A day late, but here we are. The market has gone up a bit, so that helped our net worth increase, even though we had a $10k increase in our credit card balances because we replaced the carpet in our house. Again, we opened a new credit card for this large purchase, which will give us 15 months of 0% interest. While we could pay the balance now, it’s a strategy to allow us to keep more liquid cash and earn interest on the money.
We have a tenant that only recently paid October’s rent, and has paid about $200 towards November rent as of today. I’m frustrated, but I have another post that will go into all the details for that. I can be understanding and work with you, but only if you talk to me. She doesn’t communicate, and she hasn’t upheld any part of what she said she’s going to do about payments.
I had one tenant ask me about moving out early, but we haven’t pursued anything yet. I have another tenant who is under contract on a house, so we’re waiting for notice from them. We knew they were looking for a house to purchase, so we structured our lease to allow them out of the lease at any time. It’s unfortunate for our timing that it’ll probably be a January/February rental now, but I’m happy for them moving on to their next phase of life.
I had to pay two small tax payments to a local jurisdiction this month, and then also paid taxes on one of our properties (luckily they still take credit cards with no fee, so we get rewards for that payment!). I’ve had to pay several medical bills (for myself) over the past month, which has been annoying. All that money to bills, only for there to be no answers.
We went to a local ski mountain to look for ski boots for my new-to-me skis that I purchased. In the process, we ended up buying the two older kids skis and boots, along with season passes for the family. So medical bills, ski equipment and passes, tax payments, and Christmas gifts have our credit cards high now (even without the 10k+ for carpet).
I truly wonder if everyone knows they can pay their bills without paying fees. It really bugs me when there are no ways to pay your bill online without a fee. I don’t like that so many people probably pay it, accepting the fee as necessary instead of finding another way. For the sake of this information, I’m assuming you can hold a basic checking account, financially.
What started this post is my sewer bill. Every month, I receive an email from the city government. If I click “pay invoice” in their email, it brings me to a screen that shows there’s a $1.95 fee for paying, even with a checking account and not a credit card. From that screen, I can’t log into my account. However, if I go back to the email, click their “customer portal” link, then I can log in and pay with a linked checking account for $0 in fees. I put effort into figuring out the account set up here. Had I not, I would have thought they required a fee to pay online and set up a bill pay in my bank account. However, I don’t like paying by sending a check, because it sits outstanding for an unknown period of time until it’s cashed and processed; I prefer the option where it is pulled directly from my checking out immediately so I don’t have to keep track of outstanding checks.
With that, I wanted to share some things I’ve experienced and how I make sure it doesn’t cost me anything additional (unless it’s financially beneficial) to pay my bills.
PAYMENT OPTIONS
There are usually several options to pay a bill. These may include electronic payments via your bank account being linked, credit card payments, in person transactions using cash or check, or mailing the payment with a check. Processing payments costs a business money. It can cost them from a third party provider or by having staff to manually process transactions.
Most placed provide an electronic payment option these days, where you can without the use of a credit card. While I’ve seen an uptick in the number of places allowing payment via PayPal, I’m referring to ACH and EFT transactions. The automated clearinghouse (ACH) is a nationwide network that depository institutions send each other batches of electronic credit and debit transfers. The electronic fund transfer (EFT) is used to move money from one account to another electronically. EFT is an umbrella term for all digital transactions, whereas ACH only refers to transactions used through the automated clearinghouse. In many cases, payments made via ACH or EFT don’t have transaction fees, but some do.
An ACH/EFT payment requires you to provide your bank account number and your bank’s routing number. The company you’re paying is able to draw funds out of your account through this system. Having your bank account information tied to a company makes it vulnerable to data leaks and could cause some people concern. There’s also generally less protections for money drawn directly via your bank account than the type of fraud protection you receive through a credit card.
In general, processing a payment via ACH is cheaper than via a credit card. ACH payments have a flat fee per transaction, whereas a credit card company generally charges a percentage of each transaction. For a $100 transaction, it could cost a company $1 to process via ACH, or if could cost $3 to process via credit. That $2 difference can add up quickly to the bottom line.
There are some instances where you’re charged for sending a check. Honestly, this makes sense to me. The company needs to pay someone to physically receive your check, process the payment, and apply it to your account. The service fee for everything being processed electronically is the surprising one to me. Our city government requires you to add $2 to your car registration payment sent via check/mail. You can pay in person for no additional cost (without the $2 fee). When we lived in a small town in central Kentucky, I would just go to city hall, park for free, wait for a few minutes, and pay via check in person. From leaving my house to getting home, the entire transaction took about 15-20 minutes of my time. Now we live in a bigger city. It’s a 25 minutes drive downtown, parking was $1.75, and there was a long line. The ~90 minutes of my time and having to pay to park in a parking garage were not worth the $2 savings, so now I pay via mail with that convenience fee added to my bill.
Our pediatrician doesn’t have an online portal at all. This is surprising to me because 1) it’s 2023, and 2) it’s a gigantic practice. They provide an option to pay using a credit card over the phone or in person, but it comes with a 3.99% processing fee. There are usually credit card processing fees, but what gets me here is that I can’t pay via a draw from my checking account through a portal. I have to send a check or pay in person with cash or check. One time I paid with cash, and they were confused that I wanted a receipt for it. Since physical checks cost me money to have in my possession, I retain these for when I have no other option. I use my checking account bill pay to send a check. Without fail, I need to be in their office between the time they send the statement and they process the check, meaning I’m hounded to pay the balance. No. The check is on the way. They also take at least 4 days from receipt of check to credit my account. OK, I’ve digressed into a rant again.
CHECKS, CHECKING ACCOUNTS, BILL PAY OPTIONS
Most checking accounts at major financial institutions offer a bill pay system. This is a free service as part of your checking account. You set up a “payee.” This is where you enter the company or person’s name, the address a payment will be sent to, and a phone number for the payee in case there’s an issue with the payment. Your bank sends a physical check to the payee on your behalf (which also saves you postage!). When you need to send a payment, you select the date you want the check to arrive. Since a physical check is sent, it sits outstanding until it’s cashed by the payee.
If you have an account number, there’s also an option that may be available for ACH payments. I have a few payees set up where no physical check is mailed, and my bank processes the payment via the ACH, which I like because the payment is immediate for the day I schedule it.
There are two main benefits of this service. First, there’s a financial benefit. The bank sends the check on your behalf, meaning you don’t have to have an envelope and postage to send it, nor do you have to keep physical checks on hand (we opened a checking account a few years ago, and they charged $17 to have checks for the account). Second, it provides a guarantee. If for some reason the check is not received, there are stipulations that may allow your bank to cover any late fees or similar fees incurred due to a lack of timely payment. I had sent a very large check to a company. Weeks later, it hadn’t been cashed. I went to the bank to discuss, and they issued a stop payment and reissued the check. In this case, there weren’t any fees incurred on my account for late payment, and the company was understanding. My bank also noted that based on the amount, it was flagged for review, and during that review, it may not have actually been sent/processed for payment. I appreciated that I had the paper trail through the process to show what I had done, rather than no receipt or proof of attempted payment if I were to put a paper check in the mail.
CREDIT CARD PAYMENTS
Some companies may embed their credit card service fees within their prices. For example, if you buy something at Kohl’s, there isn’t a “credit processing fee” line item on your receipt. Most large companies prefer the guarantee a credit card provides for payment. When a credit card is swiped, the approval (or denial) is immediate. Accepting a check carries a risk. The company has to process the check after the fact, and if there’s insufficient funds to draw on in that account, they incur a fee for that attempt. So they’re charged a fee and don’t get the payment.
I’ve tried to pay a few people via credit card, so I ask what their fee is. Someone offered to accept a credit card if I split the fee with him. Well, I get 2% rewards on my credit card, so any fee less than 2% would still yield me a positive result. That was a special circumstance though where it was a large payment that needed to be made quickly (e.g., not trusting mail/check).
SUMMARY
Be aware of your options. There may only be a “free” option to pay in person for some (few) companies, but do your due diligence to ensure you’re not being overcharged for simply paying your bills.
I’m going to preach over and over again to pay your bills on time, minimizing interest payments on balances, and without processing fees, all the while knowing your checking account balance and outstanding payments.
We went on a trip to Indianapolis last month. We did more activities than we typically would have, so our spending was more than average.
The reason behind the trip was the Children’s Museum. We like visiting zoos around the country, so we used that to fill our other day there. The zoo was $91 for entry for 2 adults and 2 children, while our youngest was free. We had to pay for parking, bought lunch at the cafeteria, two kids rode the carousel, and we all rode the train; that came to $66.70 spent the day of our visit. The Children’s Museum was $90 for entry for the same group of us. It also had a carousel that we let the kids ride, I let them get a flattened penny (they used “their” $1 for it), and we bought lunch (parking in a parking garage was free); that came to an additional $35.88 spent on that day. The zoo’s meals were very reasonably priced, but the Children’s Museum’s meals were ridiculously expensive, so that free parking wasn’t exactly free.
We placed a grocery pick up order when we arrived, and that covered our breakfasts and dinners ($39.10, but we didn’t even use everything we purchased, so that’s inflated). We stopped at McDonald’s on the way there and as we left the city on the last day ($17.68). McDonald’s and Qdoba are sure fire ways to get our kids to eat and eat quickly, so they’re nice when we’re on the road.
On the first day, we went exploring the city. We had to pay to park in a parking garage, which was $5. On the last day, we did a Capitol tour and visited another museum (both of which were free), but we had to pay to park twice ($2.50).
We had booked an AirBnB for the trip. A series of events I won’t get into meant that we received a full refund from the originally booked location, had a coupon code for our inconvenience, and booked a new location right away. We ended up spending $574.32 for our lodging of 3 nights. We specifically didn’t book the cheapest place available because we wanted the comfort of multiple bedrooms for the kids. The two oldest can sleep together, but the youngest needs his own space so that it can be without a night light. We could have managed with two bedrooms because the youngest slept in the master closet, but I can never guarantee that there’s a closet big enough for a pack and play. This place had 4 bedrooms, but we didn’t use one of them. We also wanted a hot tub available, so Mr. ODA and I could hang out and watch tv after the kids went to bed. It’s an amenity we’ve grown fond of, and we even plan to purchase one for ourselves if our deck ever gets replaced.
In total, this trip cost us $922.18 (plus gas) for 3 nights away. This is a higher than normal 3-night trip for us, but we were ok with it since we hadn’t taken our usual amount of trips (newborn life). We could have planned ahead on our two big days to pack a lunch instead of buying there, but we chose the convenience of purchasing the meals over the potential savings, especially knowing that we weren’t spending anything outside the normal realm for our breakfasts (cereal) and dinners (easy, quick pasta meals). Although this wasn’t known at the time of booking, but it was once we started the activities, the concession from AirBnB more than covered our meals and extra activities on each day.
Our kids are 5, 3, and 10 months. The Children’s Museum was great for their ages. There were some exhibits for older kids that we bypassed. I thought the St Louis Science Museum was better at having interactive exhibits throughout (and is free!), but it didn’t mean that this place was bad. The zoo was nice too. There’s a lot of shade, which was appreciated on a very hot day, even in October. It felt smaller than the Cincinnati Zoo, which is where we usually go, but it was clean and the animal exhibits were nice. They had a lot of shows and “ranger talks” included with your admission too. There was a dolphin show that was included with admission that was significantly more than I would have ever expected as a free attraction!
The city of Indianapolis wasn’t great. We didn’t encounter a really nice area of the city; most of it is run down, and there was a lot of homeless downtown. It’s clear that there is a lot of updating underway, and that it’ll probably be a really cool place in a few years. I never felt unsafe, but it was noteworthy that we haven’t visited a city like this since Detroit (although we did find a nice place there, ironically).
All in all, we spent less than we originally projected. A 3 night trip where we were sufficiently entertained, but not overly exhausted (the kids got to bed on time!) for under $1000 was great.
Mr. ODA has been investing in short term savings bonds through Treasury Direct. Per their website: TreasuryDirect.gov is the one and only place to electronically buy and redeem U.S. Savings Bonds. By purchasing directly from the government, you ensure legitimacy of your purchase, and establishing an account provides simplicity for the purchase and ownership of the bonds.
Mr. ODA had already purchased a Series I savings bond over a year ago, and he wrote a post about it. The $5,000 purchase is now worth $5,440.
We’ve now been buying short term treasury bills, which are offered from 4 week to 52 week terms. The bills are sold at a discount and it’s paid at face value. For example, Mr. ODA purchased a $10,000 bill; $9,958.93 was pulled from our account. At the end of 4 weeks, two deposits will be made of $9,958.93 and $41.07. You can set it up to reinvest itself, so then it’ll only pay out the “interest” portion.
There’s a minimum purchase of $100, and it needs to be purchased in $100 increments. The interest rates are “fixed at auction,” and are the difference between what you paid and the face value you get when the bill matures.
*This post was started in November 2022, but our son was born 3 weeks early (and on Thanksgiving), so it fell off my radar for a long time while I caught back up. Let’s dive in now.
We sold our primary home at the beginning of November to move a half hour away and closer to family. It was a new construction home, and we purposely sold when we did to avoid capital gains taxes. If you call it your primary residence for 2 of the last 5 years, you’re exempt from capital gains. Considering the market over the last two years (2020-2022), we were slated to owe a hefty penny if we sold before that 2 year mark.
Had we sold earlier or perhaps waited for the spring, we could have made more. Instead, we opted to be rid of the home, not try to rent, and be able to have that behind us. We were extremely fortunate that we were under contract by the end of the first weekend we listed. The market had cooled significantly from the multi-bid, exorbitant pricing, with appraisal waiving language days.
We only had 2 showings. The first politely let us know they wanted a walk-out basement. We had an amazing basement with 9′ ceilings and no soffits, but it didn’t have a door due to the floodplain. We don’t really understand why, but the backyard was definitely low enough for it to have been a walk out basement. It was one of the red flags that made me uncomfortable living there, along with a long delay for construction on our lot and a few around us due to extensive sink hole surveying. The second showing made us an offer 10k below asking. We sort of split the difference at $495k, and they accepted.
There were several houses listed in that neighborhood for weeks after we closed, that were listed the same weekend as us, so I am eternally grateful that the stars aligned for what we wanted/needed.
PROCEEDS CALCULATION
We purchased the home for $346,793 in November 2020. The contracted purchase price when we sold was $495,000, which was completed in November 2022. That’s a difference of $148,207, but that’s not “take away” money.
As the seller, you’re typically responsible for paying out the Realtor commissions. They’re typically 6%. We asked our Realtor if she would drop it to 5% (buyers agent gets 3%, sellers agent gets 2%) since we had drawn up our purchase contract sight unseen and this was the 4th commission based transaction she had from us in less than 2 years. She agreed. I truly don’t like asking someone to take a lower commission, but due to there being several transactions in a short period of time, many not even needing much effort (showings, phone calls, etc.), I accepted Mr. ODA’s plea to ask. That comes to $24,750 paid in Realtor commissions.
We then have to pay off any loans that used that property as collateral. We had a mortgage and a Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC). We had put 20% down on the purchase, so the mortgage had about $266k left as the balance. The HELOC had been used for a couple of other things than just the down payment on a new home, and it didn’t require principal payments on it while we had it, so that balance was about $86k.
We walked away from the closing table with about $117,000 after tax offsets and such.
PAST DETERMINATIONS FOR WHAT TO DO WITH THE PROCEEDS
In July 2012, we purchased our first home for $380,000. We put 20% down; it was a foreclosure, but the only work we had to do was on the main floor bathroom. When we sold that home Fairfax, VA for $442,500 in October 2015, we paid off a car loan and bought our second two rental properties in Richmond, VA. The car loan was only at 0.9% interest, so it didn’t meet Mr. ODA’s requirements to pay down loans with higher interest rates, but it did alleviate one monthly payment I had to manage. The irony of that statement, now that I manage 14 houses worth of payments all year. We also used those proceeds to put 20% down on the purchase of a new primary home outside of Richmond, which had a purchase price of $359,743. We paid off House1’s mortgage because the loan had a balloon payment that we needed to be ahead of.
When we sold that Richmond home for $399,000 in September 2020, we took about $109k away. We used those proceeds to put 20% down on the purchase of our new home, at $346,793, outside of Lexington, KY. We paid off House4, House6, and House13. Since paying towards a mortgage and not paying it off doesn’t change your monthly cash flow, we focused on where we could eliminate a mortgage payment. We’ve since paid off House11 and House12. House12 had a high interest rate, so we were interested in eliminating that as fast as possible, even though we were paying for it with a partner.
WHERE DID THE MONEY GO THIS TIME
We purchased our current primary home last summer and put work into it. Since we purchased it before selling our house, we used a HELOC to pay for the down payment. That meant that when we walked away from the closing table, the money we were putting in our bank account had no distinct purpose (like in the previous cases where we had to use some of the sale proceeds to buy another primary house).
The first thing we did was open a high yield savings account. At the time, it was necessary because our savings account wasn’t paying market rate. I remember Mr. ODA complaining that interest rates on loans were increasing, but it wasn’t being shown on savings interest side. He found a high yield savings account that gave a sign on bonus (we like that ‘free’ money!). We put $50,000 into that account, earning over 4% interest. The money in that account was removed and put into our regular savings account, which is now earning over 4%.
Since the money didn’t have a purpose, we needed to get it into the market. If we put it all in the market at once, then we’re subject to a lot more fluctuation. To hedge our volatility, we planned to schedule regular investments. It seemed crazy to me, but our financial advisor and Mr. ODA decided on $5,000 per week. That would take 20 weeks to accomplish. To my chagrin, this was set up as an auto transfer. Even with a large balance sitting in the account, it didn’t hurt any less watching $5,000 every week be taken out. This plan didn’t last long though because Mr. ODA found Treasury accounts that act as short term certificates of deposit. My next post will go into this in more detail.
Not an immediate need, and we didn’t rush to buy something for the sake of buying it, but we earmarked about $20k for the purchase of a new van. I love the van we bought in 2019 (which was a used 2017), but it had a few kinks in it. I also felt pretty good about the deal I got on it. However, I didn’t put the time into test driving and looking at this van that I really should have because one of us had to stay in the show room with the kids while the other went for a drive. I also know what I’m looking for in a used car now (that was our first used car experience), versus buying a brand new car that hadn’t been driven by others. It helped that I was looking to buy the same exact van, just newer, so I know how it’s supposed to work and what to test. We ended up finding a van about 2 hours away from us in early 2023. We’re almost a year into this van, and I absolutely love it.
In the back of our minds, we’re still looking for another rental property. There’s an area in town near us that would work for short term rentals, which I’d like to dabble in. We have seriously considered a few, but interest rates have shot it down. A 1500 square foot house, with a $200,000 mortgage, comes to a monthly payment (of just principal and interest) of about $1,400. That’s just not good margins with such high interest on it. We’ll keep an open mind, but so far it isn’t panning out.
SUMMARY
Our savings account is currently earning 4.22%. Mr. ODA is also managing that balance by using the short-term Treasury bills. Since we started with the Treasury bills, we’ve made about $500, which is on top of the interest we’ve earned to date on the savings account, which is over $1600.
We started off with paying the mortgage that had a balloon payment. It was a commercial type loan, so it was amortized over 30 years, but was really only a 5 year loan. We decided to pay it off instead of re-mortgaging it at the end of the 5 years. After we took care of the balloon payment approaching, we started paying off mortgages where we could eliminate a payment (we had multiple houses with $30-60k worth of a balance), and then moved onto paying off high interest rate mortgages (for reference, a high interest rate was 5% … which is much different than today’s mortgage rates being “good” at 7.5%). We went through the process to refinance several mortgages, so we’re at a point where we’re happy with the mortgages that are left. If we wanted 100% cash flow, we’d start paying towards principal balances. However, we don’t feel that’s necessary for our current situation. We have 6 mortgages left (including our personal residence) out of 14 houses.
We definitely are more hands on with our money management than most people are going to be interested in. Now that we’re happy with our mortgage situation, we are focused on the interest side of our money working for us. With multiple Treasury bills that are reinvested for short periods of time (4 week and 8 week bills), then we’re able to earn quick interest while we don’t have a purpose for that money.
One of our houses has a balloon payment again (commercial loan). That will come due in about 3.5 years. Considering what current interest rates are, it doesn’t appear that refinancing is as enticing as just paying off the balance or selling the house. We’ll have to keep that in mind as we work on investments and having enough liquid cash over the coming years, because that loan’s balance is going to be about $173k at the end of the 5 year term.
For now, we’re in a good money management state with several short term bills and a savings account rate over 4%.
Our net worth took a hit this month, over $96k less than last month. I updated the value of each house we own. I don’t do this regularly anymore because it doesn’t change significantly month-to-month and it’s very time consuming. The market is cooling from the multiple-bid market we were in over the last few years, so home values are starting to come down ever so slightly. They’re still much higher than what they were 3 years ago (and I have tax assessments to prove the pain of that), but it does affect our net worth this month since it’s lower than it had been.
Also affecting our net worth is the market itself. It’s down, which it does around this time every year (confirmed through the history of my financial update posts). Our investment accounts are slightly down, our cash is significantly down because I paid off a large credit card balance and because Mr. ODA has transferred to a Treasury account for some of it, and our investment property values are down.
We opened a new credit card this month because we have purchased new carpet for our house (our entire second floor except 2 bathrooms, the stairs, and the living room all add up very quickly). As I’ve shared numerous times, when we’re about to have a large purchase, we look to open a new credit card that we can use as a loan. Sure, we have the cash available to pay this immediately, but wouldn’t it be nice to earn interest on your cash balance for 12-15 months and get some sort of sign-on bonus from the company?
I paid off our last 0% interest credit card at the end of September. But our credit card balance is still slightly higher than I’d expect because I haven’t paid last month’s statement on one, which is almost $3,000. I used to try to pay off all balances before doing a net worth update so that it was the most accurate, but now that we’re keeping Mr. ODA’s paycheck separate and trying to capitalize on interest to earn, credit cards aren’t paid until the last minute. We’re also still carrying about $30k worth of insurance money that we can’t seem to spend because State Farm is doing their hardest to drag their feet and restart our claims process each week.
I have a house that hasn’t paid a penny towards rent this month. She did let us know that it’ll be paid in October some time (no date or expectation given to me is infuriating). If she doesn’t pay something tomorrow (assuming we’re two Fridays into the month for pay checks), I’ll give a warning about the notice of default being given.
Today’s post is going to be short and sweet. Well, that’s how I think to start every thought I have to share, and it turns into a novel with research and ‘citations.’ Let’s see how this goes. Update: It’s long, there’s a legal citation, and I ‘teach’ math. Sorry. 😛
We have two houses with flat roofs. They’re a pain. They always seem to leak, and no one wants to work on them.
In 2019, we had issues with a house that had an internal ice dam and gutter system, in addition to a flat roof over an extension. Water kept leaking in the kitchen. After two years of issues, we finally had a roofer respond to our request for help on a flat roof. As soon as a roofer hears “flat roof,” they seem to shut down and say they don’t work on flat roofs. Here was the quote.
So we had this work done for $1,900, and we haven’t heard about the roof since.
We have another house where there was a flat roof added to an addition. In 2017, we had a roofer replace the roof. Somewhere, something was lost in translation of the job. We thought he’d address the flat roof and fix it, incorporating it into the main roof line. He finished the job, and it was clear that was not part of the scope as we thought, even though that was the whole reason we called him out. He simply said “I don’t work on flat roofs.” That wasn’t clear when we asked you to give us a quote, and how do you just ignore that there’s another roof line as a roofer?
The more we spent time and money on this roof, the more it came to light what happened. It appears that there was a deck that eventually was covered with a corrugated metal sheet. Then someone decided they wanted a laundry room, so they built a laundry room under this metal sheet. The roof line wasn’t properly insulated from water infiltration. We had several issues of water leaking into the laundry room. Mr. ODA put silicone and caulk along the roofline as a stopgap because roofers weren’t acknowledging us. We thought we had fixed it, and I had put a lot of effort into fixing the wet drywall and repainting the room. After two years, the silicone finally gave way.
Our property manager was able to get 3-4 roofers to come look at the job, but only 2 gave us a quote (why is it a norm to just ghost customers and not have the decency to close the loop and say you don’t want the job?). One of the contractors didn’t appear to understand the job, and that concerned me. He seemed to want to redo the entire roof, and that was definitely not in our finances for this house because we replaced the roof 3 years ago. Then he also suggested a ‘TPO roof’ for the flat roof. I don’t know what that is, and I didn’t like that the explanation to me started with “it’s a flat roof that…” No. I’m done with “flat.” Did I give it a fair chance? No. Do I care? No. I wanted a pitched roof line. This is important for later in the story.
I had several concerns about the other roofer’s estimate, but they were less fundamental (or so I thought). First, I was concerned about the terminology being used as a porch. Perhaps it’s just me, but I call the open-air overhang on the front of the house the porch, and the open-air part attached to the back of the house a deck. I was concerned that the terminology “pitched roof” was not explicit enough to our end goal. I questioned that his removal of the corrugated metal roof would leave the deck exposed, so the gutters would need to be rerouted and added. I also questioned about how he was going to cover the sides once the pitch was created – would it be just painted or would it be sided, and if sided, how would he match it to look right.
I had my property manager call him, I called him, and I emailed him, but I received no response. I was trying to confirm the scope of work. Mr. ODA told me that these contractors are good at their job, but not good at the administrative side, so just let it go. I was an auditor; accurate documentation for a job is important to me. 🙂
Here’s how it was written:
I decided to try to be easy going. There was a space for comments when I accepted the proposal. I added: I’m accepting this estimate based on the verbal agreement with [property manager] that the scope of work is confirmed as removing the flat roof over the DECK and laundry room (not sure ‘porch’ terminology), that the deck won’t be covered again and a lean-to roof will be put over the laundry room, and that all gutter systems will be appropriately rerouted to divert water from the house.
He gave me the quote on June 23rd. I accepted this work on July 5th. He kept delaying us. He would say “I’m going to get the materials today, so we’ll be there tomorrow.” Tomorrow never came. On August 25, he said he was going to 100% start the following Monday and be done by Wednesday. He finally called on Wednesday, and he said, “I got my guys out there today. I decided to do a TPO roof instead.” You’re kidding me, right? He kept pushing that it’s a “better” roof than a pitched roof, and I should be ok with it. Except, I signed a contract. The contract did not say their job was to install a TPO roof. I said that was unacceptable and I wanted a pitched roof. Here’s the picture that I received at that point. It looks really flat to me, and it has the point where it meets the main house still below the roof line (although you probably can’t tell there as well here).
On September 5th, he said they should be out the following day to finish it as a pitched roof. It took until September 11th for us to be told that the roof was done. As you can see, the gutters were not addressed. Luckily he said he’d get right out to fix that, and he did, which was appreciated.
While you can see that there has been a slight pitch added, it is not a sufficient pitch as required for asphalt shingles. Did I know there was a minimum slope requirement for asphalt shingles before September? Nope. But you bet I read up on it and figured it out as fast as I could. Nearly all manufacturers of asphalt shingles have a minimum requirement of a 2:12 slope. On top of that, Virginia Code has the same slope requirement.
This means that for every foot, the rise of the tallest point must be twice that in inches. A 7 foot long distance from the top of the pitch to the outer wall requires a 14 inch rise at the tallest point. That’s the simplest way I’ve been able to describe it.
While the connection point in the second try is above the wall/roof intersection, and it may have been ‘fine,’ I wasn’t here to spend $3,800 on “fine.” He kept pushing that he guarantees his work for 5 years. He also pointed out that a tropical storm was on its way that coming weekend, so it would essentially be a good stress test. So, he was asking me to pay him for a job that was “good enough” and hope that if there was a problem, he’d come back and fix it. No thanks.
He got up on the roof, held up a piece of metal (with no level), and claimed that his zoomed in distance was 2″ off the roof, so it was 2:12. Once I finally got to the point of saying, “what’s the distance from the house?” He said 7′. I said “so the rise has to be double that, so 14″. Is it 14″?” He said no and that he’d fix it. He finally got it done last week. He took pictures along the way to prove that he did the job correctly since I called him on not doing it correctly (or let’s just do the work right to begin with instead of hoping a homeowner won’t question it – where’s integrity these days).
All that was to share that you should do your due diligence when hiring contractors. Don’t assume that they’re going to do the right thing because they’re probably going to assume you’re not well-educated in their field. By no means am I a roofing expert at this point, but I appreciate knowing something new. I just wish I didn’t have to learn things quickly in order to protect my ‘investments.’ So now you also know that there are manufacturer requirements, in addition to your expected state-wide requirements in most fields. Take the time to be educated just enough or have someone you can trust to point out where it went wrong. In this case, I said “that doesn’t look like what I expected,” and I had our handyman look at it. He said the pitch isn’t enough, and that’s where I learned that there are minimum slope requirements. It’s hard because I didn’t know what I didn’t know, but I appreciated having other trusted people to bounce questions off of.
Here’s an unpopular opinion: you don’t need to buy all the amenities to have a good vacation.
Our financial advisor has a saying in his family, “we can’t afford ice cream.” If they wanted to, they could clearly pay for their family to have an ice cream night on vacation. However, they choose not to spend their money in such a way for the sake of the big picture.
The point I’m trying to make here is that you need to stop and think about an expense. I can’t remember what the item was, but when I went to pay for it, it was $8. It’s not that I couldn’t afford to purchase something at $8. It was simply that this item was worth $2 to me. The value of it was not $6 more of my money.
This post (or rant) started because of this Facebook post that was made in a local mom’s group. Apologies for the large image, but you couldn’t read the numbers until I got it this big.
Quite a few people echoed my point – stop with the add-ons. You can have a great day without the additional amenities/activities, and without the all day dining options. We had a season pass to the Cincinnati Zoo. We ate before we entered, packed snacks, and then ate on the way home if needed – at McDonald’s, with deals (we lived over an hour away from the zoo, so sometimes we couldn’t plan it to have only one meal while out). At a similar place to Kings Island, I know people who have packed coolers and left them in the car because you’re allowed to exit and re-enter.
Not buying extras holds true for any event. Your kid doesn’t need a $20 light up wand, that will be promptly forgotten about at the 48 hour mark, at Disney on Ice. The show itself was exciting and a “treat,” so let it stand alone. Your kid doesn’t need a $15 ice cream at the theme park. Simply let them enjoy the experience without developing a sense of entitlement or expectation that they’re going to get a “treat” every time you’re out.
I completely understand the mentality of “go big” for vacations because it’s a special time. But what is that worth? I know some people spend all year saving up to go to Disney, and they want the “full” experience. Disney itself is very expensive, but then you start spending on gift shop paraphernalia and food in the park, you’ve now spent a small fortune for hours of entertainment.
DISCIPLINE
Instead of only being disciplined for those few days per year, focus on the question: what is each individual dollar worth? I have an entire post where I share the thought process and conundrum I faced for purchasing a $4 weighted tape dispenser. Seriously. While you’ve “saved” for this vacation, what if that saving mentality helped you be able to pay your regular bills along the way? Or what if instead of spending extra money on vacation, that money went towards paying for school supplies? It’s all about creating the mentality and discipline to ask yourself what the value of something is, both to you and to the economy – if you’d pay $2 for a water bottle outside a stadium, is it worth paying $6 inside the stadium? Or could you plan ahead and bring your own water?
This irritation isn’t only for vacations. A friend of mine would leave their house to go to a nearby gas station to buy gatorade and soda bottles. You were at home! If going to the gas station is a regular occurrence, and you enjoy drinking soda out of a bottle, why don’t you get a multi-pack and keep it in your refrigerator? Then there’s the person I used to live across the street from who would order door dash regularly. It probably averaged to once per day; some days there was two deliveries, and some times she may skip a day. Then she posted a GoFundMe for help to pay for her tuition and books to finish her RN. She also posted all the amazing toys (excessive and expensive) she got her kids for Christmas, while also complaining about her son’s behavior being out of control, and that her daughter was being so bad that she got tv in her room taken away – wait, why does a THREE YEAR OLD have a tv in her room? So tell me again how you can’t make ends meet, and how you need help finishing your degree, while you have zero discipline on spending the money you do have. Why is it everyone else’s problem to fix for you when you’re putting no effort yourself? I’ve digressed.
OUR RECENT TRIP
We just went on a trip to Jellystone. My son had asked to go back to a cave since we left a cave last year. He’s obsessed with space and Earth. He was 4 at the time of this trip. For 2 adult tickets, all 5 of us were able to take a 2-hour tour at Mammoth Cave (children 5 and under are free). That was $40 worth of entertainment. I figured it was a good time to take advantage of their pricing structure before it would become $60 next time we’d try to go. While I felt the $40 was worth our time and money, I mildly regret it. His excitement for the caves was worth it, but we missed out on activities at Jellystone that I think they would have enjoyed. At 4 years old, we could have easily skirted the cave desire because he doesn’t know that a cave is 20 minutes away when we’re at this location.
We paid $433 for a 4 bedroom cabin for two nights, and that included a $50 charge for bringing a pet. We packed all our food for all the meals. My choice to allow the kids to stay up way past bedtime and for the two older ones to share a room cost us on day 2; I promised them ice cream if they powered through the cave, so that was $14 for all of us to have ice cream, which wouldn’t typically be an expense we incur. Other than the cost of gas to go 260 miles roundtrip, we spent nothing else.
There were opportunities to pay for things. We could have rented a golf cart for $70 per day. We could have paid for the mining sluice, which didn’t have a price advertised, and would have been 3 minutes of entertainment. We actually did try to do their obstacle course, but none of our kids were tall enough. Instead, we took advantage of their amenities. We drove pedal cars, played at their numerous playgrounds, went swimming, went to their beach to play in the sand and swim, ran around the splash pad, did their craft times, attended their character greetings, played bingo, played minigolf. We probably just sat at the cabin for a total of 3 hours between 3 pm check in on day 1 and 11 am check out on day 3; we even let the kids stay up until 8:30/9 (their usual bed time is 6:30).
UPCHARGES
So let’s look into amenities at GWL. I’m going to look at Mason, OH’s location. First, because it’s the one closest to me, so I’m familiar with it, but also because whenever there’s a Groupon for $99 nights, Mason is always $149. That tells me that Mason’s probably on the middle-to-higher end of amenities and their cost.
For a weekend in October, my room options range from $410 to $1035 per night. They provide a rate calendar option for you to see the rates on other nights because you may feel that $1035 for a night in a water park and hotel is absurd (I hope you do….). I also encourage booking with a code (there’s a Facebook group that shares active codes for deals), using a Groupon, or planning in advance and being flexible on dates.
You select a room option (I picked $410), and then it offers you a late checkout option. Check out is 11 am. For $50, you can stay in the room until 2 pm. What are you going to do with your room between 11 am and 2 pm? When this option is presented to you on the screen, what are you thinking? Are you thinking it must be a necessity because it’s being offered? Are you thinking that it’s needed because you don’t want to “leave” at 11 am? Or are you really thinking about the cost/benefit ratio of this charge? Are you expecting to be done with the water park for the day at 1:30, so you’ll go shower and change before the 2 pm check out? If I’m spending the day at the resort, I don’t see where I need the room between 11 and 2. I have one exception, which is very specific right now. If I hadn’t just paid $400 for a night there, I may consider the upgrade because we still have a napping kid from 11-1, so that could be helpful, but that’s not worth the additional $50 to me, personally.
GWL does a good job at pushing their pass options. There are 3 levels, ranging from $50-70. The options include a variety of: MagiQuest, Build-A-Bear, Mining Sluice, mini golf, bowling, GWL goggles, $5 to the arcade, candy, and an ice cream. Purchased individually, the price for the pass is a better deal by a few dollars than if you purchased these individually. However, do you have the time to do ALL of these activities and enjoy the water park? If you’re staying one or two nights, you likely don’t have the time to get the most out of everything. Don’t forget that they offer several ‘free’ activities (e.g., yoga, character greetings, bed time story, crafts, etc.) each day as well, not to mention that you’ve just spend $400 on the stay to play in the water park.
Don’t forget that on top of the room rate, there are taxes and a resort fee. If I wanted to stay for two nights with 2 adults and 3 kids (even though one is less than a year old), with no extra purchases, my total is $1,023.70. That’s $820 for the room, $124 for taxes, and $80 for resort fee.
These options that are presented don’t even include all the options you can pay for. For instance, you can rent a cabana. You have to call to book it, but I’ve seen it priced at $200 and at $500 for it. It’s not private. It’s not secluded. It’s not secure for your belongings. Make sure you ask yourself what you’re getting for that cost and if that money could be put to better use.
As a kid, we used to go to Lake George. We joked that it was our vacation from our vacation. The point of Lake George was to do nothing. You played in the pool at the hotel, walked the town, and got ice cream each night. It was relaxing. I remember lots of our trips, but Lake George sticks out as a favorite. Even our trips that were busy – it was busy because we were sightseeing and driving far; it wasn’t busy because we were paying for activities and trinkets.
We went to Disney on Ice, and my son still thanks me for the experience; he didn’t get any trinkets while we were there, and he still loved the experience. Your kids will remember the time they spent with you. That’s the point of the vacation – spending uninterrupted time with your family, not making it an exhausting, jam packed few days where kids are overstimulated and sleep deprived.
This isn’t a parenting advice post. It’s simply a moment to stop and think about your spending. Take the time to determine whether a dollar spent on an activity is worth that dollar’s cost in your day’s/week’s/month’s/year’s goals. The tape dispenser. Truthfully, I didn’t know it only cost $4. Regardless, I still took the time to consider whether buying this thing that I need for 1-2 days per year was really worth spending our money on, or could that money be put to better use.
In 2021, we purposefully took trips each month. We had looked into buying a vacation home, and we decided that we’d rather go to different places each trip than the same place over and over. The mortgage was going to be about $1200, so we allocated that much as our trip budgets. In May, we spend $618; June was $200; July was $690; August was $1069. I say this for perspective.
Take the time to analyze the spending that you’re doing, independent of the deals being offered. Will that one trip be worth the cost of it? Will the money spent for that trip be worth anything that you may have to give up to make that trip happen?
I share these turnover stories for both sides. I want to show landlords that others go through what they go through. I also want tenants to see that if you communicate regularly and are up front, a landlord can work with you in nearly every situation. It’s the surprises that landlords don’t want to manage. I think back to my time as a teller in a bank – if you were nice to me, I had leeway; if you demanded action from me without any polite undertone, I knew every single rule that there was.
We bought this house in June of 2017. We had to put a little bit of work into it, and we had it rented in September. That tenant needed to break the lease early, but she had a family member who wanted to take over the lease. She passed the background check and moved in mid-July of 2018. She’s lived there ever since. Her lease renewed on an annual basis, July 1 through June 30. She rarely asked for anything, kept up the house as if she was going to live there forever (at least as of my last inspection), and was friendly.
In February, she messaged us that she’d be leaving the house as of April 30th. Even though her lease went through June 30th, she had given us plenty of notice, and a May rental is easy enough to get rented (we typically see less people looking for a lease in the Fall and Winter), so we went with it.
Shortly before she let us know that she’d be leaving, I had an old tenant ask if we had something available. We didn’t, but once she gave notice, I messaged the old tenant back. We ended up going through the process of screening the person she had interested (a friend of her’s) and approving him. Not having to list the house for rent, show the house, and then review several applications is a positive.
TENANT NOTICE
Not that this matters now, but to share how people act, I’m going to include this story. Be a nice person. Be a straightforward person. Take responsibility for your actions. Skip this section to get back to the actual turnover work we did.
On February 7, she said she would move out on April 30 and will leave the house “in impeccable condition ready for the next tenant.” It was understandable that she needed more space, and she shared that she had secured another place already. She stated she’d send a formal letter, but that never happened. She also shared that she will leave a shed she had purchased, and that she already had paint on hand to give the walls a fresh coat.
On March 13, she shared concerns about the house that we should address (according to her) before another tenant moves in. She again stated, “the house [will be] spotless and freshly painted and the grass will be mowed.” She said the house needs a power wash, windows replaced, and the bathtub resurfaced. Then the fun. She changed the lock on the yard gate, and she hadn’t told us until now. She said she replaced the lock on the back door because she “was burglarized twice.” The house gets broken into and you don’t think to let your landlord know OR to let them know you changed the lock??
Here’s the next kicker. “I officially move into the new house on Wednesday, but I’ll be taking the extra time to get everything moved and in order for the [current] house.” That “Wednesday” would have been March 15.
There was a lot more back and forth, but we communicated through my property manager at this point because my property manager was handling her husband getting in there to get some work done. We were told that we could get in to start work before the end of April so that we could rent it right away.
Then comes April 19. “I had to push back the date to give a key for the contractor until .. the 26th.” Then came all the stories. Guilt inducing stories. She also stated she was about 80% moved out. She said “everything will be ready by my move out on the 30th.” So I laid down what we were told at that point. We had been told (either through our texts or through my property manager) of several “move” dates. Now we’re told she’s not out and has no intention of letting us see the property, let alone get work done, which is what we agreed to previously.
I politely stated I had concerns. I went into the background of who these people are that are “working” for me, and that they’re friends. I tried to ease her feelings of a random man entering the house (that she had told us she had moved out of on three different occasions). My biggest issue at this point was having a new tenant commencement date. No, I don’t need access before the end of your lease, but that’s not the expectations that were set. So I made future plans based on the agreement we had. If the house wasn’t going to be ready, I needed to line up contractors for the first week of May. I wanted to know the needs now, not on April 30th when no one is available for weeks.
She had said she was going to paint, but it was clear that her timeliness was not in line, and that this would fall on me. I said “You had mentioned that you would repaint the walls before the end of April. That was very generous of you, but it’s not required. However, if you won’t be painting the walls, I need to know that now because I need to get a painter scheduled basically today to be able to have him there on May 1st.” She double downed that the house would be painted.
I also was upset that she changed the locks without telling me (a lease violation, as well as a common sense violation). Had I known and been provided a key, then I would have already given my property manager the key. Instead, she’s holding the key hostage because she doesn’t know MY property manager, and that was unacceptable.
On April 23rd, she told me that no one was to do work on the house until after her lease was over. I was too frustrated to provide pleasantries at this point. I said “I explicitly asked the status of that.” And I said “you said we could be in after Wednesday and that May 1st wouldn’t be an issue. I was trying to prevent exactly this situation – a last minute surprise that affects our schedule/business.” More excuses. And I do understand that people who hand out excuses like lollipops in a doctors office don’t realize that’s how they’re acting, but it’s quite frustrating being on the receiving end of an endless list of excuses that are meant to cause guilt.
My handyman went over there on April 26 and took pictures of two rooms (it’s a two bedroom house…) with stuff packed to the ceiling. And then she shared that she forgot about things in the attic during the final walk through. “80% moved.”
We ended up pushing the new tenant to May 5th as the move in date. Had we kept it on May 1st, we would be liable for “damages” in some way by not providing him a place to live on the commencement date. So we quickly got a new lease signed with a commencement date of May 5th.
TURNOVER WORK
We had the entire house painted. There were an obscene amount of decals left on the walls that had to be removed. They had been on too long, and the paint came with the pieces or it left indents, so they had to be sanded down. Then there were also an obscene amount of command strips all over the walls that had to be removed, and the walls repaired because they were knock off command strips and not the real ones that actually come off easily. Since the house was beige and needed so much prep work for painting, I decided to just change the color. Our handyman had to do all the prep work and then do two full coats of my light green color on all the walls.
On top of painting all the walls, he had to fix some of the trim. My tenant decided to [poorly] paint SOME (not all) of the trim black. Doors were painted black, trim was painted black. It was not good. So I then had to pay for 4 coats of paint on the trim work to get it to white. It was originally the same beige as the walls, so for $3,500, the house now has all white trim and a pretty light green wall color, which probably brightened the space nicely.
When we bought the house, the tub had been painted and started peeling. It wasn’t something we had the expertise to manage. The tub was original (read: cast iron, heavy), and the paint wasn’t horrible enough to warrant immediate action. We covered the main issue with a mat in the tub, but over the last several years, it wore away. We had our handyman epoxy bathtub. While he was at it, he also epoxied the walls to cover the blue tile. I didn’t hate the blue tile, but someone at some point had repaired the wall by the toilet, and then replaced the blue tile with white/beige tile.
That’s what it looked like when we bought the house, and this is what it looks like now. The decal on the toilet is icing on the cake for this saga.
Then there were random little tasks that my handyman had to do, like replacing door knobs that had been removed and scraping the paint off my brand new windows. He also had to change the locks on the house because we think she kept helping herself back into the house, and we had to change the lock on the laundry room door because she couldn’t find the key.
SECURITY DEPOSIT
In Virginia, I have 45 days to return the security deposit or share the charges placed against the deposit. I learned early on to take the full 45 days because tenants don’t provide their final utility bills (as required by the lease), and so I don’t want to return the security deposit only to find a surprise utility bill 30 days later. So while I knew the charges by the end of the first week after this tenant vacated, I waited to ensure no surprises popped up.
In my disposition letters, I reiterate the lease agreement terms, including the amount of security deposit that was held from the beginning of the lease term. In this case, I reiterated that her lease term went through June 30th, even though her notice was given through April 30th. I also shared that the itemized list I provided doesn’t include items that I couldn’t fix yet or that I hadn’t fixed yet (e.g., stickers on the once-brand-new vanity, spray foam on windows, and the lack of proper yard maintenance). I also stated that we had days of lost rent due to the condition of the house when it was vacated, which she isn’t charged for. With all those caveats, the total still came to about $2,800. The security deposit I held was $945. This left a balance of $1,937, which I chose to not pursue collection on.
I have not heard from that tenant since the letter.
NEW TENANT
The first tenant ever had contacted me and asked for a place for someone she knew. I didn’t have one at that moment, but this house came available shortly after that conversation. I sent the background check to the new person, and he passed everything. We had agreed on a May 1st commencement date. I had some delays with the passing of my mother, but then I gave the new lease to our property manager. The new tenant dragged his feet on getting it signed, which was a red flag. He struggled with getting the first month and security deposit funds together, which was another red flag since he had two months notice for this agreement. Luckily, there have been no issues since we got everything squared away on May 5th.
When we first started renting this house, the goal was 1% of the purchase price as monthly rental income. This would equate to about $650. However, the market rent at that time called for higher, and we had rent set at $795 from 2017 through 2023, never having raised the rent on the tenant. With the drastic increases in property values, therefore causing increases in my taxes and insurance bills, rent was now set at $925. Had I listed the house for rent, I would have listed at $950. Since this was an “off market” agreement, I was comfortable with a rent reduction.
SUMMARY
All in all, this was an easy turnover. Having the contacts of a handyman is greatly beneficial at this point. For a small house that’s under 900 square feet, we spent a lot more than we typically would for turnover. We project turnover to cost 10% of the annual rental income. In this case, that would have been under $1000. However, we didn’t have to turnover the house for 5 years. That’s about $5,000 had we turned over the house every year. So the total bill coming in at just over $3,800 essentially says we’re still “coming out on top.” It also provided us an opportunity to increase rent closer to market value. We’re 4+ months into this tenant’s tenure, and all seems well.
It’s the calm before the storm with rental payments. We’ll owe multiple jurisdictions’ tax payments over the next month. We only have 5 houses with an escrow account, so I’m responsible for insurance and tax payments on my own. I don’t mind it because that means I don’t have to keep money tied up in an escrow account balance, but it does mean that there are large outlays multiple times a year that need to be properly accounted for.
I recently made a post about late rent payments this month. The one who I continue to charge late fees didn’t even pay on the day they said they would. I despise having to hunt tenants down for payment. She emailed me that “September 5th payment” would be late (ugh … it’s due on the 1st, maybe plan for that day instead), she said it would be paid on the 8th. I had to ask on the morning of the 9th where the payment was. I was giving her a few hours to respond and planned to send a notice of default. Lucky for them, I got distracted and busy, and I didn’t get around to it. They finally responded Saturday night that they had lost power and were distracted, but they sent payment then.
I paid out the invoice from our handyman that I had been waiting on, which was $810. I had mentioned that I’m waiting for an invoice from our HVAC guy, but I think he’s not charging me for the service since he had to go back after installing a new condenser. I’m STILL waiting on the roofer to complete the job on one rental. I signed the proposal on July 5th. He finally started the job at the end of August, but decided to change my scope of work without approval. That delayed the project another week. Then I have no idea what has happened over the past week and a half, but supposedly it’s finally done.
A plumber came out for a hot water heater issue at one of the properties. The tankless water heater wasn’t powered on. I don’t even know how that happens, but it seems like something that may become a bigger issue. The company even said they don’t service or work on electric tankless water heaters, so I don’t even know where we would go from here.
PERSONAL FINANCES
In my last financial update, I mentioned that our insurance adjuster had finally came out, three weeks after the tree falling on our deck. He took a week to get us the estimate. We then responded the next day with all the errors and omissions in the estimate. It then took 3 weeks for our email to be acknowledged (even with multiple phone calls). We finally escalated this two weeks ago (State Farm doesn’t make it easy to escalate beyond your desk adjuster answer the phone), had an estimate redone by our adjuster (supposedly) about 12 days ago, who then told us the supervisor approval process would be 3-4 days. Giving the holiday of Labor Day and benefit of doubt, we didn’t push it until Monday, hoping they’d do the right thing and get us information. Mr. ODA saw that we had been reassigned a field adjuster on their portal. So guess what? For an event that occurred over 10 weeks ago, we’re starting over! Lovely.
I paid the kids’ tuition for preschool late. Luckily there’s no late fee charged. The school “opens” links each month. I tried to pay it around the 20th of August for September because I knew the last two weeks were going to be crazy with visitors. When I couldn’t pay it that day, I completely forgot about it. I was part of the “hey, you didn’t pay” email from the director – so embarrassing. Our oldest is going 5 days a week, so now his tuition is $350 per month; our second’s tuition is $175 per month.
Our 0% introductory interest rate on our credit card we opened 15 months ago expires at the end of this month, so that’s over $5k that needs to be paid. Then our credit card statement balance owed on our regular card is about $4,800 because of large rental property expenses. I haven’t paid it yet because I need to transfer money from savings, so I’m waiting until the last minute to do that so we can earn interest on that amount.
NET WORTH
Nothing too exciting to note here. Credit cards are still high, but that will be significantly different next month with our 0% interest card being paid off.
I asked Mr. ODA for his 401k updated amount yesterday, and he made a comment that I should wait to update until today because the market went up yesterday. I had already done the majority of the work, but an ailment and children meant I didn’t get to posting yesterday. So this morning, I updated just our investment account totals to see the difference. The chart above is yesterday’s numbers. Today’s 401k, IRA, and taxable investment account totals are $10,000 higher today than yesterday. That means that if I had updated the numbers today instead of yesterday, we’d be showing an increase in net worth from last month’s update by about $6,000. Instead, I’m showing a slightly lower net worth by about $4,000. It just goes to show how much the market can affect the numbers on any given day, and my net worth in trending generally upwards, but it may not seem that way because of one day’s market closure.
One Dollar Allowance 