly invest in VIOO and help offset the potential increase in rate.  Of couse that's using the assumption I keep the house that long or don't refi again.  We did with our numbers hit our FI before DH's 45 birthday so that's good.  And no we aren't going to do it though.  And interesting tidbit is we have saved since the beginning of 2021 $79476 and if we count last year's savings of $16k for Roth/ESA in january then we are at $95473 for the year. My end of year goal is $100k (so $6k or $22k).  That $22k seems like  a large stretch.  $78k is about 29% of our gross saved.   

Spending in June was pretty good.  $669.45 groceries, $435.92 eating out, $438.91 dog, $519.73 (current trip gas and alcohol), $245.93 Gas (went camping and clamming), $400.63 Utilities plus other categories $3668.  Not a terrible month.  I was budgeting aroudn $3600 so we are on track. 

I moved $9k to our brokerage today wiping out our sink fund.  So we have $8k property taxes and no sink funds.  Things I see in August are our auto insurance and kids activties we need to pay.  I would guess around $3k.  But we have $4k in our checking just sitting so I'm debating moving the next two paychecks $1000 each to sink or brokerage.  

I have to admit once things go to our brokerage they don't ever come out.  So it's basically gone like our retirement.  I think that's why I struggle with moving money to our brokerage accounts from our cash savings.