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New Year Organization

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I had a couple of posts teed up to reflect on last year’s finances and activities, but having some conversations with people made me realize that things that I find basic, aren’t for others. I thought I’d share some things that I do that help me be more successful (calm) in my day. I’m not an organization expert. I’m not the “lazy genius” that gets touted (although, I don’t see people executing what they learn there). I’ve found things over the years that have helped me keep my brain straight. This particular post isn’t financial related, but part 2 will be (but next week will be the monthly financial update, so come back in week 3 this month).

Even though I broke this up, it’s still long. Skim the middle, unless it’s pertinent to you, but the summary ties it up at the end.

I have my own home’s finances, thirteen rental properties, three kids with two in school (and they go different days of the week), investments (and Mr. ODA’s constant moving of money!), and whatever other ad hoc bills show up to manage. I don’t have the ability to think in a quiet and distraction-free environment after 7:30 am. I adapted so that I don’t feel stressed because I’m trying to pay bills while the baby is nipping at my heels and the 3 and 5 year olds are asking me for endless snacks.

Please note that I’m a stay at home mom that manages our rental properties part time and works ad hoc as a substitute. I fully acknowledge that all of this isn’t relatable to someone who is out of the house from 7 am until 5 pm, but I will point out that getting systems in place will make your shorter time at home less stressful.

For a real-time, real-life example, I’m frustrated because my writing of this post has bled into Mr. ODA and two kids being awake, and so I’m trying to finish my thoughts here while Kid #1 tells me about his 14 stuffed animals he brought down from his room, Kid #2 is telling me about her puppy and two babies, and Mr. ODA is asking me to meal plan for my dad’s visit. So here’s why I wake up before anyone else. 🙂

START YOUR DAY RIGHT

I wake up around 6:15 everyday. The kids are in preschool, which starts at 9. When my oldest starts school next year, I’ll start setting an alarm to be awake around 5:15 because I think he needs to be out the door at 6:45.

I know people who even say “I’m not a morning person,” who set an alarm and agree that starting your day without distractions from what you want to achieve makes for a better day.

I start my coffee and make something small for breakfast. I’ve learned that if I don’t eat something, then suddenly it’s 9:30, I’m frustrated by being asked for second breakfast by the kids while I haven’t eaten anything for myself (because if I make any move towards food, suddenly the kids NEED food right then also, even if they just ate). I eat something small, and then around 10 I have … I guess … “second breakfast.” I also learned that if I take time to actually sit and eat a bigger breakfast first thing in the morning, then I’m anxious to get to the other things that I want to do, so it doesn’t help me feel successful to the start of the day.

I empty the dishwasher. If you have young kids, maybe you’re lucky that they don’t see something and then immediately need that thing they wouldn’t have otherwise asked for, but I’d venture to say that’s not the majority. If I’m emptying the dishwasher and laying out their cups, waiting for their matching straw or lid to also get unloaded, they suddenly need milk in that specific cup. Therefore, I unload the dishwasher before anyone is awake and there’s no distraction.

I then make each kid their own water bottle. This was a surprising step to a few people recently. Sometimes this means just filling up the same water bottle as the day before, which is probably sitting on the counter from yesterday. Sometimes their water bottle was washed, so it was just unloaded from the dishwasher. I have specific water bottles that are our “everyday use” water bottles. They’re leakproof. They have a handle. This is what gets carted around when we leave the house. Having a full water cup means that I’m not in the middle of doing something and being asked for water. I refill the water at lunch and dinner, but sometimes there’s a request for more in between.

I set their water bottle and their respective vitamin on the table. When the kids wake up, they go to the table, eat their vitamin, and put their breakfast request in. Sometimes, I’m really on top of things, and I make a breakfast before they wake up (e.g., not cereal). If there’s a plate of food in their “spot,” then they typically just sit at the table and eat it. Most mornings, I’m giving a list of a few options and letting them pick.

I prepare their snack and water for school, if it’s a school day. Again, if I start rummaging through the pantry while they’re awake, they suddenly have preferences and questions. It’s better if I just have it done. As a compromise, I offered my oldest the ability to pick out his own snack every Friday. He wakes up before anyone else, so I have him pick it out before #2 wakes up (who wants everything #1 has or is doing).

If it’s a day that I want to pay bills and/or update our financial tracking spreadsheet, then I also make time for that before anyone wakes up. I can run through our finances in about 10 minutes without distraction. Sometimes, my son wakes up before I get to it, and then for 30 minutes I’m fielding questions about stuffed animals while also trying to keep track of what I’ve already updated.

I know a lot of people lay out their kids clothes the night before. Perhaps this will become part of my routine when my oldest needs to be out the door at 6:45, but at this point, we have plenty of time in the morning to get dressed and ready.

MIDDAY RESETS

I’ve consistently used a child’s nap time to reset the house. Pick up toys that are out (not everything, but most of what hasn’t been touched for a few hours). Clean up any dishes that have been left out. This started with my first’s nap time, and was really because I couldn’t physically sit and relax while I saw toys scattered around the floor or dishes piled on the counter. It has evolved over the years as we’ve had more kids, but the general gist is the same – give it a quick reset, but not a perfect clean up. It’s going to get messed up again before bed time, but it’ll be less items to manage at that time.

Now that my kids are a little older, I task them with it too. Since tidying our house has always been something they’ve seen, they do it well. While I put the baby down for a nap, it indicates that it’s time for them to straighten up. If they put their “morning toys” away, they get to watch a couple of episodes of a show.

I’m a stickler for pieces of toys to stay with each other, so this helps manage that toys don’t have pieces go missing. It also gives everyone a fresh slate to pick out new toys to play with, and it helps no one feel overwhelmed by the state of the room.

I clean up anything left over from lunch, wipe down the table and high chair, and at least get the dishes to the sink, if not the dishwasher. I used to fight anything being left in the sink, but I’ve let go of that.

I then use the baby’s nap time and the bigger kids’ tv time to make any phone calls needed, catch up on any financial things I didn’t get to in the morning, or clean a room.

END YOUR DAY RIGHT

Reset your house.

The two big kids go to bed around 6:30. After they’re in bed, I pick up most toys and clean up after dinner. When I clean, I focus on one room at a time. I start in the living room because rarely am I going to find something in the kitchen that belongs in the living room, but I’ll have items in the living room that need to go to the kitchen.

From the living room, I put any toys away that belong in that room. If a toy is meant to be in the basement, it gets put at the top of the stairs. If there’s a bedroom-related item that got left behind, it gets put at the bottom of the stairs. In both those cases, when someone walks to that area, they’re supposed to bring that to the next floor; in reality, I’m the only one who really does that. If there’s a cup or a plate, it gets put on the kitchen table (because that’s the closest to the living room). The point here is to work in phases. Don’t exert the energy to carry one toy all the way to the basement, to then see that another toy got left under the kitchen table and needs to go to the basement. This makes the task overwhelming.

Once everything is picked up, I move to the kitchen table area. All plates and cups (including whatever I’ve added from the living room), get moved to the kitchen peninsula. The baby’s high chair gets wiped clean, the table and chairs get wiped cleaned, and the dog’s food and water bowls get filled.

In the kitchen, I clear the counters first. Everything goes where it belongs – refrigerated items go to the fridge, any spices left out are put in the cabinet, leftovers are stored away. The goal is to get all the counters cleared off, leaving the dishes in the sink for last. If the stove needs wiped down, I do that once the counters are cleared because the grates need to be placed on the counter. Then I load the dishwasher from the sink and rinse out the sink. I can either rinse the sink after I’m done clearing it, or I can scrub hardened on food in the morning. Put the effort in to do it right so that it’s not a bigger task later.

The baby goes to sleep around 8, so after his bedtime, there’s usually more toys to pick up and a few more dishes that were used.

Then the dishwasher is turned on before bed. Our dishwasher runs for 2 hours. While sometimes it’s overflowing and needs to be run mid-day, it’s more likely that we run it every other night, after we’ve cleaned up the last of our things that need to be loaded from the day.

If I don’t do these things at the end of the night, then they bleed over into my morning chore list. I usually don’t have any “extra” time for my morning chores, so I prefer to focus on my night time to-do list as often as possible.

WEEKLY TASKS

There are things that need to be done, but they’re not done daily. For one, the bathrooms need to be cleaned. I knew someone who said “Sunday is for bathrooms.” She knew that every Sunday, she’d tackle cleaning the bathrooms. I loved that there was a system. I can’t say I’m consistent in that though. I try to remember to vacuum upstairs once a week, but the first floor probably gets vacuumed every other day. One thing that I did that has helped me clean bathrooms more often is that I keep a glass cleaner, all purpose cleaner, and a roll of paper towels upstairs. This means that I’m not thinking, “I should clean this bathroom,” but having to walk downstairs to get supplies and carry them back upstairs.

I change the kids sheets every two weeks. I try to do laundry in order of how it’ll go back on the bed. If I need to wash their blankets and comforter, then I wash the sheets first (since it all doesn’t fit in one load), this way I can get that step done while the blankets are being washed. If I wash the comforter first, then I have to do the entire thing all at once when the sheets are ready (note: my daughter will take any sheets on her bed, but son only wants his Paw Patrol sheets, which is why this system is complicated).

As for laundry, I don’t have any perfect answers, except that piled of laundry do not overflow our hampers. I used to wash our clothes separate from the kids’ clothes because I’d prefer to fold our bigger clothes than theirs, but now it’s a crapshoot. One thing that I have found helpful is that I sort the clean laundry into piles per person. Then I carry the pile into the respective kids’ room, fold it in there, and put it away right then. While my laundry may sit in the dryer for a day or two, this at least gets it folded and put away a lot faster than it used to be. Sometimes I force myself to fold by putting a load of towels in behind the clothes. This means I need to clear the dryer, but it won’t be as daunting because I’ll have the “reward” of “just” towels behind it. Ha!

SUMMARY

The goal here is simple: eliminate stressors that I have control over. I get things done when I don’t have to also manage 74897 toddler questions and a crying baby. I get my house organized before I go to sleep so that I am not overwhelmed by clutter and tasks first thing in the morning.

I’ve seen multiple articles over the last few years that talk about reducing clutter in your house to make yourself feel better. That when your house is cluttered, it makes your brain feel cluttered and exhibits a physically negative reaction. There are distractions everywhere you look that are taking brain power and exhausting you. If you come up with a system that gets kids’ toys out of plain view, that gets your kitchen counter cleared off and the dishes into the dishwasher when dirty, and eliminates piles of papers that will take you an hour to go through and organize, you’ll physically feel more calm and be able to tackle more.

Additionally, just staying on top of little tasks in a “system” you create that works for you and your household makes each day feel more manageable. I do a quick 10-minute reset of the house at nap time. This means that I’m not left with all toys and dishes and mess to deal with at the end of the day when I’m tired. I clean up room-by-room, creating piles of items that need to go to a different room, rather than putting each individual item exactly where it goes as soon as I touch it.

I’ll also point out that even though I use “I” throughout this, it’s a team effort with Mr. ODA. He cooks, cleans up the kitchen, straightens up, etc.

December Financial Update

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I’m not even sure where to start for this month. It has been a whirlwind. There were a lot of tax payments last month, and this month I was still paying those among several other things.

PURCHASES

I purposely paid my credit card statement a little earlier than the due date so that it wouldn’t be that high for this update, but then I put a bunch of charges on it over the last two days. To catch you up – we’ve been holding money in our savings account for as long as possible. When we were getting 0.2% interest on it, it didn’t matter when I paid the card, so I typically paid it shortly after the statement closed. Now that we’re getting 4.22%, it’s worth keeping the money in there to earn interest, and then paying the credit card closer to the due date.

Our regular-use credit card is currently holding: $300 towards my dad’s iPhone (I should really share that mess of a story in purchasing that) (also, that doesn’t clearly account for my sisters having paid $200 towards that because that’s just “cash” in our checking account balance), $500+ of the kids preschool tuition, renewing our zoo membership for $139 (honestly, 5 of us enjoying the zoo for the year for that price is wonderful), over $200 for signing our son up for tee ball, two car insurance payments, and a rental insurance payment. I don’t typically go through the charges like that, but it’s just been a bunch of just-big-enough charges to grab my attention on our credit card balance. We drove to-and-from NY, so our gas station payments are higher than average too. As a reminder, the credit card balance you see also includes $10k worth of new carpet that we’re paying slowly on a 0% interest credit card.

RENTAL PROPERTY EXPENSES

I paid two of our Richmond houses’ taxes. The taxes are due on January 14th, but if I pay them this year, then it reduces what’s viewed as our ‘profit.’ I make sure to pay any known January bills in December of each year. Those two houses are so tiny, so their tax payments being so much larger than they once were kind of hurt (I’ve discussed the increases in property assessments, thereby increasing taxes). It was about $2,000 paid out (on top of all the things I paid over the last two months).

I also had to pay two supplemental taxes for Lexington. Government entities not meeting deadlines is a pet peeve of mine (I used to work for the Federal government). Last year, I completely missed that paperwork I received was a supplement bill for education, and then I received a penalty.I thought it was their typical assessment notice since it was outside of tax payment time. Luckily it was a few dollars, but I was so lost. This year, I paid close attention when I received an extra tax-related document. This supplemental bill was for trash services. Again, a few dollars. But think of all the extra paperwork, staff hours, postage, payment processing cost to collect an extra $20 from every house.

RENTAL PROPERTY INCOME

We had two tenants give us notice that they’re moving out. While extremely unfortunate timing on the year, I’m also human and understanding of their need. One tenant had a traumatic work event that led to him being laid off, and another family bought a house. We’ll find a way to get the houses re-rented as soon as possible, even though our vacancy time may be longer than it would have been if we were looking for a May 1st or June 1st renter. We have someone interested in both houses at this time, so that’s encouraging.

We had 4 tenants not pay in full. They all reached out to me to let me know in advance, and they paid what they could by the 5th (I always appreciate that – it holds them accountable, and it allows me to not foot all of the bills that I have to pay on the houses). As of the end of the 5th, we were short over $3,000 worth of rent ($1300 of that was for the house that has been late since October 1st and is finally working towards paying their debts).

As of today, we’re short $2,400. The tenant who’s playing catch up only has a balance of $960 left, which is great (that’s been a long road). Another tenant typically pays $750 on the 5th and 19th. So they’re not late on $750, but they are late on the $375 they didn’t pay in the first half of the month (this is a special scenario that we put in place for them because they couldn’t pay all at the beginning of the month, so we increased their rent as a concession to being able to pay twice per month without creating more late fees for them… but they’re still late).

NET WORTH

The market significantly increased over the last month. We also had $28k come in as part of our insurance claim; our cash increased by $35k though, so there’s an additional savings in there. And even though we had large expenses on our credit cards, it’s still slightly down from last month.

BONUS STORY

Mr. ODA and I wait for Black Friday deals to purchase our iPhones. We typically purchase every 3 years. I usually bite for a new phone so that the camera is better, but I’m suspicious that Apple is sending updates to alter the clarity of photos on older phones. How can I take these BEAUTIFUL pictures for the first few months of having a phone, and then all my pictures are grainy suddenly? ANYWAY.

Walmart had a deal that you purchase the iPhone 14 on a payment plan, and they give you a $350 Walmart gift card. These are the deals we typically seek. Apple is still getting their full price for the phone, but Walmart is offering a deal to bring our net to $0. When you want to purchase the phone from Walmart, it asks you to log into your carrier’s account. For this phone, it’s Verizon. We spend hours trying to figure out who the primary account holder is and what that log in it. Verizon does it where you can create your own log in and see you phone’s data at any time, but to see the entire plan’s data, you have to be the account holder (makes sense, but complicates this particular instance). The primary account holder is my mom’s phone number. Who died in March. We finally get assistance with that and log into the account through Walmart. It brings up all the lines on the account, we select my dad’s number, and then it gets to step 2. It says they can’t verify the address on the account and we need to go to Walmart mobile desk in a store. I call Verizon. Can’t help. I call Walmart. They keep telling me to put the item in my cart, which isn’t how you purchase a phone. So no help.

I finally bite the bullet, and on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, march myself to the nearest Long Island Walmart. They can’t help because they need the phone in the store. I swear if I were at my Walmart in Kentucky, they would have helped me. It was actually at the point where I was going to risk waiting until Tuesday so that I could have my phone desk people help me. The Walmart employee actually wasn’t flippant or trying to blow me off; I believe he genuinely thought he couldn’t help me. What needed to happen was that he called their help desk people, and then he was the mediator to figuring out the address. I figure this because a Walmart customer service person transferred me to such a person, who said he’s not allowed to talk to me and has to have a Walmart employee talking to him on my behalf.

I gave up. Sunday comes. I hope that some “overnight” processing of information has magically cured the process. It didn’t. I call Verizon again. Some angel of a lady answered the phone and actually helped me more than I could have imagined. I told her that I wanted the Walmart deal because all the Verizon deals require me to change my plan to unlimited data. I let her know that I’ve already spoken to several people, and they keep trying to convince me that I get a “free” iPhone while my plan increases $30 per month in perpetuity (versus $23 per month for 36 months for the phone). She offered me a deal that equates to $5/month for the phone for 36 months. So I put 100x more hours into this than I should have, but it ended up working out in our favor!

November Financial Update

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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).

October Financial Update

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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.

September Financial Update

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RENTAL FINANCES

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.

August Financial Update

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It’s getting to be that time of year when large payments need to be made. I’m projecting out our account to cover several tax payments in October and December. I’m also paying insurance amounts, such as $1500 for two houses that’s currently on the credit card. We also have about $5,000 sitting on that 0% interest credit card that will need to be paid off by October 1st (when the 0% incentive expires).

Our credit card balances are higher than average because of rental payments. In addition to the insurance payments, we had an invoice come in that I knew was going to be high. We paid for the water line from the street to the house on a rental to be replaced, which was $3,080.

June and July were rough sick months on us, so now I’m paying those medical bills almost daily it seems. We reached our deductible early this year, so these are just the coinsurance amounts; those $5-20 payments add up though.

Our insurance adjuster finally came out, three weeks after the incident. He literally said “I’m not a contractor, and I’m not from here so I don’t know the codes,” and then proceeded to do the estimate wrong. He was missing items, called things the wrong thing (like a Trex water proofing system that costs $1500 just for materials, he called it a “vapor barrier” and put $190). Now we’re waiting on a second adjuster to come out and meet the deck contractor to go through what actually needs to be done. All the while, our 3 year old keeps sadly saying “I don’t like our broken deck.”

I had to call a medical provider and get some money back. I told them I didn’t want to pay in advance because then I have to call them to get my money back. They said “we’re good about sending it back” and said “it’s simple, it’s just 5% of the total cost.” I said “the total cost isn’t what the insurance allowance is, so whatever I pay you will end up being less.” So now I had to take time out of my day, after giving them a month to do it on their own, to call with 3 kids in the background making noise, and get my $5 back. But then there was a surprise where another urgent care that we saw almost a year ago sent me back the $20 I paid them. That one had slipped through the cracks on me. I had noted that I overpaid them, but then I had a baby!

We had two rentals not be able to pay rent on time this month. One was able to pay on the 12th, which they did. Another paid what they could, and I’m still waiting on the rest. I actually told them to catch up as they could because I didn’t want them to not be able to get their 3 kids ready for school. I’m waiting on an invoice from our handyman for work he’s done on multiple houses, an invoice from an HVAC guy who did work weeks ago, and a roofer to start his job that’s been two months in the making.

Our overall net worth went down slightly from last month because of market fluctuation. Our cash increased by over $30k, but that’s because we received a check from our insurance company to replace our deck after a tree fell on it last month. Some of that is going towards replacing furniture that has been bought already (so it’s on a credit card), and some of it is a reimbursement for the outlay I already made to remove the trees that fell on the deck and fence, but some of it is still to be paid out when the deck is replaced. In the meantime, we’re earning interest in our savings account on it at least.

Credit Card Rewards

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I’ve not been quiet about the benefits of a credit card. We put every dollar we spend onto a credit card for the rewards, and we pay it off every month. Some cards give 1% back on purchases, some give another 1% back for payments (important to cash out your rewards to your checking account, and not as a statement credit because they don’t give 1% back for the credit), some have bonus categories where they increase the percentage back (e.g., 5% back for gas purchases), and some have retailer-specific incentives.

PERCENTAGE BACK

There are the flat rates given by some credit cards, and then there’s some bonus categories that provide an additional percent back.

In some cases, the percentages are fixed categories. You’ll get 1% back on all purchases, but then there are bonus categories. Their categories are 2% cash back on grocery store purchases, 3% on dining purchases at restaurants, and 4% on gas station purchases. However, this particular credit card caps the earnings at the first $8,000 in combined purchases in these categories annually, per your opening date. If you spend $300 per month on groceries and $200 per month on gas, that leaves about $165 per month on restaurant purchases. Those numbers are doable, but we spend more than $300 on groceries.

Then there are other credit cards with a revolving cash back category. This requires you to ‘active’ the reward and keep track of which reward is occurring in which quarter. However, these have lower spending limits before you run out of that extra bonus. “Earn 5% cash back on up to $1,500 on combined purchases in bonus categories each quarter you activate.” The bonus will default back to 1%, so it’s not a complete waste, but you may have a credit card that has a better-than-1% bonus for that category. We have a credit card that operates like this, and the only category that I seem to remember well enough to actual use is the gas one.

RETAILER BONUSES

While I’ve shared a lot on cash back type bonuses, I haven’t really touched on retailer-specific bonuses. Someone on Facebook recently shared a screenshot of their bank’s bonus. It’s an ability to earn 10% cash back when purchasing a Great Wolf Lodge stay.

It’s important to pay attention to the fine print on these types of offers. There’s usually a low cap on what you can earn, and there’s usually a fairly quick deadline associated with it. It also requires you to active the offer. That means that you can’t make the purchase and then go back to active it; you need to know about these opportunities in advance, active the code (usually by clicking something within your credit card portal), and then make the purchase. In some cases, it may even require you to use the link embedded in your portal to make the purchase.

Opportunities change frequently, but there are some that rotate fairly often. I currently have 25 offers available to me to activate. Some of them expire as early as 8/13, while some are good until October. Mr. ODA clicked a Kroger fuel offer. It states, “Earn 5% cash back on your Kroger Fuel purchase, with a $3.50 cash back maximum.” That means that if I spend more than $70 at the pump, then it will revert back to the 4% gas category. Here are the categories on this credit card.

SUMMARY

When looking for a new credit card to open, I always suggest looking for extra bonuses. Typically, we open a new credit card because we’re about to have a large spending need, so we’re looking for an introductory rate of 0%. There are other initial bonuses, such as spending $1000 in the first 3 months for a $300 bonus. We’re also typically looking for a $0 annual fee. I say typically because we have had credit cards with annual fees if we thought the incentives were worth the cost. In some cases, a credit card company may provide incentives that effectively reduce their annual fee (e.g., travel statement credit, paying for TSA pre-check).

When using a credit card with categories of cash back at a retailer, it’s a good practice to check back on how you earned cash back. For example, we have a credit card that provides bonuses for gas stations. However, their coding specifically only allows for purchases at the pump, and not purchases in the convenience store associated with those pumps. This was particularly frustrating because the “everyday spending” category only earned a quarter of a percentage, not even a whole percentage back.

We manage our purchases through 8 credit cards. That’s a lot to keep up with, and we’re not 100% on picking the “correct” card for the category that we’re spending (particularly when it comes to the card that rotates bonus categories each quarter).

In 2022, we earned over $2,000 worth of cash back based on our purchases, being diligent with the spending categories, and paying our credit cards off each month.

July Financial Update

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I looked back to last year’s July to see what was going on.

We had just bought our new house, demoed the master bathroom, and started painting a bunch of the new house. We were transporting two toddlers back and forth for all the work to be done. I was also talking about a vacant house and being rid of a non-rent-payer. The tenant that moved in then caused tens of thousands of damage with a burst pipe, and now we have a new renter in there.

And now…

We had a big wind storm come through on the 2nd. It knocked down several trees, including one on our deck. We’ve had 4 companies come out for quotes for replacement, and we’re waiting on the adjuster this week.

I have a whole separate post regarding all that’s going on with the rentals, so I’ll leave that for a separate post.

Most interesting to me is that in the last year, without any major moves (like purchasing a new rental house or paying off a mortgage), we’ve increased our net worth by over $300k. Looking back at July 2021, we’re almost $900k higher than then.

Since last month, we paid out a $22k bill that was owed from January for cleaning up the house that got flooded (there were several delays in insurance agreeing to the company’s invoice), but the market increases have netted us a gain of $16k still.

June Financial Update

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Gosh, where did I leave off?

Our savings account is still earning over 4% interest. Therefore, bills are being paid as close to the due date as possible, while we manage to keep the savings account balance higher. Back in December, we had a pipe burst in a rental house. The insurance quickly paid out on the estimated damages, but we didn’t need to pay the repair company in full until last week. Additionally, there was an issue with the invoice from the company that cleaned up the water, and so that was only just set to be paid today.

When we have large purchase(s) looming, we look to open a new credit card with rewards and 0% interest. We opened one last Fall, and I pay $500 towards it each statement cycle. I believe we have until October to pay in full before interest begins accruing. I’ll continue to pay $500 until I need to pay it in full in a few months (or if we need to reduce our debt usage because another house purchase is to be made … not that we have any plans to, but Mr. ODA is always looking).

We have a few projects lingering out there that will cost us a decent amount to accomplish (e.g., water main line repair, tree removal, new roof). We also don’t have any plans to make big financial moves in the near future (e.g., no home purchases, no loan pay offs).

The market has recovered in the past few months, so our net worth has made a jump. It’s the first decent increase in a while. Our cash has decreased, logically, since we were holding cash that was for accounts payable. Our credit card totals have decreased substantially since February as well.

March Financial Update

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I purposely waited to update our net worth for this month. Two months ago, we had incurred a significant amount of expenses on our credit card. We purposely held off on paying that amount until today, which is that statement’s due date. Waiting to pay the card meant that $25k sat in our savings account earning interest during that time, as we “floated” that money. It was extremely stressful for me, so I’m glad those due dates are behind me, and I don’t have to manage that timing and coordination anymore.

Speaking of “floating” money, we also have our 0% interest credit card that we opened last Fall when we were incurring expenses on our new house. That still has a balance over $6k on it, but we just pay $500 towards it each month. We’ll pay it in full when the 0% interest runs out this Fall.

I don’t even know where to begin on what we’ve been managing with rental properties. We’ve learned the world of insurance claims. Prior to this month, we only had one claim because an intoxicated driver (on a Sunday morning) ran off the road, through a fence, and over our HVAC outdoor unit. I’ll have a separate post with the details that we’ve been managing, but here’s a run down.
– I still have a lease that needs to get out for signature, and then information on that house sent to our property manager so she can take it over.
– We had a tree fall on a house here in Lexington. The tree was removed, but getting the adjuster out to see the damage is taking 3 weeks, and we can’t do any repairs until he sees the damage.
– The house that had a burst pipe is nearing completion. Walls and ceilings are back in place, insulation is back in place, and cabinets are installed; they still need to do painting and flooring. We’re going to have our handyman install new counter tops when the insurance contractors are done with their steps, and then we’ll need to get it rerented.
– We had roofing damage on 3 of our houses in Lexington from that same storm that knocked a tree on a house. Mr. ODA fixed one roof himself. Another one is under the purview of a townhome HOA, and hasn’t been fixed. And we’re biding our time on the last one because it’ll end up being a full roof replacement; only a few shingles flew off, but the roof is so old and so steep that it wasn’t an option to repair.
– Frustratingly, I had 2 overdue tax bills. Our jurisdiction’s taxes are due by 12/1 each year. If you pay by 11/1, they give you a 5% discount. I paid the bulk of the bills in October. There was a supplemental bill due to an increase in the Board of Education tax. When I received the supplemental bills “off schedule,” I just filed them. It didn’t occur to me that there was a second tax bill in the year. They sent that one notice. Didn’t send a second to say “you didn’t pay early, but by the way, it’s due now.” So that was due by the end of February. I didn’t pay it and received the “delinquent tax notice” last week. There was a 5% penalty assessed on the balance due. So all-in-all, I cost us an extra $11. Not the end of the world, but kicking myself that I missed it. Also annoying, they sent it to our old address instead of our updated address that’s been in place since November.

We haven’t done any big projects around the house because of newborn life. I just painted the wood parts of our stair railing and treads black. I’ll then paint the spindles white (they’re already white but need touched up and a whole new fresh coat). I already had that paint on hand. We’ve also cleaned up the yard from that big storm earlier this month, along with some odds and ends that needed to be done in the landscaping. We got the first mow in and some new bushes with mulch in the front yard so that it’s looking nice for my family coming into town this weekend.

No net worth calculation update. I’ve done the majority of the account checks, but just haven’t been able to pull together the final bit timely.