I wrote most of this post 5 months ago, but I’m going to finish it now for the longevity of what we’ve done with these rental houses. The house has been rented since September and was vacant for 43 days. She agreed to a shorter lease term, so it goes through June 30, 2026.
The tenants in this house moved in 3 years ago. They were good tenants. They hardly asked for things and were super understanding and gracious when we had the HVAC go out (granted it was their lack of filter changing). They brought a dog into the mix and tried to hide it (not well), and I eventually called them out on it to let them know they don’t need to keep finding a way to hide the dog every time I need to come over. They added a 3rd person on to their lease about a year ago. The only major issue I have is they smoked inside the house. I knew it constantly because (just like with the dog cover up) they weren’t great at hiding their evidence.
Earlier this year, I reached out that if they want to renew, I’d be raising their rent from $1200 to $1275. The girl who usually handled the bidding called me and explained they had intended to move to Georgia for a job, but they weren’t ready to move as fast as the end of the lease. I told them they could do month to month for a little, and we agreed to June 30th. I knew I had another lease ending July 31st, so I thought it would work out well that we could address the one house before the other became vacant. In theory. They ended up asking for another month, and we were busy with summer things at the end of June that I agreed, even though it meant two houses were vacating at the same time. I told them that I wouldn’t be able to extend any further though because it’ll be hard enough to rent end of August time frame, let alone into September or later.
On July 29th, they asked me what time they had to be out on the 31st. I said 5 pm. The next day, they asked me if they could have a couple more hours, but I let them know that I had already booked someone to meet them for their keys at 5 pm, and that’s all I could give without it costing them more. I was out of town for this vacancy and asked a friend to be my property manager to walk the property and gather the keys.
They ended up being out and basically cleaned up by 5 pm. I was impressed. The fridge was completely wiped down. The bathrooms were in rough shape, but overall, it was one of the cleanest vacancies we encountered.
THE TURNOVER
We had to have a friend go out to get their keys because we were out of town. I tried to get them to stay until the weekend to make it easier to move, and so that I could be the one to meet them (not that I said that), but they didn’t want to pay the per diem for that option. They ended up keeping their timeframe perfectly.
The turnover took longer than I had planned. I was working part time without a real ability to give up those hours because I had things that needed to get done, and it was summer, so we had 3 kids in the mix. Not to mention, we basically had back to back trips planned for the end of the summer. Overall, it was a learning experience.
We spent about $800 on supplies for the turnover, outside of the carpet, which was about $3,000. With the extra cleaning of the bathrooms and the time it took us to clean and paint the property, we kept their security deposit of $1,200. We could have gone after them for more because of the smoking (I have pictures from when I was doing work in the house of ashtrays with used cigarettes upstairs in the house), but it’s not worth the effort and cost.
FLOORING Before they moved in, we had ripped out the carpet and installed luxury vinyl planks (LVP). Conceptually, the goal was to not need to work on the floor anymore. We had limped along with the carpet, especially in the living room, since we bought the house, and it just wasn’t worth it anymore. We did the install over two days back then. Now that they were out, there were several gouges in the floor and the floor was separating in some spots. Mr. ODA handled fixing the separation, and he replaced a few boards that were damaged and noticeable.
The kitchen floor was so dirty and it’s the first thing you notice when you walk in. I spent many hours on my hands and knees cleaning out the grout to make it look less dingy. I didn’t get it perfect, but it was fixed. It’s one of those things that no one will ever know just how much time I put in for it to not be perfect, but it would have been so much worse had I not done anything.
BATHROOMS The bathrooms were a wreck. I’m so lost when I walk into homes and the bathrooms are dirty. Do you want to sit on that toilet or clean yourself in a shower that is dirty? It seems counter productive to me. Mr. ODA had to take over with Bar Keepers in one of the bathrooms to remove the staining and soap scum build up, but we did pretty dang good.
I wish I had a ‘before’ picture easily available to show, because this picture does not do justice to how much time went into this tub.
CARPET We bought this house 9.5 years ago. The carpet was questionable when we bought it. We would have it professionally cleaned between tenants, and it would look amazing compared to what we saw at first, but the stains would always come back because they were deep in the pads. Before these tenants, we ripped out the carpet in the living room area and laid LVP because the living room was especially bad. Well that still left carpet in the 3rd floor bedrooms, hallway, 2 stairwells, and the whole basement. With the smoking by the tenants and knowing we had far surpassed the useful life, we went ahead and planned to replace the carpet.
There were delays in getting the appointment scheduled and making it all work. The lady who did the measure appointment said installations were 3-4 weeks out. That was disheartening because we had already lost over a week by having back to back trips at the beginning of August. We went into Home Depot to find something else. I ended up settling on something because it said 5 day install. Well, 5 days came and went. I was so frustrated that I had settled on this worse-off carpet just because I wanted to meet a timeline, and now the timeline meant nothing. Then suddenly, we got a call and they said “can we come install the carpet today? We’ll load it now and be there within the hour.” That they did. They installed it in 7 hours and that was behind us.
PAINTING This took forever. Two big stairwells really take a lot out of your time. Every surface needed to be painted just to work on covering the smoke smell. While we didn’t spend a lot on the turnover (outside of carpet), this house just took so many hours from us. We painted every wall. I painted some of the trim that had not been previously painted, but it was in rough shape. We also had to repair several walls because they had sticky things to hold shelves up and they didn’t remove it.
MISCELLANEOUS THINGS DONE
Replaced the dryer door handle (that had actually broken off before they moved in, and I thought this was an insurmountable task to fix/replace… well, it was a $6 plastic piece off Amazon that popped right in. Welp.)
Replaced window screens that were worn away and in disrepair.
Cleaned out all the air filter areas for the HVAC.
Replaced all the rusted and broken floor vent covers.
Installed a doorbell because they installed a Ring, took it with them, and didn’t put the old one back in.
Replaced the cabinet knobs (it appeared someone had spray painted over the original 90s brass with something to mimic a stainless steal look, and they were all worn and chipped).
Wiped down the cabinets and walls to get them to be less sticky. Wiped down all the doors, light switches, and outlets because they were so gross.
Replaced the broken light in a stairwell that they broke on their move in (and reported).
Repaired some ceiling areas that were damaged due to a roof leak before the HOA replaced the roof.
Replaced a shower curtain rod that they took with them instead of leaving behind.
Painted the front door. It looked like someone had taken steel wool to it to clean it.
LISTING TIMELINE
We got the property to “good enough” stage so we could get it listed. There was still things to get done, but we didn’t want to wait until it was perfect and lose interest as we got further into the school year under way.
We listed the property at the end of August for $1,400. I thought we were golden. The location of this property is excellent, and it’s on a bus route that takes you downtown and to the outskirts of the city for shopping. There were two other listings for $1,500. It didn’t move. I didn’t even get productive bites.
I dropped the price to $1,350 two weeks later. I did show it a few times. I was happy that when I made appointments, people actually showed up, but they didn’t qualify. Mr. ODA hosted an open house and had one person come through. That one person was our person though. I removed the listing two days after the open house and we have it rented at $1,350.
I offered her $1,325 for an 18 month lease or $1,350 for a lease through June 30th so I could get back on a Spring schedule. She agreed to the shorter timeframe. She was looking for a quick move because her landlord was selling her place. Our house seems too big for her needs, so I wouldn’t be surprised if she leaves at the end of June and we need to find a new tenant.
SUMMARY
We knew a September listing was going to be tough, but I didn’t expect it to be that tough. When we had a property managing on this place, they always took 5-6 weeks to get it rented and it drove me crazy. At least 3 weeks from start to finish isn’t terrible, but I’m definitely used to it moving faster. It’s also nice that had my tenants stayed, we’d be getting $1,275, and now we’re getting $1,350. Thus far, this lady hasn’t asked for much. We struggled with the utilities getting into her name. For some reason, the utility companies credited my accounts and billed it directly to her, so I didn’t even need to work on capturing that money from her, which was nice.
There was a time where we liked the idea of purchasing a new car, but we’ve since come around to buying a 2-3 year old car. We don’t eat that initial drop in value by driving it off the lot, and we can find a car that has mostly what we want for the right value. The point I want to make in this post is how we paid for the car and why, but the entire history of the purchase and thought process is detailed beyond that section, if you’re interested.
FINANCIAL DECISION
Once we decided on the van, we needed to figure out the price (more details are below). They offered $1,000 off the price if you financed, so we agreed to that. With our trade in value, taxes and fees adjusted, and the negotiation of work to be done, the net came to $9,000. The minimum to finance was $7,500. So instead of throwing the full $9,000 into the loan, we asked to put $1,500 on the credit card and finance the $7,500. By putting the $1,500 on the credit card, we made $30 in rewards.
The financing was 6.99% and we chose the option that allowed pay off after 4 payments. There was an origination fee of $175, which is rolled into the principle. Our payment is $151.94. The first 4 payments hold $175.07 worth of interest. So we will pay $175.07 of interest and the $175 origination fee as a means of taking $1,000 off the list price. That nets us, including the $30 of credit card rewards, $679.96 less on the list price. After the 4th payment is made in May, we’ll make a lump sum payment of about $7,134 to pay off the loan.
MINIVAN HISTORY
In 2020, we purchased a 2017 Chrysler Pacifica. It met so many of my wishlist items, and a dear friend of mine put a lot of effort into finding just what we wanted. Well, there were some things wrong with the sliding door, the steering wheel would get sticky at “10” and “2,” and there were a couple of small defects with the stow and go seating. The sticky steering wheel was a known issue, but we didn’t want to pay to fix it because they wouldn’t create a recall (for the record, it was pretty sticky… where I’d have to jerk the wheel to get it to move again).
In February 2023, with a 2 month old child in tow, we went to Ohio to look at another van. It was a red 2020 Pacifica. I didn’t love the red, but it came with an 8th seat and had a bunch of upgrades (heated seat) we didn’t have in the 2017 version. I have a clear memory of the car doing a little skip as we got on the highway multiple years ago, and ever since then, we’ve been watching some things with the engine. The car never had the ‘check engine’ light come on, but something wasn’t working smoothly in there. Mr. ODA mentioned a desire to get a new van, so we went looking.
He found several options nearby and we went out for test drives. Actually, we planned to do a lot of test drives, but it was a Sunday. Apparently car dealerships are closed on Sundays, and I had no idea.
First we tried driving other makes and models, but it’s hard to beat the value of the Pacifica. The other vans seem to be trying really hard to be fancy to compensate the stigma of being a minivan, but I’m not here for that. A van is extremely spacious and practical. I’m in a completely functional phase of life with 3 little kids and a dog.
PACIFICA TEST DRIVE #1
The first thing to note is that we went to two places and both places had the salesman drive with us in the van. I really thought covid killed that for us!
We went to the first one right in town. It was a silver van, and I don’t love that color. I thought I could live with that red van, but for 3 years it drove me crazy. When we got to it, it wasn’t so bad. It’s a really light silver. There were some broken things, and right off the bat, the salesman was gaslighting me that it wasn’t broken. Over the drive, I came to learn that he was proudly divorced with no kids. What a great job that the dealership assigned our online inquiry to this guy! He was super condescending about vans and kept cracking jokes about his awesome sports car and how we need one (or that we need a second Tesla). Mr. ODA shared a philosophy on debt, and he assumed he understood our position and wouldn’t let the wise-cracks go. Then to top it off, he handed our 3 year old a noise-making key chain. It took them 20 minutes to get us a quote on the van and our trade in, and I was on the verge of just walking out. The only thing keeping me there was knowing that our next stop was likely going to be a solid van, and I wanted this data point on what they were offering.
They have a required $1500-1800 certified pre-owned fee that’s on the car, and they weren’t willing to remove it. Their value for my car was low, and when I asked why the ‘good’ rating, he gave me some answer on what perfect meant and how no one is perfect. I tried to say, “so there’s nothing between good and perfect?” but people were too busy interrupting me, and I just shut down at that point. For the record, very good is in there, and my van was kept in great shape (outside of a possible transmission concern). They also tried to sell extras all over the quote, and our net was over what I wanted to pay. We got there at 10:40, and I was trying my hardest to run out of there by 11:45. Nothing about that experience should have had us there for over an hour.
PACIFICA TEST DRIVE #2
This vehicle was just under an hour from home. Ironically, this small town dealership was way nicer and the people were easier to deal with. A weird tidbit of us, but we prefer cloth seats over leather seats. The Tesla doesn’t even have a cloth option, so we have been living with the leather for over a year and it’s not so bad. I still would have preferred cloth seats, but there weren’t any on the market this week. After living without heated seats on that first van, that’s been a deal breaker for me. We also couldn’t find any vans with the 8th seat option. The 8th seat doesn’t make a difference to us as a family, but we did use it for guests visiting us fairly often. The possible transmission issue trumped our ability to serve others though.
Mr. ODA didn’t care to drive the first couple we drove, but he must have liked this one because he asked to be the one to drive it back to the dealership. That put me in the passenger seat, where I noted the visor’s clasp was missing. The visors were also swapped with each other (how does someone go about doing that with all the electric in there for the mirrors), and there was a clasp missing for the rear window shades. The outside has a dent on the side and couple of paint chips, so we asked for a paint pen also.
It was listed on their own website for higher than edmunds, but he pointed out that if we finance the vehicle, the final price was lower than edmunds by a little. They were offering $1000 off the list price for financing. We learned that concept on the drive out there. I thought saying, “I’ll hand you cash today” was better all this time. They take the financing because they make money off it. We learned they use a few banks, and one allows it to be paid off after 4 payments and the others require 6 payments before it can be paid off.
The salesman went to the ‘tower’ and got a quote. He didn’t show us. Instead, he pointed out what he purchased the car for, what they listed it at, and that they were already at a $651 loss. Um, I call BS. There’s no way your group made that type of business decision. He went back for the quote. He didn’t push the ‘loss’ concept, but he did keep mentioning it once in a while. I hope he noted we were seeing through the crap there. He was claiming they wouldn’t fix the things wrong because they’re already taking a loss. I said that was fine and we’d leave because I wasn’t about to put the time and effort into replacing a completely broken visor on a new-to-me vehicle. He went to get maintenance to look at the car and provide a quote. To their detriment, the tech put the quote on the salesman’s desk with just us in the room so we saw that the 3 things we asked for would cost under $100. Honestly, I’m wondering why they wouldn’t just go ahead and repair the visor. That’s a glaring thing that a drive would see daily, so why not just fix it so it doesn’t become a negotiation point of me, the potential buyer?
He came back with a net cost to us around $9,500. He said they’d take $200 off to fix those things. Mr. ODA said, “make the net $9,000, and we’ll take it.” And so, that happened. We walked in the dealership at 12:38 and had an agreed upon price at 2:30. We didn’t leave until 5:04. I was livid. The salesman said he could have us out of there in 45 minutes, which was a point to us taking the car off the lot that day because they’d have enough time to detail it. The car was detailed and I asked to look at it. It was not cleaned. All they did was vacuum and wipe down the leather seats. The cup holders and down the side of the walls were dirty and sticky, so I sent it back for more cleaning.
At about 4:30, I made a scene that I would have paid the $1000 to get out of there without waiting on financing for over 2 hours. At 4:40, we were taken into the financing office where he flew threw signatures and paperwork, apologized that there were 4 closings at the same time, and we were handed our key at 4:52. Since we hadn’t planned on actually finalizing a deal, we then had to throw all our stuff from our van into the new van while it was about 30 degrees and 25 mph winds (we had arrived in the sun and 50s!).
SUMMARY
We’ve learned over the years that our needs in vehicles change. Adding kids changed how things move. We drive to NY multiple times a year, plus all the driving we do for trips we take. We put one seat down so there’s room for the dog’s dog bed for trips. All 3 kids are in some sort of car seat or high back booster still. The youngest is annoyingly not independent on his car seat buckling and unbuckling (the other two were absolutely independent by this age). So for now, a van is still our need. By not investing in a brand new car, we don’t feel the need to keep it forever to protect an investment. This allows us the flexibility to switch what we have if we decide we don’t need something anymore (the dog is 13, there will be less car seat needs in a few years). Our trade-in net has been about the same each time, so I’m happy to pay about $3000 per year to own the car (in concept) without paying interest or a dealer for a lease agreement (along with the stress of issues when it’s a lease).
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.
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.
In November 2023, I posted about rental changes that had occurred over the previous year. I wanted to update that analysis a few months ago, but I didn’t have all the KY data. I recently shared that my rent increases aren’t covering my cost increases, and my portfolio’s cash projections are lower now than when we first purchased all the houses. Here’s more of a breakdown of those changes per house.
ESCROW
Escrow is an account that your mortgage company holds money to pay your insurance and taxes on your behalf. I have little faith in their management, as I’ve had to follow up on balances in the account and payments made incorrectly.
I created this table to show the differences between escrow payments over the two years. I kept the houses that don’t have an escrow because it can be compared to a future table in this post. There is no House5 in this table because we sold it several years ago (houses didn’t get renumbered because House5 still exists in terms of tax documentation).
INSURANCE
We had 3 insurance claims last year, and a big one the year before. It turns out, our portfolio is looked at as a whole, so 4 claims in a 12 month period doesn’t look good, especially when one of those was 6 digits and one was 5 digits. None of it was egregious, and they were each necessary. We were just a victim of poor timing (and for some reason, the 12 years prior to that with 0 claims of any kind mean absolutely nothing). While our own history is to blame in some aspects, insurance costs as a whole are increasing quickly over the few years. Here’s Google’s AI response:
And with that between payments made in 2023 and payments made in 2024, insurance is costing us almost $2,000 more for the year. I also just made my first 2025 payment, which increased that one house by $343. The total increase from 2022 and 2024 is over $3,000.
From the initiation of insurance on each house (so, when we first bought the house, which were mostly between 2015/2016) to today, we’re paying over 43% more in total for insurance.
TAXES
The table below shows the change between 2023 and 2024 for our tax payments. Last year, many jurisdictions that hadn’t captured the assessment changes since the pandemic made up for it last year, when we saw about a $3,500 increase for the year. This year, our increase was over $2,000. Fifty-five hundred over two years is nearly $230 per month, spread over 13 rental properties is $17 each. So for those that I didn’t increase rent last year, they’re not capturing that cost increase for our portfolio.
RENT INCREASES
So far this year, I’ve missed two opportunities to increase rent. I had planned on increasing one house by $25 to keep up with inflation costs, but it didn’t register that their notice had to be given by 1/1 (every one else is by the end of the month). The second is above market at this time, which was by design since they’re not easy to work with (tried to phase them out, but they accepted the rent increase). We last raised their rent in September 2022, so it’s been two years. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Next year we’ll increase them by $50 per month.
My plan is to increase the rent for 5 of our other houses. Four of these houses are planned to be $50 per month of an increase, and one is planned to be $75. Our management is generally to increase rent by $50 every two years if you’re a long term renter. There have been a few that we didn’t increase for a while, and the carrying costs have drastically increased, so we’re behind now.
SUMMARY
For our cost increases between taxes and insurance, we have over $4,000 that was paid out last year (and it’s really more than that in cases where the house has escrow, so our escrow was increased more drastically that the specific amount of change in bills).
We had 3 houses turnover from long term tenants, so we were able to increase the rent to market value. I prioritize keeping long term tenants, so I don’t always do rent increases. That means that sometimes the rent is stuck below market value, but I’d rather keep a good tenant than push them out with large annual rent increases.
By bringing those houses up to market rent, I’ve made up a good amount of our deficit. Now remember, these rent increases are catching up on multiple years of drastic increases. So even though it seems we’ve brought in more, we’re both making up for previous years that didn’t have such large rent increases and paying for more large scale improvements to these houses, in addition to larger contractor costs.
Every year, I like to look back at ways we earned income outside of a W-2 or our rental properties. These things include interest earned, dividends paid, and bonuses received on credit cards.
CREDIT CARDS
We opened a new credit card to give ourselves a 0% interest loan when we purchased the hot tub. I’m a broken record on this, but I’ll keep pointing out the availability of this option. Yes, we made this purchase because we could pay for the item outright, but it would be nice to pay for the hot tub over time while letting our money earn more money in other accounts. A sign-on bonus for that credit card and the immediate high purchase led us to $489 earned for doing nothing expect spending money and opening that new card.
Outside of that credit card reward, we deposited almost $1,200 worth of rewards from other cards into our checking accounts. Then we have some cards that earn points instead of cash. These are kept in that credit card’s “bank” of points because they can be worth more if they’re used within the rewards portal (e.g., booking a hotel). Essentially, 100 points equates to a dollar, but it’s not always that because of the bonuses available. With that said: we earned 18,683 points between 3 cards and $73 on another card.
INTEREST & INVESTMENTS
We have two accounts that pay out dividends in December of each year. This year that totaled over $4k. Between two savings accounts, we earned $2,500 of interest payments.
Mr. ODA invests in Treasury bonds. Instead of withdrawing the money after each 4-6 week period, he rolls it over and the interest earned gets deposited into our account. That’s paid us $2k this year.
ODD JOBS & RANDOM INCOME
On top of the things I can project like interest earned and rewards, I also do a few odd jobs throughout the year. Between a part time substitute teacher position, doing surveys, and selling kids clothing and toys to second hand shops, I brought in another $1600. I use this concept as an ‘offset’ in my mind to cover gift giving throughout the year. Mr. ODA brought in nearly $1,000 doing mystery shopper activities for restaurants. Betting on games and doing fantasy football brought in another $700.
SUMMARY
So with minimal effort, we brought in about an additional $14,000 in the past year! That more than pays for our hot tub purchase. It more than pays for our Christmas gifts, and even birthday gifts paid for through the year.
When I consign, it takes several hours to prepare. But I do those items that way because I can earn more money with less stress. For consignment, I’m preparing my items, logging them, printing labels, and then dropping off. Once I drop off, all I do is watch my sales. If I try to sell these items on mom-to-mom type forums, then I have to manage each individual item, follow up on people who need to pay/pick up, and then set out my items and wait for them to actually follow through. It’s just a lot more mental energy even if it may be less physical hours of work.
Outside of the consignment effort and my very part-time job, everything else was fairly passive. We earned a lot of money just by buying other things. We earned a lot of money by just having a savings account with a decent yield. We earned a lot by Mr. ODA investing in Treasury bonds, which takes a few clicks every few months.
The first step should be to ensure your money that’s not in use is in a saving account and earning interest. After that, a credit card with rewards earned should be used. Teach yourself discipline to count your credit card swipes the same as swiping that debit card in your checking account. You’d be amazed at how much those small bits add up.
This was a good year. We took a lot of trips, made some good memories, and purchased some fun things. While day to day life has been hard with 3 little kids and managing some of my own interests, it really was a fun and rewarding year when I look at the big picture.
PERSONAL: MY YEAR
I went through a lot of growth in this year. I started the year with a girls trip, which was really healing in my mom-of-3 world. After that trip, I hunkered down on my diet and exercise. Over 10 months, I lost 22 pounds. Each kid added about 10 pounds to my body’s desired size (where I just plateau unless I put a lot of effort in). It’s not something that I regularly discussed with people or mentioned, but it is something that I’m pretty proud of and took effort. I ran a 5k in August, where I beat my time from the year before, and it didn’t feel like it took any effort to beat that, which was nice.
But then my oldest started kindergarten, which was a surprisingly hard adjustment in my schedule. He was completely ready for school, and him going wasn’t the hard part. I welcome new phases of life and mostly don’t dwell on the losses that those mean. However, the schedule of the year took me two or three months to get used to. He gets on the bus at 7, #2 gets dropped off at 9, she gets picked up at 12, baby takes a nap from 1:30-3:15, oldest gets off the bus at 2:45. It was just a lot of broken up time in my day, and it took so much out of me each day. I finally feel like I’m used to it and can be productive in those short periods in between.
We were told that our preschool will be changing ownership next school year, which threw a wrench in my plans. Sure, things will work out. But it doesn’t change that I had a plan that didn’t need to be thought about. I had a financial expectation that didn’t need to be budgeted for or considered any further. It was another thing that took mental energy from me. I had originally thought I’d not send the 3rd kid to a 2s year like the other two kids. I spent some days mourning that alone time I was giving up by keeping him home. But I toured a preschool, and that’s my wish list for next year. If we don’t get into that preschool, I’ll likely just keep him home with me and try for the 3s year there. It’s just a socializing desire. I don’t work and need child care, so it’s a privilege to send him if it works out.
On top of all the parenting jobs I have, my job managing our rental properties is another job that takes a ton of time and mental energy, but no one really sees the fruit of that labor. May was the only month this past year where everyone paid rent on time. While I’m pretty lenient on that, that’s still time that I’m taking to manage and keep up with. I have one tenant who hasn’t put the water bill in her name yet. Supposedly it’s a city issue, and she always pays when I send her a picture of the bill, but it’s still a time sucker that I have. Then add in that we have several maintenance requests that come up, and a few big projects that were needed.
Related to the rentals, I made 44 posts on this blog. I set a goal to post once per week, preferably on Thursdays, for the year. I fell short by 8 weeks, and I wasn’t consistent with the Thursday post each week. I did well when I had inspiration, and I always did the monthly updates, but I didn’t meet my goal. I’ll keep the same goal of once per week, preferably on Thursdays, for this year. While my reach isn’t far, I do hope that someone will find this little corner and gain a new perspective on their finances. Plus, I appreciate being able to go back to our monthly updates to see how things have changed. It’s hard to see it when you’re looking month-to-month, but to see a drastic jump in numbers from a year ago is nice.
PERSONAL: THE FAMILY
We made it to 12 states this year, and that’s pretty cool. The kids got to see a lot, and they’re really interested in different states and their stats. I appreciate that curiosity and the ability to learn while traveling. Only one trip was on a plane, which was to Colorado. We did a 2-week long trip to New York and Michigan, with a few stops in there. We went to Chicago for a wedding and explored the area, took the kids to Gatlinburg for Fall Break, went to Ohio to watch the eclipse in totality, and tagged along on Mr. ODA’s work trip to South Carolina.
Mr. ODA sold his 15 year old vehicle, and we purchased a Tesla. I didn’t have a great experience with one in Colorado, but I think that was more related to the circumstances than actual electric vehicle ownership. I had a great experience with the test drive, and we picked one up by the end of that week. We took advantage of their 0% interest and 3 months of free charging. We also referred a friend of ours, so we received $1000 in Tesla credits that we’ll use for charging after the free period.
We bought a hot tub. That was a purchase that was about a year in the making, so it wasn’t made lightly. There hasn’t been two days in a row where someone didn’t get in it, until we just left for a week (hoping that the water is in good shape when I get back!). Our deck was crushed by a tree in July 2023, and it wasn’t rebuilt until May 2024. Then we had to take the time to make the decisions on what we wanted, get it ordered, and wait for delivery. It was delivered in November, and it’s been a great purchase thus far. We haven’t done such a splurge before, and it’s nice to give ourselves something that we can enjoy.
The kids are doing their activities. We’ve been in a nice lull, but I recently saw our March calendar from this past year and was reminded of all those hours! Our oldest is doing t-ball for a second year. Our second is regularly doing gymnastics, but we’re also letting her do t-ball this spring. Our oldest is also doing an after school activity for checkers, but supposedly it’s in a fun way, so that’ll be interesting to see pan out. He was accepted into an advanced program for his 99th percentile state testing scores, which was a really exciting moment as parents. Our second will finish out her preschool year and go to kindergarten next year. And we hope to have another fun season over the next two months with everyone on skis!
RENTAL PROPERTIES
Besides the management of late rent payments, I had to put a lot of hours into these houses this year. We took a trip to Richmond, VA to work on quite a few of these houses. On top of that, there were several other activities that were needed, management of tenant turnover, and management of rental income, but I’ll save that for a future post so this doesn’t grow too long.
FINANCES
Our net worth increased by $745,000. We started the year with a goal of hitting $4 million net worth, and that was achieved in a short time. Month to month feels like we’re barely moving the needle, but it’s amazing to see that number over the course of a year.
We paid off one 0% interest credit card from our carpet replacement in our personal home, and then we opened a new 0% interest credit card to pay for the hot tub. That new card gets 2% cash back, so it’s being used more than we usually use a 0% interest card. Typically, we just pay for the major purchase and then pay it down over the 0% interest period. This time around, it’s being used for every day purchases so the monthly payment I’m making is more than I’d usually see.
I have a separate post that goes into our extra income that we brought in over the last year, which is related to earned credit card rewards and interest on savings accounts and bonds. That’s even cooler to see the total ($14k!) because that was actual cash that went into our account and was used.
In the last year, I only officially worked 11 days, which is crazy to think about. But I’ve been doing random other jobs to help others out. I’m on our homeowners association board of directors, and I’ve been helping a new school get their financials up and running. I’m ready to take a step back from the finance work because my commitment to the HOA feels more pressing, but we’ll see how the next couple of months progress. It’s just really hard to get things done when I’m rarely without a toddler who wants my attention (unless I get up at 4:30 or 5 am).
SUMMARY
This year has felt like it took a lot more hours from me for work and management of things. But I also feel like I have more energy now that I’m two years from having our last baby. We have lots of other things planned for this coming year, and I hope to take some even bigger trips to see more of the country now that we have a bit less baggage coming out of the baby years. We have no plans to make any big purchases at this time (although there are new windows needed on our house in the next couple of years), and I really hope this year is lots of fun with the family more than anything else.
I’m late to this comparison, but I didn’t have a reason to pay attention to electric vehicles (EVs) until our trip to Denver in July. As seems to be the case regularly there, the rental car company didn’t have any available inventory of gas vehicles, even though that’s what we booked. I’m actually starting to wonder if they have any gas vehicles because it’s suspicious that they thrust these EVs on customers so consistently. Here are some quick thoughts on an EV after experiencing it, but also the gas usage versus electricity usage math comparison we did while there.
EV EXPERIENCE: THE NEGATIVE
It started out stressful. Had we been given a tutorial or any guidance at all, it may have started out easier. However, we started the trip by having to wait in a 90 minute line to even get the car. Then we were greeted by a disgruntled employee who had no intention of helping us. Then when Mr. ODA tried to talk to a manager, she just kept saying “we don’t have any gas vehicles. I can’t do anything for you.” Well ma’am, you could maybe take 2.5 minutes and quell all our fears of the unknown, in a foreign place, while traveling with 3 kids that are 5 and younger.
The biggest issue was our timing. We arrived later in the day, needed to get the kids fed and their bedrooms set up, while also allocating enough time for them to just play and have fun since we’ve been traveling all day. The next morning, we planned to get out of the house and head to the mountains. That’s the problem. We don’t know our range. We don’t know where to fill up or how to fill up. We do know that charging it is not a 4-5 minute process like filling up a tank of gas. We do know that there aren’t super chargers everywhere. There was a lot of “I don’t know what I don’t know.”
Luckily, a friend of ours recently had a similar experience, and she shared some tidbits with us. For instance, there are multiple charger apps you need to download. Then once you download all of them and use the map to figure out where in town the closest one is to what you’re doing, you have to figure out what the data means. “6.6,” $ vs. $$$, “fast charging.” There were different filter options in different apps, but no legend on what these terms mean.
The first charge came while Mr. ODA dropped us off at McDonald’s, drove down the block to a “fast charger,” ran down to eat with us, then ran back to get the car and pick us up. This wasn’t ideal. This was really affecting our trip with this dark cloud hanging over us trying to figure out how to efficiently charge this thing. Plugging a car in while trying to entertain 3 kids for 45 minutes wasn’t how I expected our trip to go.
EV EXPERIENCE: FIGURING IT OUT
ChargePoint ended up being the easiest to use. They have a lot of stations around Denver, especially free ones. We looked for places to eat a meal where we could utilize a free charger and take advantage of the “down” time. It involved walking a block or two each time, but it gave us the peace of mind to get through the next phase.
One morning, we went to Red Rocks. There were a few free charging stations in the parking lot. We plugged in, spent two hours exploring the place, and received about 80 miles on our range, which was plenty for the next day of our trip. That night, we went to a concert at Ball Arena. Instead of parking where most of the other concert-goers parked, we went one block further and parked a well-lit, clean garage. We had to pay to park in the garage, but the charging station was free.
We also learned how to utilize the charging available within the car itself. EVs don’t “coast.” They have regenerative braking. You basically drive the car only using the accelerator, and don’t use the brake. You slightly hold down the accelerator to keep the car moving as you approached a stop, and it charges as that happens. There were different levels you could put the car at to take advantage of this charging process.
GAS VS ELECTRIC COSTS
We spent time figuring out the apps and the types of chargers. We avoided the chargers that had flat fees on top of the kwh charge cost. Almost all of the chargers had a “parking fee,” which meant that if you remained plugged in after the car was fully charged, they’d charge you by the minute for taking up that space. It makes a lot of sense since charging spots are limited, and you want to disincentivize people just walking away from their car for hours.
After we figured out the process of how to use the vehicle and the charging locations, we were able to do some math on the cost per mile. We specifically charged the vehicle either at free locations or in off-peak charging time (there is variable pricing on some chargers). We calculated that the cost per mile came about a few cents higher than if we were in a gas vehicle. However, that could be higher if you were charging during peak time or you needed to use the fast charging locations more often based on your vehicle distance/use. Gas prices in the Denver area were in the high $3.20s to low $3.30s, and we calculated a charge equivalent of $3.34.
There is the opportunity cost of your time. It only takes a few minutes to fill your car with gas. You’re not walking away from an EV charging location in less than 20, and it’ll likely be longer. If you have the ability to charge at your house, while the car is in the driveway, then it changes the equation. Since we were at a rental, that wasn’t an option available to us.
EV EXPERIENCE: END RESULT THOUGHTS
After the initial anger and fear of the unknown subsided, I’m not against EVs. If you can charge them at your own home, they’re great. They’ll get you around town just fine, and you’ll have the convenience of it charging while you’re home and comfortable. Your home charger won’t be a fast charger, but having it plugged in overnight for that 10-14 hour charge wouldn’t be an inconvenience.
I wouldn’t take them on long road trips. There would need to be careful planning of your charge range compared to where charging stations are. Unless it’s a truly a fast charger (15-20 minutes, and more expensive), you’ll need to plan to be somewhere for hours to get a charge. Then there’s the fear of availability when you arrive there, and whether you’ll get a spot because it’s not likely you can just travel down the road a few miles to find another station.
I wrote the initial draft of this in August. So it’s interesting to say – we bought an EV.
We’re now on school schedules with our oldest starting kindergarten. We wouldn’t have typically taken an October trip without such prompting, but we decided to take advantage of the “down time.” We also became a Central KY cliche, and went down to Gatlinburg.
We aren’t the type who save up for years to go to Disney. We prefer exploring different trails and different towns around the country. We’ve dabbled a bit more in theme park type adventures as the kids are getting older. I had planned to visit Ober. Their ticket prices start at 5 year olds, so we’d only have to pay for 3 out of 5 us. Of all the bigger attraction places there, Ober seemed to give you the most for your money, and I thought it would be entertaining to see the kids attempt ice skating again.
But then with all the hikes we wanted to do, and the National Park Service opening up a main road in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, we decided to skip that. I really wanted time to explore the town itself, and it didn’t seem we’d have time to do Ober and the town. The kids enjoyed walking through the town because there were a ton of pumpkin-head-people, so it became a game to find the next one and get your picture taken.
I was surprised to see that the town’s main road was mostly restaurants and hotels. I thought we’d run into more activities along the way. By the time we found a mini golf place, I didn’t trust that the kids would have held their emotions together to make it enjoyable. We got some ice cream for a job well done and went back into the park for a short hike to a waterfall.
TRIP COST: $656
Our lodging was the east of Gatlinburg in a cabin community. It was $541 for two nights. I’m still at a phase where the kids need a decent bed time, and the baby is still in the high maintenance (needs to be pitch black) phase of sleep. When we book a place, I’m looking for a room that the kids can go to sleep in while Mr. ODA and I aren’t ready for bed, and then a place (closet or extra bathroom, ideally) where I can put the baby. This was a two bedroom, two bathroom cabin.
I brought all our meals with us. So we paid $10 to be in the park for 3 days, $45 for food (treats and travel day food stops), and filled up our gas tank twice while traveling ($60).
GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS NATIONAL PARK
In case anyone’s interested in a similar trip, here’s what we did.
We traveled from central KY, so our first stop before we got to Gatlinburg was the Foothills Parkway. Mr. ODA actually worked on the Foothills Parkway when we were first dating (14 years ago – yikes!). We ended up going the wrong direction to see the bridges he worked on, but we did find a nice little hike. We went up to Look Rock. It was a quiet trail that wasn’t too long, but it was a nice stretch of our legs. The fog was thick, so we couldn’t see much in the observation platform.
Then we drove to Cade’s Cove Loop in the park. I have zero pictures of this because it was not interesting whatsoever. It was prairies and zero animals except two turkeys. People praise it on all the travel blogs, and we couldn’t figure out the hype. We were hopeful when we reached a choke point that the backup of cars was because we’d see something up ahead, but nothing came to fruition. It was just a waste of over an hour to go 11 miles.
Next we traveled to the Sinks. It was a cool waterfall that you could park right next to, so no hiking necessary.
To finish up the day, we hiked the Laurel Falls Trail. It was really pretty, and I thought it was cool that you could walk right up to the waterfall based on how the water flowed. The trail was 1.2 miles one way, with an elevation gain of 420+ feet. The trail was well traveled. It claimed to be “asphalt.” At some point, it was probably all asphalt, but there have been a lot of washouts. Either all of the trail is missing in some places, or just half the trail in other places. I wouldn’t go into this trail thinking it’ll be easier because it’s paved. Look up a video of what the falls looked like during Hurricane Helene because it’s crazy to see just how much water was flowing only a few days prior to us seeing it. It took us about 90 minutes to do it with 2 little kids walking.
On day 2, we went to Cataract Falls because it was a short walk off the parking lot and we had a little extra time to kill. The kids liked this one too because they could play in the water and rocks at the base of the falls.
The hurricane had closed one of the main roads in the park, but it opened up the second day we were there. It was a nice surprise, so we were able to do Clingman’s Dome. This was a wide, paved trail in great condition. The leaves were starting to change colors, and it was pretty on the bottom half. Near the top of the hike, we were hardly able to see anything because the fog was rolling in and really thick. It was cool to see the clouds float right by you though. It’s 1 mile, round trip. It being relatively short and fully paved is misleading though because it’s basically a hill straight up for a half mile (332 foot elevation gain; their website says it’s about a 13% grade). There are multiple benches along the way for plenty of rests. We made it to the top in about 20 minutes. We then spent about 20 minutes at the top of the tower before heading down. It took us about 20 minutes to get down too. We stopped at a pull out with a NC/TN line marker and explored there for a little while too.
On Day 3, we did Grotto Falls. You take a one lane road to the parking lot, where there are about 10 parking spaces, and they were all full. Since it’s a one lane loop road, there was no waiting for something to open up. We kept driving and parked about 0.4 miles down the road in a pull out. The trail itself was 1.4 miles to the waterfall, so the kids hiked with us for a total of about 3.6 miles. They did awesome and didn’t complain once about the distance. We took our time on the trail and stopped for a while at the top to eat lunch and explore. From the time we left our car to getting back to it was about two hours, so not bad at all.
During our drive back, we drove the other end of the Foothills Parkway and saw all the bridges that Mr. ODA was part of building. No hiking around there, and the pullouts were nice, but didn’t take much time to explore the view.
In 2021, we looked to buy a lake house. We tried so hard to find something, and we almost settled on something that didn’t fully make us happy. It was March or April of that year, and we finally stepped back and said, “instead of buying a house here that we feel pressured to come to every weekend, what if we just went on vacation more.” Up until that point, we traveled a good bit, but it was typically with a purpose instead of just traveling for the sake of seeing somewhere new (e.g., one of us tagging along on work travel). We calculated that our mortgage payment on that second house would be $1200 per month. That was our budget for travel each month. I wrote a whole post about it.
Then I got pregnant and we bought a new primary residence in the summer of 2022. Almost all our ‘travel’ that summer was just us going to the new house to work on it before we moved in. Then the summer of 2023 was spent recovering from the newborn phase of that third kid that was unbelievably painful. I was just happy to be sleeping and in a routine again, and I wasn’t willing to leave home much and risk lack of sleep.
We made up for it this summer.
JUNE: MD, NY, OH, MI $1,251
Our first trip of the summer was two weeks long. I was so nervous to manage 3 kids (one of which is still a high maintenance sleeper) and a dog for that long, but I had hoped it would be fine if I prepared correctly. We hit four states.
Our son was on the Oriole’s for his baseball team this spring, so that became his favorite MLB team. It just so happened that they were playing at home on our drive from KY to NY (meaning, if we really wanted to, Baltimore could be on the way). As an added bonus, they were playing the Braves, which is Mr. ODA’s favorite team. So we made that work. We booked a hotel in Baltimore that was pet friendly and walking distance to the stadium, and then we bought the tickets. Actually, we bought two tickets for 5 of us to go. The Oriole’s stadium has a program where if you buy a ticket in the upper section, you can have up to two free tickets for kids up to 9 years old. It’s an incredible program. The detour cost us more in tolls than we’d typically spend on our route. It was worth it. Our son watched the whole game and was so happy with it.
Then we traveled to NY. There’s no lodging cost there because we stay at my dad’s house. We went to the local team’s baseball game one night, hung out at the beach one night, had two cookouts, and went to my cousin’s bridal shower. The bridal shower was the reason for the trip. The Michigan component then was booked as the other side of the family’s annual trip. It didn’t make sense for us to drive home from NY and then back up to MI, so we just buckled up for the two weeks gone. We didn’t eat at any restaurants while we were in NY, so our costs were a couple of grocery trips and our family cookouts.
The trip from NY to MI was 13.5 hours without any stops, so we didn’t want to push the kids that far. We typically do the KY to NY trip in one day. That takes 13-14 hours depending on traffic and our stops. It would take about 11.5-12 hours without kids. We usually do two quick stops and one longer meal out of the car when we drive straight through. But with it starting at 13+ hours, I didn’t want to risk it. Plus, I wanted to arrive in Michigan around check in time, which would have us leaving NY at about 2 am. I covet my kids’ sleep too much to risk that one!
Our stop on the way was Cuyahoga Falls, OH. Again, we needed to find something that was pet friendly without charging us $175 to have the dog there for 14 hours. We found a hotel that didn’t charge for a pet, and it appears that’s because they don’t really care about cleanliness. The room was disgusting. The mirrors looked like they’d never been cleaned, the counters had someone’s old rice on them, the door wasn’t fully attached to its hinges, and the sinks didn’t drain. At least the bedding was clean (I inspected closely). I was grateful to only be there for 14 hours.
We went hiking that morning and then headed to MI, dropping the dog off at a sitter on the way there. We use Rover to find a sitter, which is where the sitter takes the dog into their house. I appreciate this type of care/attention than a kennel; we’ve used this service for 11 years now.
Our MI trip was Mr. ODA’s family trip for the year. His parents treat us to the house, and the kids’ families cover the food. Usually our trip doesn’t involve many extra expenses, but this year we sought out a place with activities, so there was a lot of money spent. We went on a dune buggy ride, walked a windmill island, went to a little ‘dutch village’ theme park, picked cherries, and spent a lot of time at the beach. We usually eat all our meals at the AirBnB, but we did have two meals out and lots of ice cream this time around. Honestly, it was the best trip we’ve taken in a while. I appreciated the ‘vacation’ aspect of it, where we did things around the area and had fun with activities.
JULY: VA $570
This was actually a work trip. Last summer, we didn’t make it to Richmond to do property walk throughs because our baby was such a handful. We’ve had a lot of work done over the last year, and there were a few things noted by tenants that are just easier for us to handle in a few minutes than pay someone hundreds to handle.
We cleaned the siding on multiple houses, checked some gutters, replaced a few things, and painted a front door and front porch. It was a 3 night trip, and we put about 20 hours worth of work into it. It was hard to juggle the work that needed to be done, having 3 kids in tow, and a heat index of over 110 each day, but we got what we could get done. I wrote a post about the work we did earlier this summer. Our expenses were the hotel ($401), gas, and food. We actually had a surprisingly low food expense on this trip considering we stayed in a hotel (lack of kitchen and time).
While there, we were able to see a few of our old friends. However, we planned this trip fairly last minute and had to fit it around other activities already scheduled at home, so we didn’t get as much ‘play’ time as we’d prefer.
JULY: CO$3,350
Mr. ODA’s brother wanted to celebrate his 40th birthday by hiking 14-ers in Colorado. He invited a few people to join, and Mr. ODA spent the first half of this year getting in shape for that activity. Honestly, in January, this idea seemed so far away, so it was exciting when the moment arrived. Mr. ODA wanted to go out earlier than the trip’s original itinerary to acclimate to the change in elevation. That’s where I came in.
We booked a flight for all 5 of us to fly out there on the 18th (well, the baby was free). We spent the weekend around the Denver area, and then I flew home with the kids on the 22nd, while he stayed to hang out with his brother’s crew.
We had to buy flights, rent a car, book lodging, and buy groceries/meals. We did more-than-average entertainment for this trip with a concert and baseball game, so that increased our expenses.
On our first full day, we visited Mount Blue Sky, which is a drive up to the top of a 14er (a summit above 14,000 feet). It was a really unique and cool experience. On Saturday, we hiked at Red Rocks and went to a concert at Ball Arena. On Sunday, we went to a Rockies game and walked around Denver. It was a great trip, and the kids were troopers through all the fun.
AUGUST: NY $430
My cousin got married in NY. Typically, I’d take this opportunity to get my whole family to NY to see my side of the family. However, our oldest started school already, and I didn’t want him to miss any of that, especially on day 3. The whole family flying to NY is expensive, plus we’d have to figure out the babysitting need for while we’re at the wedding. While I have a few people I could call on, it’s more difficult when the intent is for the closest adults I know to be at the wedding.
We booked direct flights for Mr. ODA and me to fly out Friday afternoon and come back Sunday afternoon. We had the kids stay with grandparents for the two nights, and this way the grandparents didn’t have to manage any kid activities except getting our oldest off the bus. Our two flights cost $376.40, and it included a checked bag if we wanted it because of our American Airlines credit card rewards. Parking at the airport is $11 per day, so that was $33. Our original plan was to take the train from JFK to where my dad’s house is, but we pivoted because he offered to pick us up and take us out to dinner. Our meals were covered except for on the way out and the way back, and one coffee I purchased while there. It was a nice little trip where we had fun and could just focus on that versus managing the kids’ schedule, so I appreciated that.
Mr. ODA had two work trips this summer on top of all that we did as a family. Those net us income instead of expenses, so I won’t go into them. I mention it just to point out how busy and entertained we were. I’d say we’re looking forward to winding down, but now baseball and gymnastics start up on top of managing kids at two different schools. But I’m loving it and looking forward to what this next season brings.
One Dollar Allowance 