We are 2 months without Mr. ODA’s pay check. I honestly haven’t noticed because my day to day is just managing how much is coming in against how much is going out. My concern is the net I have for this year is $30k less than what Mr. ODA brought in. We’re adding nearly $2k per month for insurance costs, so that net difference is $42k. That’s a gap we’re going to need to focus on here shortly. I should note that our spending includes rental work that we pay out, and we had some major purchases in there (e.g., roof, HVAC). I could say I hope that our investments in the rentals will be less next year, but we seem to track the same expense totals each year.
End of year means I need to get my spreadsheet organized. I need to make sure all expenses are logged, that all logged expenses have receipts and documentation to support them, and that all our maintenance actions are logged in my maintenance sheet. The maintenance sheet is what I use to check back easily on what work we’ve done on each house. I was taking too much time trying to remember which house we replaced things in, so now I have this sheet that I can pull up and easily say, “I just replaced a valve in that toilet 4 months ago; this isn’t normal wear and tear.”
RENTALS
The 5th was a Friday, so you know what that means – I didn’t see most of our rent until then. After the 5th was over, I was short 25% of our rental income. That is fascinating to me. Everyone had told me what their plan was, but I can’t fabricate money where there isn’t any. I have a tenant that is using a program to pay partial payments throughout the month. I can’t stand it. It ensures I get my money at the “beginning” of the month, while it puts them on a payment plan. However, they have the payment set as the 5th, and then it doesn’t clear and hit my account until about the 12th. I’ve expressed my frustration that this has gone on for several months instead of it being a one or two month stopgap, but nothing is changing.
We got our new townhome rented right before Thanksgiving. That was helpful and a literal last minute prayer that was answered in a crazy fashion. She’s been in for 3 weeks now, and I haven’t heard anything.
I had a tenant inform me that she’s hit rough times and wants to be released from her lease. I was really hopeful for a calmer month, but I need to reset my expectations. 14 rental properties and 12 months out of the year = there probably won’t be a month where nothing comes up. The good news is that we can likely get it turned over and a new person in there for market rent. She’s currently paying $975, and we’re looking for about $1300 going forward. Because she always pays and I knew her financial situation, I’ve always held back on her increases. There was another $25-50 increase coming this year, but it still wouldn’t have made up the increases in carrying costs over the years.
PERSONAL
We’ve just been so busy that we’re not really spending that much. Most of our spending is for regular purchases. We had a huge purchase hit our credit card, but that was split among our family for the purchase of new phones. I did all my Christmas shopping in the last month, so that’s higher than usual spending on the cards, but overall still pretty low.
NET WORTH
I got a new phone number and updated all my accounts before my old number was deactivated (lovely two factor authentication). One of my accounts (401k) updated my phone number, but that apparently didn’t correlate to updated the number associated with two factor authentication – ugh. I need to address that, and for the time being, that’s just a placeholder number that I guessed based on Mr. ODA’s 401k increase over the last month.
Another month, and another delayed post while I juggle life. These numbers are mostly based on last Wednesday’s market close. I had big intentions of writing this on Thursday last week.
RENTALS
Our rental that we purchased a month ago is still vacant. It’s a commercial loan, so the first payment was just made on it yesterday. It always hurts to pay those bills without income. I’ve spent some time cleaning it. It looked fine if you just did a quick glance. But the details were terrible. I wiped down all the walls in the house and all the outlets and switch plates, which were extremely necessary. I wiped the baseboards with their first clean using the mop, but I’ll need to go back and do a wipe with something that gets directly on it. We were excited that the house didn’t need painted, but the closets are a bit of a mess. If I decide to make the time, I’ll throw some fresh paint on some parts. The bathrooms were pretty bad, and they’re about 70% done being cleaned. Maintenance wise, we just needed to replace a missing cabinet door pull, clean out the air return vent, and do a few random small fixes with caulk and screws. I’ve shown in several times. I even had a lease drawn up for one person, but it fell through.
We’ve had issues with our two new tenants getting their utilities in their name. We had one in Virginia who claimed she tried to get the water bill in her name and it just wasn’t happening. She always paid the day I sent the bill to her, so I just let it go. This past month was terrible. It took her over a month to get it paid, and I threatened to turn it off so that it would force her to get it in her name and keep me (and my property manager) out of it. One in Lexington was annoying that she didn’t get it done, and she’s not very communicative. Then the other in Winchester had to go in person to get the water in her name, so that wasn’t surprising that it took a while.
PERSONAL
Our 3rd kid got off the waitlist for preschool! Our beloved preschool closed down last year. Everyone flocked to this other preschool. I followed the “rules” and did things “ethically,” but we got waitlisted. Long story. I wasn’t pushing for him to be in preschool in the 2s year (he’ll be 3 next week, but our age cut off here is August 1st). I figured I’d push really hard in the next couple of months to make sure he got a spot for next year. This place I want him to go to has a lot more spots for 3 year olds than 2 year olds, so I had high expectations we’d get a spot next year. Well, we got the email a couple of weeks ago that there was room available for him! It’s a longer day than we’re used to, but he’s so excited to go to school. He asks to go to the playground daily, so that’s going to be nice that he’ll have TWO playground times twice a week. I can’t wait to hear all his stories.
My work schedule has me in the office for half a day on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. We’re going to look into adjusting that in January to account for the days he’s in school so that I can actually enjoy some kid free (guilt free…no strict schedules and babysitter availability) time since 2018.
We paid off the 0% interest card that was sitting at $14,000. It didn’t bother me to have that balance sitting there because it was for a good reason, but it sure does feel good to have that off our plate. Our spending has been relatively low the last few months. This month will see a small spike because I have’t preemptively bought any Christmas gifts, so that will likely be a large purchase amount later this week. We’re also in the market for camping gear since we took the kids camping this past weekend and noted a few gaps in our equipment.
SUMMARY
We’re up $1.5 million from 2 years ago, which is a cool number to see. Considering we paid off large credit card balances, I’m surprised our net worth only went up about $5k since last month. I updated the value of the houses in the past few weeks, so that’s where the hit is. Home values are expected to go down in the Fall, so I like to capture that adjustment from the higher values that appear in the Spring. Our cash value obviously went down since it went towards credit card payments and a down payment on a house (except it only decreased by $11k).
We last purchased a rental property in 2022, after most of our purchasing was done in the the 2019 era. We were busy with 3 kids, and I recently felt like I was coming out of the fog. Mr. ODA and I went to a wealth building seminar in the Spring; my intention was to have that seminar reinvigorate our desire to build our portfolio. It worked well for Mr. ODA, but once options started to show up, I started to panic.
We first went to an open house. It was a bit further away that I’d prefer to maintain a house, and there were a few red flags. For one, it frustrates me that landlords can fill out a seller disclosure claiming they know nothing about the house. I can tell you if I had any roof issues or major system issues in any of my houses, even though I haven’t physically lived there. Mr. ODA wanted to pursue it, but I couldn’t bring myself to get on board.
We were then sitting with his parents one night, telling the story of this open house, and his mom said that she saw a townhouse posted on Facebook that she thought we’d be interested in. It was owned by the son of an old friend of her’s. We asked our real estate agent if she’d show it to us, but she was out of town. So then his mom texted her friend to see if they were there and we could go look. They weren’t there, but they gave us the contractor box code (which is surprising in itself that there wasn’t a sentribox on the door). We went over and the house looked to be in good order, so we put an offer in. We like to surprise our agent with these types of things where all she needs to do is get the contract ratified.
UNDER CONTRACT
The house had been listed for some time when we came across it. It was was listed at $182,500. We offered $182,000 with $2,000 worth of seller subsidy on September 2, 2025. They agreed that day. We ended up needing to redo the contract because the wife wasn’t on the deed of the house, but she had signed the contract, but that wasn’t a big deal.
We had the inspection scheduled for September 10th. There was hardly any issues in the report, and we picked a few of the bigger things to ask for them to fix. They agreed to our list. They gave our agent a receipt showing they had paid someone to fix the items on our list. We did our final walk through the afternoon before closing and were disappointed to find that two of the bigger items (leaks) were not addressed properly and the house was dirty (including things left in the fridge and freezer). Our agent reported that to their agent, and they addressed everything that evening. We swung by the next morning before closing to see it all cleaned up and the leaks addressed.
The appraisal was ordered by our lender and came back at $188,000. That was a pleasant surprise to see we had immediate equity in it.
COMMERCIAL LOAN
We chose to go a commercial loan route. Interest rates aren’t falling as quickly as we expected to see. We have a commercial loan on one of our other properties in town, and I was still surprised to see how easy this process is. The loan qualifications are mostly based on the cash flow of the property. I filled out an application, submitted a ledger of our other property cash flows, and sent in 3 years worth of tax returns.
We were quoted at 6.74% interest. The loan terms are a bit different. Our last commercial loan was amortized over 25 years, but there’s a balloon at 5 years. This time around, it’s amortized over 25 years, but the balloon is at 15 years. A commercial loan also means that the taxes and insurance are not escrowed, and I’m responsible for paying them on my own.
The loan is an Adjustable Rate Mortgage (ARM) too. There was no different to us in the 3 year or 5 year ARM, so for the first time, we picked a 3 year ARM. In the past, it was related to securing our low rate. This time around, we’re expecting rates to drop in the near future, so we locked in our rate for only 3 years. It only changes on 3 year increments (some of the others will change every year after the initial lock period). It also has a clause that indicates the rate has a floor of 4%. I also don’t see a maximum adjustment that can happen (we have other ARMs that state an adjustment can’t be more than 2% at the change date).
We were expected to put 25% down. That would be $45,500 based on the $182,000 purchase price, and would leave 136,500 worth of a loan. They ran some numbers and determined that we could only qualify for a loan of $132,000 based on a rent of $1,400. They only us the cash flow to determine the eligible amount and not the rest of our portfolio. Let’s break that down to the fact that a loan of $136,500 equates to a monthly loan payment of 942.23, and a loan of $132,000 equates to a monthly payment of 911.17. So at a rent rate of $1,400, we could cover the monthly payment of $911.17, but we could not cover a monthly payment $31.06 higher. We pushed back for a second, but in the end it didn’t matter and we accepted the loan of $132,000.
PROS
When I look at this place, it feels like a place someone will rent. It’s clean, feels like home, and has a good layout. It has a closet available for a washer and dryer, which is a plus. Both bedrooms are upstairs and each has its own bathroom, and there’s a powder room on the main floor. It’s more secluded than other units in the complex, giving the occupant more grass area to hang out in the front and back.
CONS
We do have some concerns. The townhouse is at the back of the neighborhood. The entire rest of the community has parking right outside their front door. This group of 4 townhomes is separated from the parking lot, so you have to walk a bit further. The trade off there is that it’s secluded, you have a front “yard” (instead of pavement), and you’re more secluded from your neighbors.
I didn’t want another townhouse in our portfolio. With a townhouse, your value is strongly dictated by what your neighbors have done (or not done) to the property. As much as we don’t plan to resell these properties in a short time frame, I do have the thought that I want to be able to sell it when the time comes.
Also with a townhouse, you’re also at the whim of a community manager that is likely not putting utmost effort in. We asked about the HOA at closing and the previous owner said the cost used to be $35 per month. When it was that cheap, they weren’t paying their bills, so the lawn wasn’t mowed and the trash wasn’t removed. They increased the price to $95 two or three years ago, and that has made a difference in the community’s upkeep.
The HOA is due monthly, which is an inconvenience and a surprising process on their part. I plan to pay it monthly until I have confidence in their ability to process my payment and apply it to my account timely. After some time, I may pay in advance. I just went to process the first payment and planned to pay 3 months worth, but then realized that will create a harder tracking mechanism on me right now.
CLOSING
We had our closing on October 16th. It was super quick and easy. I listed the house for rent that evening.
SUMMARY
At this point, we have the house listed for rent at $1375. We had determined the range for rent during our purchase evaluation. Unfortunately, I hadn’t looked at the current market by the time we went to list, and there’s quite a bit out there. I’ve shown it to 2 people and have another showing today. One of the people from the weekend said they were seeing other places on Wednesday, so I’ll hold out on any changes to the rent price until this weekend.
We had two tenants move out at the end of July. We also had back to back trips scheduled for the end of July and beginning of August, with the kids starting school on the 13th. We also had the cruise planned for the end of September into October, so that was a decent push to get the rentals rented before we left. We put countless hours into those two houses and it definitely took its toll.
RENTALS
As of October 1st all our rentals are rented! That’s a good feeling after two months of vacancy. This is the month of taxes. We have several houses that are paid off, which means they aren’t escrowed, and I’m responsible for paying the taxes and insurance on them. The 4 houses we have in KY are owed this month, and it’s about $7k worth. We’ll owe 2 houses in VA that come to about $3k next month.
I have a couple of houses that are struggling to pay rent on time. Usually it happens for a couple of months and they get back on track, but that’s not happening quickly. I’m trying to remain optimistic, but there isn’t a track record of it getting easier if they have taken this long needing to catch up.
We closed on a new property near our house. It’s a townhouse that we hope to get rented later this month. We’ll see what it looks like once it’s empty, but it didn’t appear we’ll need to do anything to it to get it rented (which is how we buy our rentals). There will be separate posts going into the details of each rental turnover and the purchase of House15 using a commercial loan.
PERSONAL
This is the last month for the 0% interest credit card. When we have a major purchase on the horizon (it was house-wide carpet this time last year), we open a 0% interest credit card. We started this concept about 8 years ago. We look for a credit card that has 0% interest for at least 12 months and that gives us a bonus of some sort. We make more than the minimum payment each month and then pay it off before the deadline. A default payment can cause you to lose your 0%, so it’s important you’re making your payments. But we don’t pay a lot towards it because the money is doing more for us in our savings account (or the investments) than it would by paying down a 0% interest balance. This time around was a bit different. The carpet only cost us $10k, but the balance is over $14k. This credit card had the same incentive as our typically used card (2% cash back), so Mr. ODA used it a majority of the time. For a while, my goal was just to pay what gets our balance lower than the original balance from the carpet. But then we had some big rental purchases that we put on the card, and it just wasn’t worth paying $5k+ to the card. We will make a transfer from our big savings account to make that payment at the end of the month.
Mr. ODA’s last pay check arrived on October 11. He took the “deferred resignation program” as of April 30. The sunset date was September 30, so that covered the payout that we just received, including his balance of annual leave.
Outside of rentals, our spending has been minimal. With the cruise, we didn’t spend much since that was a week of almost everything paid for in advance. The dog had his annual check up, so he was the bulk of our costs. We have our routine costs we see, but happy to see lower balances after all the rental work costs.
SUMMARY
I don’t even want to admit what is about to leave our account this month. I guess the positive is that it’s under $100k..? We have to pay the taxes on the houses that aren’t escrowed, pay off that credit card, and buy a house. At least the house purchase goes right towards equity. Since I didn’t get all the account numbers yesterday morning like I planned, here’s an update that captures our new purchase.
After each trip, I typically summarize how much it cost us. I like talking about money, mostly to work towards eliminating the stigma about talking about money. The more information you have, the better informed you are when it comes to decisions, so here’s a reference point to file away. We sailed Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas. I loved it!
COST BREAKDOWN
Flights – 25,000 miles + $273 We looked at several different flight options now that we’re a family of 5 flying and that adds up quickly. The first night we were looking to book the cruise, there was a group of 5 tickets for just under $700, which we thought was a great deal, but once we were ready to book, it wasn’t there anymore. We ended up going with Frontier for one direction and using American Airline miles for the other direction. When booking with miles, you only need to pay the taxes on it, so that’s what we did.
The flight options were very limited for the way home. We ended up just sucking it up and picking a 9 pm departure. Not long after the booking, we received an email saying our itinerary was changed and now the departure is 12 pm. While that seemed concerning at first – to get off the cruise, through the airport, and to our gate before noon – I had hoped it would be just fine, and it was. We got off the ship around 8:30, took an Uber to the airport, and arrived too early to check in for our flight. They built the airport expecting this isssue, so they sent us to the waiting room. We sat there for about 45 minutes and then checked our bags and got to our gate. We sat at our gate for a couple of hours and got home on time.
On the way down, we each got a checked bag because of our American credit card. However, we still needed to prepare for “carry on” status on the way home with Frontier. Then, once we were already packed, Frontier offered us to upgrade all our bags to checked bags. Had I trusted that they wouldn’t have said “no, you have to check a carry on size,” I would have happily changed our 3 carry on bags to one big bag to make traveling through places with 3 kids easier. So while some parts were harder because we had 3 rolling suitcases to account for, it was nicer through the airport to not have suitcases to manage.
Hotel – 34,000 points If you’ve ever had to fly into a cruise port, you know it’s less stress-inducing to fly in the day before. I went on a cruise a year and a half ago, and we were flying out during a snow storm that was affecting travel all over the area. We ended up arriving at our hotel near midnight, so we were happy to know we were there for the cruise boarding time and not stressing about delays that morning. That means there’s a cost for a hotel one night.
The hotel was booked with points, so it wasn’t a literal cost to us. We stayed at the Tru in Dania Beach. They had a shuttle from the airport to the hotel, so when we arrived, Mr. ODA called the hotel to come pick us up, and it worked out well. We had to wait 20 minutes for a crib to arrive, even though it was on our reservation as a request. This isn’t a huge deal, but when it’s 10 pm and I’m just setting up a crib to get over tired kids to sleep, I’m not thrilled. Otherwise, the hotel was nice and it provided a good breakfast.
Uber – $58; Airport Parking – $70; Dog – $289 The hotel provided a shuttle from the airport to the hotel, so we didn’t have to pay for that part. Then we needed an Uber from the hotel to the port, and then from the port to the airport. We requested a car seat in the Uber on the way to the port, so that limited our options. Then she was 23 minutes late to our pick up time, didn’t get out of the car to greet us or help set up the car (pick up the 3rd row to fit our 5th passenger we disclosed ahead of time), didn’t acknowledge being late, and generally didn’t speak to us except to say get our IDs out for the port. That’s not an Uber issue, it’s a specific driver issue, but that was not a great experience. On our way from the port to the airport after our cruise, we got charged a wait fee, even though the wait was because security was stopping our Uber from getting to us. Uber removed that charge though.
The CVG airport parking is $10/day for economy. That’s my first economy experience instead of the ValuPark lot, which is $12/day. I didn’t really think anything of it, but it wasn’t a great experience. I always thought it odd that the ValuPark lot has shuttles that pick you up at exactly your car, but the economy lot has the shelters. I didn’t properly account for the time to wait for the shuttle and then to have the shuttle drive through all the shelters.
Food – $44 Obviously most of the food was part of our cruise fare. We had McDonalds on the way to the airport, Burger King during our layover, and then McDonalds on the way home.
Cruise – $3,099 The big one! We did not prepay gratuities, so that was billed as we left the ship. Gratuities are $18.50, per person, per day. We had $50 on board credit. Ironically, and just coincidentally, we spent $50.40 between drinks and child care (the babies room (0-3 years old) is $6 per house before 7 pm and $8 per hour after). Royal Caribbean only requires $100 per person as the deposit, and then the balance is due a few months before the cruise departure. We booked right at that threshold, so we paid our deposit and then a few days later paid the balance.
LOGISTICS
The booking of the cruise could have been a bit more forward. Cruises are not family-of-5-friendly. There’s an option on Royal Caribbean to book a “guarantee” or GTY room. You get a discount for allowing them to assign you in an open room (of the category you picked (e.g., interior, ocean view balcony)) about a week before the departure. I did this for a cruise I took in January 2024, and it worked out perfectly fine. So we see these prices quoted online for GTY rooms, but they always make you call to book for more than 4 people. We’re expecting the cost to be just the taxes and port fees for the 5th person, but when we call, the difference is over $500.
We tried to explain how that feels like a bait and switch and that there’s no indication of that on the website, and they basically said “well, that’s the way it goes.” They can’t guarantee a 5+ room available at the time of sailing. This makes sense, but it also eliminates our ability to use that cheaper booking option. We asked if there was something they could do to help make us feel whole since we were being forced to spend $500 more than if we could be put into the guarantee-pool, and they gave us $50 on board credit.
Mr. ODA’s parents book Celebrity (same parent company) all the time, and if they book their next cruise while on their current cruise, they are given OBC. Turns out Royal Caribbean doesn’t have the same philosophy, and they hardly give OBC. We tried to see if there was a special deal for a cruise if we book on the ship and they had nothing to offer.
Our departure experience was horrific, and I’m not even sure how we timed everything so poorly. At CVG, the kiosk jammed printing our tags, so we had to wait in line to get to the counter for the last luggage tag. Well, the line took forever because there was a large group in front of us that couldn’t speak English, so the workers couldn’t get everyone checked in quickly. Then we were too late for her to print checked bag tags because it was 30 minutes before the flight. So now we’re stressed trying to get through her attitude, us being late, and having to get through security and run through an airport with 3 little kids. This is the first time I’ve ran to my initial flight (ran for connections countless times!). I’ve never had this issue before, but everything along the way took just a few more minutes than I had planned for, and the luggage tag issue stole about 15 minutes of time from us (plus, our flight was delayed by 20 minutes and then 45 minutes before the original flight time, they said it was on time… we hadn’t delayed our departure from home, but it was wiggle room we thought we had and then suddenly didn’t). After the attitude from the ticket counter, then we encountered two more attitudes from the gate agents. It was a rough start, but the flight attendants were nice, and we had plenty of time to catch our breath at our connection.
Child care is provided on the ship. They have a few hours in the morning (maybe 9-12?), then 1-5 for the afternoon, and then 7-1 am. For the kids 3-12 (split between two rooms of 3-5 year olds and 6-12 year olds), it’s free until 10 pm; then it’s $10 per hour per kid after 10 pm. For the babies (0-3 years old), you need to make a reservation for times when you arrive on the boat. We prioritized the buffet, so by the time we got to the kids area, lots of time slots were booked already. She offered me 6 hours worth of booking, which I split between 3 days. Our youngest is 7 weeks shy of being 3, but he wasn’t 100% potty trained (although we did try) so they wouldn’t let him move up. If he was potty trained, they would have let him go up to the 3-5 room. The first 2 hour block, we only used 1.5 hours worth of it based on the activities we were trying to get done. The second 2 hour block, we only used 1 hour worth. And then we didn’t use our final day worth of time because he got sick, and I didn’t want to contribute to the spread of it. We dropped the big kids off a few times and just took the baby with us to activities, which worked out fine. He’s so good when he’s alone, but the 3 kids feed off each other!
I brought lots of hook magnets. I used them to hang everyone’s lanyards with their seapass cards, hats, and to dry bathing suits. I also used them to hang from the ceiling and utilize curtains that I brought (actually, I bring these curtains everywhere we travel because a really dark room is important to getting the kids to sleep past sunrise when bed time is 2-4 hours later than usual). There were 2 hooks in the shower, 3 hooks on the bathroom door, 2 hooks in the bathroom with 2 towel bars, and 2 hooks outside the bathroom. We’re going on another cruise next year, and I’m going to bring more hooks because we could have used more space to dry out bathing suits. Having the curtains hanging to separate the kids from each other and then from us was great.
I also bought a pack of decorative magnets. This is very unlike me; I don’t like anything extra. But I put them on the stateroom door, and it helped the kids identify which one was ours. The door is textured, so they didn’t all fit. I put them inside the cabin on this big blank wall, and I actually really appreciated the decoration.
You’re allowed to bring on 12 cans/bottles that are less than 17 ounces each, so we did that for Mr. ODA’s sodas. We didn’t buy any drink packages. I don’t know what sodas cost on the ship. At the buffet, we have lemonade, iced tea, and water available. At some of the included restaurants, they have other flavored water type drinks like strawberry melon. At breakfast they had apple juice and orange juice. There are enough options for variety if you’re not looking to buy a package. I had Mr. ODA bring a non-diet/zero type drink in case I wanted some variety, but I was so full that I didn’t end up wanting any sodas and had a couple of lemonade and juice options throughout the week. The alcoholic mixed drinks are about $15 a la carte. They offer a happy hour special of margarita (and maybe one other option that’s $6-7) and have a drink of the day that’s $8. I didn’t know about the drink of the day special until day 3 and didn’t know about it at all on my last trip, so that’s a positive to know. I think the Truly/beer type option was around $8-9 each.
When buying the drink package, that’s your baseline. Are you going to drink 5 mixed drinks or 8 beers/Truly each day to make paying up front worth it? I’ve heard some people say “I just like not having to think about what I’m ordering.” But, do you enjoy paying $65 for 2 drinks? I understand it’s vacation and many people have the mentality that money is no object, but it is something to pause, have the perspective, and make an informed decision on.
The app is really good. There’s a little room for improvement, but everything you need is there. We’d like to see a search feature, where you can search “bingo” or “laser tag” and see the offerings instead of scrolling every day and hoping you catch the times. I like the daily tips they post about what’s happening that day and some good reminders. I also like how many activities are offered. I wish there were a few more things in the 6-8 timeframe for those with a 5:00 dining time, but I understand that’s not the worst problem. There is so much offered for other times, and I found myself juggling wanting to do all the things, but also not wanting to be on a schedule.
A few weeks before your cruise, the app will have most of the shows and activities available. One example that we didn’t have until we were on the ship was laser tag’s schedule. But you should get on your app a month in advance and keep checking for the show reservations to be opened. They seats go fast. We were able to reserve the ice skating show and Cats, but we weren’t able to get a seat at the aqua show. I was really bummed about that, but we went to the aqua theater at the beginning of the show and were able to get a seat.
We did not pay for a wifi package, nor did we set up our phones for an international plan. I was looking forward to being completely cut off from the world for 4.5 days. To my surprise, iMessage worked the whole trip. It wasn’t too bad, and I got to share stories as we went with some people.
LESSONS LEARNED
Book any 0-3 year old child care slots ASAP
Pack half the pajamas you need (our kids wear pajamas through breakfast at home, so there’s no re-wearing, but they don’t eat anything in the cabin, and they don’t leave the cabin once in pajamas, so don’t use up the space)
Prepare accordingly for theme nights (I may have not planned well for my oldest)
Bring as many magnets as you can hold (although you may get flagged for a bag check in security)
Read the daily tidbits in the app each morning
Don’t pack lots of snacks (I thought I’d be looking for breakfast faster than everyone being ready to go, so I packed granola bars. I also thought we’d want more snacks, but we’re so full from eating bigger meals and being on a different type of meal schedule that eating in the room was never a thought)
If you’re on the cusp of 52″, 48″, age 3, or age 6, I may wait until those milestones are hit. While it’s not the end of the world and doesn’t kill your cruise, we had kids disappointed they couldn’t do some things based on height (water slides) or age (rock climbing).
Drink the happy hour or daily special beverages if you don’t have the drink package
THE CRUISE
We took a 5-night cruise. It was more time than I had planned for originally. I didn’t want to be stuck on a boat in case the kids didn’t take to sailing well, but the price was $1000 less than the 3-4 night offerings, so we went for it. It worked out well. Everyone’s first question seems to be, “were you afraid of them going overboard?” Turns out, there are very limited options for that to even occur. We were in an ocean view balcony, but the glass goes higher than the littlest ones, so that wasn’t an issue. Most decks have the staterooms on the outside, so the only real place they could attempt to get overboard is on decks 15 and 16, and a little spot by rock climbing on deck 7. It was barely a thought of mine the whole week.
The biggest hurdle of the week was getting the kids through crowds. There’s a lot of people on the boat, and people tend to congregate in certain areas. Keeping 3 little ducklings together in a crowd could have been worse, but it wasn’t the easiest either. The cruise ship gives you bracelets for your kid to wear with their muster station on it. I wish there was more information on it, so I put their names and room number on the back. The youngest didn’t have a yellow bracelet, and I wasn’t happy about that. Luckily, I had packed a bracelet that I could put his information on. I used a regular sharpie and the lettering was legible until about the last day. I could have rewrote the information, but by then I was feeling more comfortable.
We did not push too hard to get to all the activities. We made a concerted effort for a few activities, but I didn’t want to be tied to an agenda all week. We generally started the day with breakfast. We ate in the main dining room twice, which was quieter and calmer, but also slower. One morning, I ordered a small breakfast, and the waiter pushed me to get the “express” breakfast. It came with 2 things I didn’t want, and I was frustrated that he pushed me to waste food. We usually then went to the pool or splash area (the splash pad is pretty cool with slides and activities within it for the kids). Ice cream opened at 11:30, so that worked well as a way to get out of the pool and start drying off for lunch. We ate lunch in the buffet (Windjammer). I personally liked the variety of options with the kids, but it wasn’t the easiest process. Apparently kids really struggle holding plates flat. We only lost one apple once, but it was stressful every time trying to make sure they kept the food on the plate while walking. Our afternoon was spent either with the kids in the kids club area (Adventure Ocean) while we did trivia, or they came to trivia with us. We rode the carousel, the big slide (Abyss), and participated in some random activities (family festival, scavenger hunt). We would get back to the room at about 4:55, rush to change, and then run to the main dining room for our 5:00 dinner. On my last cruise, there were only 2 dinner times, so being on time seemed less of a priority. This sailing had a 5:00, 6:45, and 8:00, so I felt the push to be as close to 5:00 as possible so we didn’t delay a 6:45 sitting. We ate all our dinners in the main dining room. I truly appreciated the themes, but perhaps only 50-60% actually participated.
At Cozumel, we got off the boat, had a beer at a tourist trap, and got back on the boat. I don’t think we were off the boat a full hour. There was swimming available in some pretty water just next to the cruise ships. There are shops for trinkets and a few places to eat or drink. It was an area that clearly catered to cruise ships and I felt perfectly safe.
Our second stop was Royal Caribbean’s island, CocoCay. I can’t sing enough praises about this concept. All your food is available. There are servers just like on the boat if you want a drink. It’s clean. There were some concerns about jellyfish while we were there, but we didn’t have any problems. My youngest was struggling with the sand concept (and not touching the sand and then rubbing his eyes or sucking his thumb), so we eventually moved over to the pool. The pool was packed, and I almost said lets just go, but we got in. Once you were in, it wasn’t uncomfortable at all, and there was plenty of room. There’s a 0 entry area with water fountains, which kept the kids entertained well. There are life vests on the island for your little swimmers. I did hear that snorkeling was sold out when we arrived around 10, so you could keep that timing in mind. The ship staff give you towels as you get off the boat (you sign them out with your seapass card), and there are towel stands on the island if you want to swap out your wet, sandy towel for a new one.
I will note that we had a medical emergency just hours into the cruise. It didn’t affect us at all. We heard the “alpha alpha alpha” call while we were at dinner, and about an hour later, the captain came on the loud speakers and announced the plan. We departed Ft. Lauderdale, but we were going to return to Miami to get this patient off the ship. They were making a plan on whether we’d have to fully dock or if the coast guard could come out to us. They announced a bit of time later that they decided the coast guard could come out. Then about a half hour after that, they said that the swells from the tropical storm we were near were too rough and the coast guard couldn’t get close to our ship to safely transport the patient between the two boats. So then they decided to send out a helicopter, and that happened just as the sky opened up on us at the aqua theater and we gave up and went to bed. So even though the course changed, it really didn’t affect anything we were doing on the ship. The patient actually got off and received emergency coronary bypass surgery that night and was recovering, so that was a blessing. There was also supposedly a death in another cabin, which I knew nothing about until after I got back home. I share this just to say – things happen, and there’s so many people, so it’s not surprising, and it didn’t affect the rest of the trip.
Getting on the ship and off the ship on the bookends of our cruise was extremely easy. I had a similarly easy experience at Cape Canaveral (actually probably easier). On the way there, we went through the security check points. I was flagged for my magnets, and in the process, they found my extension cord. Honestly, it wasn’t clear what the rules were about the extension cords. I wasn’t worried about the number of plugs as much as I was the extension to an outlet. They’re quick to say “there are plenty of outlets,” but they don’t address the fact that 3 outlets are on one end of the room and there’s only 1 at the bed. It didn’t matter though. We plugged in a phone overnight by the bed, and the sound machine was over by the kids with that 3 outlet option on the desk. They confiscated my extension cord, but they tagged it, and I got it back at the end of the cruise. After that, we went upstairs to a huge waiting room. We were told to sit in order as we entered. The place was packed; I expected this to take a while. It was less than 2 minutes. We scanned our boarding passes and walked right on. On the way off, everyone just left when they were ready. We walked right into the main dining room, scanned our seapass cards, and left the ship. There was luggage areas to pick up any luggage you had carried off the ship overnight, but we hadn’t done that. Then you go through the immigration check where they take your picture and approve you to continue. And that’s it. There was no queuing through either process except for the 2 minutes we sat in the waiting area at the port on the way on the ship. It’s incredible to me.
SUMMARY
I was a reasonable level of nervous taking 3 young kids on a cruise for 5 nights, but it went significantly better than I expected. Our next cruise isn’t until this time next year, but I wish it were sooner! I highly recommend cruising, especially with Royal Caribbean.
Let’s start with a win – we hit $5 million net worth!
It has been a month. Goodness. Two rentals to turn over and just … life.
That’s where I left this post on September 17. It’s currently October 6, so I’m going to just call it good and post. We had two rentals to turnover and get rented before we went on a trip, which we did accomplish, but it was exhausting. I’ll elaborate in future posts on what went into everything there. For now, I’m posting this back dated to September so that we have it for future reference, especially because it was a milestone month. Look for October’s post soon, as well as updates to the rentals (including a new one!).
This month was unbelievably painful financially. And yet, I appreciate that we’ve set ourselves up that we can handle these things without stress, even though the balances on credit cards made me feel like I was drowning. At one point, we had over $30k on credit cards. I’m still juggling life as a mom, financial consultant, part time worker, and volunteer on the HOA board. Oh, and managing two vacant rental turnovers, throw in 2 trips away from home, and school starting.
RENTALS
We had one house pay late, with little notice and communication (if you’ve been here, you know this is a pet peeve of mine). They paid the late fee at least. I had another house pay partial on the 3rd and then true up on the 6th. Again, no communication, and she beat me to asking what the deal is. I also had a tenant who already pays twice per month be late on both of this month’s payments, so that also brought in late fees.
In a story for another time, we have two vacant rentals. 11 of 13 houses renewed. Two houses each actually moved out of state, and unfortunately, my kind heart scheduled both of them to end their leases on July 31st. We’ve been spending all our time at these two houses. The one had smokers in it (against the lease) and we’re struggling with that. We’ve replaced the carpet and painted all the walls (except 2 closets and a powder bathroom) and it still smells funky when you walk in. Then there’s just the routine type turnover things like scrubbing and wiping dirty hand marks off the door frames. All of these things will be detailed in separate posts. The other vacant one was quite the story, so that’ll be multiple posts. Our attention isn’t as heavily on that one because we’re going to likely sell it instead of re-rent it.
We replaced a roof ($5500), replaced an HVAC ($8300, but split with a partner), evicted bats ($1480), and made decisions on flooring replacement in another house with extensive termite damage. Seriously. Financially painful. Coming this next month, we will also be paying for termite repairs at another house where we tore out carpet and laid LVP.
HEALTH COSTS
I tend to focus heavily on this topic in this blog. It’s surprising because it’s not really the niche of making money, but insurance and doctor bill processing seem to be wrong more than they’re right. Therefore, it falls more into “protect your money” than anything else.
This is a longer story for another post yet again, but the gist is that the insurance company took 6 months to process a claim. They sent me the bill in June. I called 3 weeks after the bill arrived to find out they had sent my balance to collections because their system flagged it as a January overdue balance…even though this was my first invoice on the matter. Love it.
The end result here is that we needed to add $1600 to the credit card.
PERSONAL
I don’t know that there’s much personal life happening with all those other things we’re managing. We took 2 trips. One didn’t cost us much because the grandparents take care of a lot of the cost, another one cost us more than usual because I put a lot of effort into food that we usually don’t do when we travel there. Overall, the trips were fairly inexpensive financially, but they took a toll on me due to the time commitment and what we had to give up by doing these trips.
Otherwise, we’ve just been wrapping up summer and starting school. We’re about to get back into baseball season with lots of practices.
NET WORTH
The market had a big jump last week and my update of financials occurred Thursday morning. Unfortunately, life put a blog post on the back burner while we were turning over a rental, so I’m only getting around to posting this now. The market is in a fairly similar spot as of yesterday’s close, and I’m thinking we’d even be over $5 million if I were to fully update our financial status right now. We’ll just hope for the best for next month.
In October, we’ll pay off our $15k credit card that we’re carrying, so that will be a big swing in our credit card balance two months from now. We need new windows at our house (the seal keeping in the gas between the panes is going on quite a few windows (or went years ago), and it creates this streaky dirty look to them), but I think I’ll appreciate not carrying this large credit card balance month to month while we utilize the $0 interest for a while.
Well, we started the month with way too many things hitting the credit card: 2 insurance policy renewals, a new insurance policy, air conditioning fix at a rental, and bathroom replacement at a rental. That eventually led to a $1500 charge for bat removal at another rental.
PERSONAL
My big news this month was handling my HOA’s annual meeting. We’ve been working so hard for the last year, and I tried really hard this year to increase communication between the Board and community. I think I did a good job because there wasn’t any contentious point of this meeting and there were very little questions. I received nice feedback on how I presented the budget and that I did a good job throughout the year. It was a welcomed win since there was a lot of heat in the previous couple of years.
The family’s big news is getting passports for a trip this Fall. The parents already have theirs, but we got the kids their pictures and submitted their application. So our credit card balance is higher than normal because we paid for flights and the cruise itself.
It took us until the last week of June to meet our deductible on our health insurance. It’s only $3,300, so that’s quite the impressive feat. I’d point out that my March surgery took until then to get processed correctly, but at least we eventually got there. I have very little faith that it’s all processed correctly though, so it’s on my to do list to verify that we’re not overpaying into that deductible, which they don’t make easy because they don’t show me prescription fills clearly.
We went on a trip for a long weekend to visit Mr. ODA’s aunt in WV. They have a vacation house there, so we didn’t pay for lodging. Unexpectedly, they provided all our meals. I bought them a gift card and some beer. So between that gift, gas, and the meals on either end of the trip, we spent about $200 for a trip, and it was one of the best vacations I’ve been on.
Two of the kids spent this past week at camps. One was 3 hours per day at a dance studio, and the other was 9.5 hours of all outdoor time for the week. He had a blast, and I’m kind of jealous that he got to play all those games and have a great week.
RENTALS
This month, I received an email from Rent App that a tenant was paying their rent. She didn’t give me a heads up, so I wanted to verify things with her. She said this app pays me in full, but it takes the first half of the payment from her account at the beginning of the month and then the second half of the payment in the middle of the month. They’ve lived with me for for 8 years, so I’m surprised she sought out this option instead of talking to me about a payment plan. The program was extremely sketchy and I didn’t feel good about a single step of it. I gave up the registration process at the point that it required untethered access to my phone, but I wish I would have followed my gut at the first personal information step, as if it wasn’t bad enough I had to give my bank account details for the transfer to happen. The payment eventually came through on the 10th, but I didn’t feel good about it.
Another tenant paid late with the late payment. And another tenant paid late with little to no communication and several follow up conversations. I can’t stand when I have to hunt down money. I’m willing to work with everyone who reaches out. She paid the first one with a (1/3), so clearly she knew the plan. And yet, on the 6th, I had to ask where the rest of the rent was. She said it would be done that day. A partial payment was made on the 7th. Then another partial payment on the 8th to finish it out.
We hired someone to clean out the gutters at two houses. Both houses are inundated with trees over the roof, so it’s something we need to stay on top of because they back up every 6 months. We could add gutter guards, but just didn’t see the point since we could do it. Now we don’t live there. He is also going to cut trees 10′ back from the roof on one of those houses.
And then the bats. One house had a bat show up last Monday. My property manager didn’t think much of it, so we didn’t do anything (I wasn’t even told about it at that point). Another bat showed up on Saturday. The tenant went for rabies shots and got boosters for her dogs. She then took a bat to get tested, which came back negative. She said she wasn’t comfortable staying there, so she stayed with a friend. We had traps set so bats could get out of the attic, but they couldn’t get back in. The pest people will go back next week to check on things.
We have two houses that will be vacant at the end of this month. We were supposed to have one at the end of June and one at the end of July, but the June one asked for an extension. I let them have it, but I’m not thrilled about my timing now. We won’t be able to truly get to work in there until mid-August, and it’s going to require a lot of work (not hard work, just time consuming). Then for the other one vacating at the end of the month, we don’t intend on renting it again. We’re going to let it sit over the winter and sell it in the spring.
NET WORTH
The way that I update our net worth each month involves overwriting the numbers from last year. So I can easily see that we’ve gained over half a million net worth since July 2024’s update. What’s nice about that is that it’s all appreciation, paying down mortgages, and the stock market with continued savings. We didn’t make any large financial moves that would have adjusted our net worth in one large move like buying a house. I had a conversation with someone about our net worth and goals recently. It would be nice to cross the $5 million threshold, but we’re not actively managing our funds in a way that will cause drastic swings outside of market movement. We crossed $4 million in March 2024.
We’re over $200k from last month’s update. Our credit cards are much higher than last month because of trip purchases and rental work that was unexpected, but needed. Here’s to the last month of summer.
I had an “ah-ha” moment the other day about this word. There’s a difference between being able to afford something and wanting to afford it. So many times, we focus heavily on what people see on the outside. I hear it at work lately – I work with agents, and there are comments made about how people spend their money. Now, I agree with the “I just handed you a check for $20,000, what do you mean you have no money?” However, there’s a flip side. Just because someone pulls up in a Tesla doesn’t mean they want to throw money around.
TRADE OFFS
Mr. ODA and I have money. We can go out to dinner, go on a vacation and stay in a fancy hotel, pay for flights across the country for all 5 of us, buy another house, splurge on a vacation house and a boat. If we wanted to. We don’t.
Instead, we want to look into the future. We decided that the ability to spend time as a family, being there for the kids’ activities, and going on different kinds of trips throughout the year to give the kids experiences is more valuable.
I talk about this concept often in this blog. Every dollar spent has an opportunity cost. Every dollar spent should cause the question, “is this the best use of this dollar?” We joke about how we hesitate to buy a $30 pair of shorts, which you wear for years, yet we’ll spend $30 to eat one meal. Of course, we do have those instances where we go out to eat, but they’re not a constant staple of our household. We know that the instant gratification of that one meal isn’t going to get us to our long term goals. It’s the same concept with the $5/day coffee purchase. It’s not about the literal $5 that’s going to get you on your way to financial freedom; it’s the mentality that comes with making better financial decisions.
HOUSE POOR
When we were shopping for our first house in 2012, the bank pre-approved us for $750,000. We set our limit at $350,000. Why? Because we felt we could scrape together 20% down payment and closing costs for a $350,000 home. If we were under a $750,000 mortgage, we’d have to pay a higher monthly payment and private mortgage insurance (PMI) as a penalty for not having 20% down. At $350,000, our mortgage payment was about $2,000. At $750,000, the mortgage payment with PMI would have been about $3,500. That’s an extra $18,000 per year we would have been spending on a house instead of investments, trips, a new car, etc.
If I said to you, “pay $2000 to your mortgage, and at the very same time, put $1500 into a savings account that you can’t touch,” what would your reaction be? You’d find every excuse not to do that. You may do it for a month or two, but there would be an emergency or large purchase that comes up and you’d justify using that money for that instead.
CAR DECISIONS
While we can “afford” the Tesla, we didn’t buy it to be showy. We bought it to serve a purpose. Unfortunately, the concept of Tesla comes with pre-conceived notions for people. We didn’t pay for an extra color. We bought the base model because we weighed our expectations of using it versus the cost of extra charging needed and such. With the tax credit, our net was $38,000. I’d venture to say your car was about that price or more if you bought it new. So while we can afford the Tesla, that’s what we chose for our family because it met our needs. We didn’t buy an $80,000 BMW just for the name when a $40,000 car meets our needs.
GADGETS & TRINKETS
Maybe your spending is at the hundreds of thousands level. Maybe you’re buying the new Nintendo Switch that just came out. Maybe you’re buying each new game for your gaming system. Maybe you have bought into the influencers that are constantly jamming the latest mop and vacuum down your throat. Do you need 4 mops? Do you realize that you probably just need to actually use the one you already have and that this new gadget isn’t a miracle worker?
Everyone has their thing. There’s something that brings you joy and you’re going to be drawn to purchasing new iterations of it. I get that. But have you stopped and really considered the purchase?
This is where I don’t like the “envelope” method. People who use this concept, whether it’s literal envelopes or separate accounts, tend to overspend. They see there’s money left in an envelope and it goes into “extra” immediately in your head. “I saved this month, so I can buy myself something fun!”
This month, I replaced my favorite earrings because the originals were worn out ($12), bought a pair of black shorts because I had none ($14), bought a dress because Mr. ODA needed free shipping 😉 ($20), and two books I really want to read and aren’t available at the library ($20). Before this month’s Amazon order, my previous one was for kids summer pajamas in April. I buy filters for my vacuum instead of replacing it (although I’ll admit that I’ve had my eye on a new vacuum cleaner for about a year, but it’s been sitting at $80 and I know I’ve seen it for less than that). My mom bought me my steam cleaner mop several years ago, and I have a Bona that I bought for myself in 2016. The point here being that I’m stopping and thinking before making decisions, regardless of the amount of money I have available to me.
EDUCATION
It comes down to being an informed consumer. While you can rely on the experts, understand your own goals. When that relationship banker ran our numbers for a house purchase, all he did was ask us our fixed monthly expenses and income (debt to income ratio). Note that our approval was after the changes on how mortgages were approved from the 2008 crisis. It’s a flawed system. But we knew our limits and what our goals were. He didn’t ask us our goals outside of “so you want to buy a house.” At the same time, we were paying towards a wedding. So on top of needing to come to the table with about $80,000, we also needed $12,000 to go towards that wedding. We closed on our house on July 17th and were married on August 4.
We have money in many locations. Currently, in our main checking account, I’m projected to fall below $0 if I don’t have any income before the end of the week. I have a bank account with more than enough money in it, but it just pains me to move money out of that account. I don’t want to set the precedent. I bet if I had kept my business money separate from my personal money, it wouldn’t be as obvious. But we don’t keep things separate because the business income is our family income. So when I had to pay out over $3000 for a repair on a rental house, that ate into my personal checking account balance, so I’ll need to make that transfer.
I listened to the young receptionist at work bark about people spending their money and how someone showed up in a Tesla but can’t pay their $75 office bill. However, I’m observant. I saw that she complained to me that the money in her account showed up on the wrong day so her card was declined at Hobby Lobby. I saw that she regularly came in with a new outfit from TJ Maxx. I’m sure she got a deal, but is a new outfit twice a week a necessity? When she was let go from the job, she turned to “retail therapy.” It’s hard for me to help walk you through the loss of income while you are actively spending.
Personally, I worry, “what if the ability to transfer from our special savings account isn’t there one day?” That’s because I’m looking at the big, big, big picture of our lives, and not what happens today, this week, or this month when it comes to our finances. So that’s why I don’t buy the kids all the cute outfits I see and I don’t buy myself the latest gadget. I’d rather have the ability to go on a trip and do activities with the kids that build memories.
School’s out, and my organization of time isn’t what it used to be. I did put together a summer calendar, made a list of activities available for each day, and made their wish list, so my type-a was showing then. The only problem is that the oldest can read and the second can mostly read, and so they see something and think we can do it immediately.
RENTALS
We had one that was supposed to leave at the end of June, but they asked for another month. So now we have two supposedly leaving at the end of July. I’ll believe it when I see it. Nothing they’ve done has indicated they’re excited about leaving and making progress towards finding another place (they’re both trying to move to another state).
I had another tenant ask to renew for two years. I agreed she could stay there, but we needed a slight increase in rent in year 2. This isn’t the first time I’ve done it that way.
We’re still chipping away at the termite infestation. Live termites running around when the shower got removed meant we had evidence that they’re not treating correctly. They did a major treatment of the house and said it will take 45 days to take effect. We’re leaving it for 60 days before tackling the damage under the living room. We cleaned out and laid a vapor barrier in the crawl space a couple of months ago. In the bathroom, we replaced the subfloor, replaced the stall shower, replaced the vanity, and laid LVP on the floor. The bathroom really needs to be painted now, but generally it’s in good shape. That cost us $3,710.
PERSONAL
We’re just managing the summer schedule. We’re not doing things that cost a lot of money outside of camp and our trips. The two little ones did a church camp this week, which was 3 nights for 2 hours each night, and totaled $40 for the two of them. The two big ones are doing separate camps in a couple of weeks. Then the middle one is doing a gymnastics camp in July. She was originally only scheduled to do that one, but a dance camp with some friends came up, so she’s doing that one for $100.
We haven’t done any trips yet. It just worked out that our trips are back to back at the end of the summer. It also means we’re going to miss both back to school activities, so I’m pretty bummed about that.
We’re still carrying a balance from our carpet replacement last Fall. We use that credit card regularly, so it isn’t as low as I would have liked to see. Typically we get a card for the bonuses, but it’s not worth using it because we have a 2% cash back card. But this one offers the same, so Mr. ODA uses it often. We’ll need to pay that off in October, which is also when Mr. ODA’s pay checks are expected to stop.
NET WORTH
I didn’t get a few numbers from Mr. ODA, so our actual net worth is probably slightly higher than this. The market has recovered a bit for us, so we’re continuing to increase our net worth from the month before (there was a dip there for a hot minute).
One Dollar Allowance 