kids activities – One Dollar Allowance

Year in Review

January 2, 2025January 1, 2025mrsonedollarallowanceLeave a comment

This was a good year. We took a lot of trips, made some good memories, and purchased some fun things. While day to day life has been hard with 3 little kids and managing some of my own interests, it really was a fun and rewarding year when I look at the big picture.

PERSONAL: MY YEAR

I went through a lot of growth in this year. I started the year with a girls trip, which was really healing in my mom-of-3 world. After that trip, I hunkered down on my diet and exercise. Over 10 months, I lost 22 pounds. Each kid added about 10 pounds to my body’s desired size (where I just plateau unless I put a lot of effort in). It’s not something that I regularly discussed with people or mentioned, but it is something that I’m pretty proud of and took effort. I ran a 5k in August, where I beat my time from the year before, and it didn’t feel like it took any effort to beat that, which was nice.

But then my oldest started kindergarten, which was a surprisingly hard adjustment in my schedule. He was completely ready for school, and him going wasn’t the hard part. I welcome new phases of life and mostly don’t dwell on the losses that those mean. However, the schedule of the year took me two or three months to get used to. He gets on the bus at 7, #2 gets dropped off at 9, she gets picked up at 12, baby takes a nap from 1:30-3:15, oldest gets off the bus at 2:45. It was just a lot of broken up time in my day, and it took so much out of me each day. I finally feel like I’m used to it and can be productive in those short periods in between.

We were told that our preschool will be changing ownership next school year, which threw a wrench in my plans. Sure, things will work out. But it doesn’t change that I had a plan that didn’t need to be thought about. I had a financial expectation that didn’t need to be budgeted for or considered any further. It was another thing that took mental energy from me. I had originally thought I’d not send the 3rd kid to a 2s year like the other two kids. I spent some days mourning that alone time I was giving up by keeping him home. But I toured a preschool, and that’s my wish list for next year. If we don’t get into that preschool, I’ll likely just keep him home with me and try for the 3s year there. It’s just a socializing desire. I don’t work and need child care, so it’s a privilege to send him if it works out.

On top of all the parenting jobs I have, my job managing our rental properties is another job that takes a ton of time and mental energy, but no one really sees the fruit of that labor. May was the only month this past year where everyone paid rent on time. While I’m pretty lenient on that, that’s still time that I’m taking to manage and keep up with. I have one tenant who hasn’t put the water bill in her name yet. Supposedly it’s a city issue, and she always pays when I send her a picture of the bill, but it’s still a time sucker that I have. Then add in that we have several maintenance requests that come up, and a few big projects that were needed.

Related to the rentals, I made 44 posts on this blog. I set a goal to post once per week, preferably on Thursdays, for the year. I fell short by 8 weeks, and I wasn’t consistent with the Thursday post each week. I did well when I had inspiration, and I always did the monthly updates, but I didn’t meet my goal. I’ll keep the same goal of once per week, preferably on Thursdays, for this year. While my reach isn’t far, I do hope that someone will find this little corner and gain a new perspective on their finances. Plus, I appreciate being able to go back to our monthly updates to see how things have changed. It’s hard to see it when you’re looking month-to-month, but to see a drastic jump in numbers from a year ago is nice.

PERSONAL: THE FAMILY

We made it to 12 states this year, and that’s pretty cool. The kids got to see a lot, and they’re really interested in different states and their stats. I appreciate that curiosity and the ability to learn while traveling. Only one trip was on a plane, which was to Colorado. We did a 2-week long trip to New York and Michigan, with a few stops in there. We went to Chicago for a wedding and explored the area, took the kids to Gatlinburg for Fall Break, went to Ohio to watch the eclipse in totality, and tagged along on Mr. ODA’s work trip to South Carolina.

Mr. ODA sold his 15 year old vehicle, and we purchased a Tesla. I didn’t have a great experience with one in Colorado, but I think that was more related to the circumstances than actual electric vehicle ownership. I had a great experience with the test drive, and we picked one up by the end of that week. We took advantage of their 0% interest and 3 months of free charging. We also referred a friend of ours, so we received $1000 in Tesla credits that we’ll use for charging after the free period.

We bought a hot tub. That was a purchase that was about a year in the making, so it wasn’t made lightly. There hasn’t been two days in a row where someone didn’t get in it, until we just left for a week (hoping that the water is in good shape when I get back!). Our deck was crushed by a tree in July 2023, and it wasn’t rebuilt until May 2024. Then we had to take the time to make the decisions on what we wanted, get it ordered, and wait for delivery. It was delivered in November, and it’s been a great purchase thus far. We haven’t done such a splurge before, and it’s nice to give ourselves something that we can enjoy.

The kids are doing their activities. We’ve been in a nice lull, but I recently saw our March calendar from this past year and was reminded of all those hours! Our oldest is doing t-ball for a second year. Our second is regularly doing gymnastics, but we’re also letting her do t-ball this spring. Our oldest is also doing an after school activity for checkers, but supposedly it’s in a fun way, so that’ll be interesting to see pan out. He was accepted into an advanced program for his 99th percentile state testing scores, which was a really exciting moment as parents. Our second will finish out her preschool year and go to kindergarten next year. And we hope to have another fun season over the next two months with everyone on skis!

RENTAL PROPERTIES

Besides the management of late rent payments, I had to put a lot of hours into these houses this year. We took a trip to Richmond, VA to work on quite a few of these houses. On top of that, there were several other activities that were needed, management of tenant turnover, and management of rental income, but I’ll save that for a future post so this doesn’t grow too long.

FINANCES

Our net worth increased by $745,000. We started the year with a goal of hitting $4 million net worth, and that was achieved in a short time. Month to month feels like we’re barely moving the needle, but it’s amazing to see that number over the course of a year.

We paid off one 0% interest credit card from our carpet replacement in our personal home, and then we opened a new 0% interest credit card to pay for the hot tub. That new card gets 2% cash back, so it’s being used more than we usually use a 0% interest card. Typically, we just pay for the major purchase and then pay it down over the 0% interest period. This time around, it’s being used for every day purchases so the monthly payment I’m making is more than I’d usually see.

I have a separate post that goes into our extra income that we brought in over the last year, which is related to earned credit card rewards and interest on savings accounts and bonds. That’s even cooler to see the total ($14k!) because that was actual cash that went into our account and was used.

In the last year, I only officially worked 11 days, which is crazy to think about. But I’ve been doing random other jobs to help others out. I’m on our homeowners association board of directors, and I’ve been helping a new school get their financials up and running. I’m ready to take a step back from the finance work because my commitment to the HOA feels more pressing, but we’ll see how the next couple of months progress. It’s just really hard to get things done when I’m rarely without a toddler who wants my attention (unless I get up at 4:30 or 5 am).

SUMMARY

This year has felt like it took a lot more hours from me for work and management of things. But I also feel like I have more energy now that I’m two years from having our last baby. We have lots of other things planned for this coming year, and I hope to take some even bigger trips to see more of the country now that we have a bit less baggage coming out of the baby years. We have no plans to make any big purchases at this time (although there are new windows needed on our house in the next couple of years), and I really hope this year is lots of fun with the family more than anything else.

Family Trip

November 2, 2023October 13, 2023mrsonedollarallowanceLeave a comment

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.

April Financial Update

April 15, 2021mrsonedollarallowanceLeave a comment

This month had a lot of money movement – tax payment out, stimulus check in. As I’ve shared before, we don’t budget. But you can start seeing how we’re pretty consistent on where we spend out money. This is because we have a spending mentality that we use to make each decision, rather than giving ourselves a ceiling in each category. I believe some may see a ceiling as a definitive amount to spend (e.g., if I’ve allocated $100 for restaurants this month, and by the last week I still have $75 in that budget pot, then I’m going to go spend it). If you know your long term goals and take responsibility for your decision-making, then you don’t need to pay close attention to each dollar.

With that said, my family came to visit for a week. It was our second’s first birthday, and my dad is helping us finish our basement. With 3 more adults in the house, we spent more than typical feeding them and eating at restaurants versus cooking after spending the day working in the basement. Mr. ODA and I share the same birthday, so we splurged for a nice meal that night. We actually spent about $300 at restaurants over this last month, but thanks to our Chase credit card, we received statement credits for $188 worth of these purchases!

We have also spent more on entertainment. We went to a winery and a brewery, purchased tickets for the local horse race season, and have done other activities now that the weather is nice. The pandemic and winter had our spending lower than our usual amounts, but I expect our spending to be more than it had been in these coming months. We’ve already put together our summer bucket list for travel.

We had all the tenants pay their rent on time, except one who eventually paid. Our rental income is $12,353, and we pay our business partner about $2,100 (we collect the rent and then pay him to cover the mortgages he holds and his half of the ‘profit’ after the mortgages are deducted from rent). We had to replace the HVAC in a rental. Luckily, this rental is owned with a partner, so only half the cost will affect us. We haven’t paid the bill yet, so that will hit next month.

We paid about $5,972 for our regular mortgage payments. We put an additional $5,000 towards an investment property mortgage, which now has a balance of $8,665. We also put $5,000 towards one of the properties that we have with a partner, which he matched, leaving that balance at $42k.
Every month, $1100 is automatically invested between each of our Roth IRAs and each child’s investment accounts. Our stimulus checks that we received for the kids went directly into the kids’ UTMAs.
Our grocery shopping cost us $539.
We spent $91 on gas.
$290 went towards utilities. This includes internet, cell phones, water, sewer, trash, electric, and investment property sewer charges that are billed to the owner and not the tenant. We still haven’t sought reimbursement from the builder on our electric bill, but this month’s bill was significantly less than the previous months.
About $1300 was spent on supplies for the basement bathroom work. We registered the kids for swim lessons, registered our son for pre-school in the Fall, did more activities with the nice weather, and I made several gift purchases (current birthdays, baby shower, next Christmas (I like buying when I find something that makes me think of a person rather than a mad dash in the Fall to buy gifts)), so that was about $400.

SUMMARY

Our net worth has increased over $123k since last month due to our investment accounts and property values increasing. Our cash balance is starting to dwindle down to what we typically carry as ‘cash.’ And our mortgage balance is decreasing more than average due to our goal of paying off two of the mortgages that we’re carrying.