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Archive for July, 2015

Money, Honey. Lots 'o Money.

July 22nd, 2015 at 03:07 pm

The theme for July: spend, spend, spend.

We are about $11k into our remodel, and I expect to hit $15k to finish the interior. This number doesn't include the roof/gutters/soffit (to be completed this fall). The reason the budget number sky rocketed is that 1) we ended up installing AC which costs about $3k to do it all with parts, labor, and electrician work (which was needed for other things as well), and then 2) we decided instead of salvaging the bathroom, we gutted and are putting in our final bathroom. There was an issue with mold (mild, but enough that I didn't want to risk it with my little ones), really bad plumbing, really strange electrical, and just bad design. Whoomp, up goes the costs by $5k. It'll probably add another four weeks on before we can move in - it's looking like mid-to-late august.

On the kids front, we finally got into a new speech therapy program, but it doesn't start until next week. I got a tour of the facility and I think it will be great. It's so different. Not sure if insurance will cover it, but I think it still will be worth it, even if I have to pay out of pocket. Figuring out speech is so frustrating. Thankfully his comprehension is really good. He understands us and follows directions, but when he tries to convey what he wants... sigh.

I started tracking his words, and at a few months over 2yrs, he has only about 25 words that are correct, 4 "phrases" (they are all combos that he hears all the time, ie: thank you, which could be one word in his head), about 10 more words that aren't pronounced correctly (missing syllables/wrong consonants) or his definition is wrong (ie: says three, means flowers.). I haven't had a new word in awhile, but he has been combining a few words this last week (bye truck, see truck) which is so very NICE, but his vocabulary is still way behind. Looking over my notes for the last six months, while he's slowly gaining, he's lost quite a few words that he doesn't say any more. so it's like add 5, forget 2 each month.

As for my littlest, I think we're done with medical issues until mid-to-late fall when he'll have the follow up visits. It's nice that we have finally slowed down on that front. Hoping that the follow up tests confirm that we did the right treatment and we can go from following up every 6mo to 1+ years.

Oh, and in other news, husband is going back to school this fall. We've been going around and around, but we think this is best for his career path. He's going to keep working and do it at night. He will get partial reimbursement through his work, so I'm hoping it won't hit the budget too hard.

2015 is proving to be a very interesting, spendy year between medical, house, and schooling.

PS: Sara - I just noticed your really long note about speech ideas! Thank you!

Ah, Homeownership

July 1st, 2015 at 09:55 pm

Water in the basement. Stinky subflooring. Trim that shatters.

Luckily though, the water was just from a toilet in the basement (not in a bathroom, just plumbed and put in under the steps). $20 plus my dad to fix. Then tear out all the horribly built paneling, walls, and drop ceiling to get the moldy things out. Yay for a clean unfinished basement! It's so pretty.

The subflooring will be sealed, hoping that gets rid of the poopy smell. Didn't smell it until the carpet was removed, so hoping it disappear with sealing. Trim, we had decided to replace it, albeit was going to do it one room at a time... now it is all at once. Shingles are in bad shape, but not leaking, so we're going to wait for a bit cooler weather this fall and then finish it. Getting estimates for A/C, which means we have to get estimates for electrical (box is full+).

We had upped our fix-it up costs before we signed, so thankfully I'm not thinking about how in the world we are going to pay for all this. I gave myself an ideal budget of $10,000, knowing that $15,000 will be more like it. We also have figured out how we're going to pay it over the next year and some odd months, hopefully keeping overall interest costs to a minimum.

My goal is to get it move-in-able by the end of July. If we make enough progress this long holiday weekend, I'm thinking we'll hit it. If I could spend more than one hour a night at the house (two kids 2yo and under 1yo), that date could be moved up, but family time is so important.

Now that we know our monthly principle, interest, PMI, taxes and house insurance ($806.xx rounded up to $850/mo for automatic extra principle every month), we know that we will be "saving" probably just under $400 a month once we figure out how much water/sewer/trash will be (it was free in apartment). Of course, for the first few years, we'll be turning that extra into fixing the house and yard.

I'm already day dreaming about future projects. Things to do in the next five to ten years - new windows, new siding, maybe bump out this wall, put in a path that way, fence, flowers over here, veggie garden over there...

Total Down Payment plus Closing costs: $8320
Total spent on supplies so far: $504