savings

Hitting our Goals

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I mentioned at the beginning of the year that our general financial goal is $4 million net worth. I acknowledge that this is not a specific goal that most people can relate to. But I also pointed out that we weren’t always sitting with nearly that amount in our accounts, and that made me start thinking about where we were. This is long, but I didn’t think it worth splitting into multiple posts. I’ve gone into the topic in general, but this is our actual story and the steps we experienced.

This is just meant to show you that you can grow each year and slowly chip away at a goal. Everyone makes fun of the “don’t buy Starbucks everyday” philosophy. It’s not that saving that $7 per day is literally going to make you a millionaire in itself. It’s saying that if you’re willing to spend that $7 daily, that’s likely indicative of other spending in your day, and you should be more deliberate with your spending. I saw a meme on Instagram that said something similar about buying decor for your home, and if you’re willing to spend “just $25 on this lamp,” those little expenses add up over the year. I’m a broken record in saying make every purchase a deliberate, thought-out action; I went into how much effort (and years) I put in to purchasing a $4 tape dispenser on this post.

The background here is to first show you how I had no money, but I’ve been diligent on my spending and working towards goals. Mr. ODA was more of a saver and more prepared for the big life expenses in your early 20s. The part where we work towards buying a house is where we really buckled up and made life decisions that kept us on that track. Our money philosophies have gotten us to where we are today – every dollar has a purpose.

MY FINANCIAL HISTORY: COLLEGE, WHERE I STARTED MY INDEPENDENCE

I never liked relying on other people, so I was interested in making my own way as fast possible. My parents gave me an ultimatum during my sophomore year of college – either become a resident assistant for free room and board, or take out loans to help pay for it in the next two years. I didn’t want to take out loans, so I started looking for off campus housing. I didn’t mind living on campus. I have no idea why I was so dead-set against taking out loans and how that would have been ingrained in me at that time. But living off campus would allow me to pay month to month, instead of living on campus where I’d have to pay each semester’s housing costs up front.

On top of that, my dad offered me to buy out his car. He had let me drive the car to college that year, but around Christmas time, it started acting funny. It turned out that second gear in the transmission needed to be replaced. He said I could pay for the fix, and then it could be my car. I didn’t like the idea of being 3.5 hours away from my family and having a car that appeared unreliable. So I went car shopping, and I leased a Honda Civic. My car payment was about $300/month. I leased it instead of buying it because I didn’t need to put any money down.

I worked three jobs that summer after my sophomore year of college. It was so hard. I was working 40 hour weekends, and then I’d put hours in during the week. I remember getting burnt out and being overwhelmed because I had to miss my sister’s graduation party. I was working at a catering hall, which meant late hours on Friday and Saturday, and early hours on Sunday. I was also working at a bagel shop (big on Long Island), which was a 5:45 am call time, but at least I’d be done by 10 am. Then I was working as a cashier at K-Mart, which was Monday through Thursday in the afternoon or evening, and sometimes on Friday.

Even though I was working all those jobs, I still struggled with paying my bills once I got to college for my junior year. I paid too much for rent because I wanted to live on my own. None of my friends were interested in living off campus, and I was too afraid to live with someone I didn’t know. My parents ended up giving me $100/month for 6 months so I could pay to run my heat. I remember it being October, and I told my mom that I hadn’t turned my heat on yet. So she sent me the money each month to cover the heating bill instead of trying to live in layers and blankets because I didn’t want to pay for it.

When I moved back up to college, I was working at JCPenney while going to school. I did pretty well. My grades didn’t suffer, and I still felt like I had a life so I didn’t get burnt out with only work and school. I took on extra shifts and stopped going home for the smaller holidays (e.g., Thanksgiving) so that I could work.

MY FINANCIAL HISTORY: MY BIG GIRL JOB

My guidance counselor told me that financial firms would be expecting internships on my resume. This was 2007; financial firms were fat and happy, so they weren’t paying interns. I kept my eye on the job boards (which were literal bulletin boards) in the financial building. I found an internship with the Federal government that was paying $13/hour! I applied in August. I heard nothing for weeks, so I gave up hope. Suddenly, I received a call asking me to come in for an interview on Halloween! I had never interviewed before, so this was scary. Then the guy told me that they didn’t even know if they were going to hire a mid-career hire or go the internship route, and they had never had an intern before. That was the second time I gave up hope. A month later, I received the job offer, and I started working in December 2007.

From the start, I put money into the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP), which is the government’s 401k equivalent. My parents told me to take each raise I got and put it right into there also. If I was used to living on the lower amount, then keep the rest in savings. I followed that advice until I maxed out the contributions. I didn’t have trouble paying my bills, but I wasn’t saving as much as I should have for rainy days.

MY FINANCIAL HISTORY: MEETING MR. ODA

Mr. ODA showed up in my office in October 2009. Shortly after meeting him, we were hanging out, and next thing I knew, he was asking me my social security number. He was signing me up for a rewards credit card, since I had a credit card through my bank that was getting me no incentives. By the time I met him, I was living comfortably, but I wasn’t saving with a goal in mind. Whatever was left over became savings, and it didn’t matter to me what that number was. I was maxing out my TSP and paying my bills comfortably, and that seemed good enough for me.

OUR FINANCIAL HISTORY: IN A RELATIONSHIP

Mr. ODA came with a lot more money than that into the relationship. He had always been planning to save for two big purchases: an engagement ring and a house. To me, buying a house was somewhere down the road, but I didn’t have the confidence to move forward on that. I hope to instill that confidence in my children because that would have made a big difference.

Mr. ODA designed my engagement ring at a little mom and pop jewelry store in Harrisburg, PA (long story on where we’ve lived, for how long, and why). He proposed in November 2011. In December, I moved to DC, and Mr. ODA joined me shortly after. We lived in an apartment. We lived halfway between where he and I worked, but I admit we paid way more for rent than we prudently should have. Even though I grew up in the shadows of New York City, actually living in a big city was scary to me. We went on a house hunting trip, and I struggled with anything that didn’t look really nice/new. We were able to get a reduced rent rate, but at about $800 per month for each of us, it was significantly more than the $450 per month I was paying in Albany, NY.

The goal was to rent for a year while we scoped out the area to find a house to buy. We didn’t know anything about Northern Virginia, and we wanted to go to open houses to learn how far our money would go. Newsflash: not far.

OUR FINANCIAL HISTORY: A WEDDING

While we explored the area for a house, we were also planning a wedding. We paid for more than half of our wedding. My parents gave us a chunk of money towards it. If I had been married in Kentucky, it would have covered most of the wedding. However, I grew up on Long Island, and a wedding is a very different kind of event there. I probably wouldn’t have known any different had I not attended several weddings in South Carolina, where weddings were low key. After looking at venues in both Kentucky and New York, I ended up breaking down one day that I had always dreamed of a specific type of wedding, and Kentucky just wasn’t it.

I saved as much as I could in all the other areas since the venue was so expensive. The venue cost included all the catering, staff, and cake. I went cheap on invitations, my dress, favors. I just didn’t have the cash on hand to do a lot, and I wish I had done more. I also wish that I had been married on site at that venue instead of in my hometown church, but it is what it is. I also went cheaper on the photographer, and the day was terrible because of him. I recommend to everyone to get a good photographer and really check their portfolio (and if they do crazy things for photos, don’t trust that they’ll not do crazy things when you ask them not to).

We got married in August, after our November engagement. We had to lay out over $12k for that. The unexpected part of that was that we found a house to buy earlier that summer.

OUR FINANCIAL HISTORY: OUR FIRST HOUSE

Mr. ODA was a good saver. The problem was that he didn’t expect to pay for a wedding, and he didn’t expect to live in Northern Virginia. He was expecting to buy a house around $150k. We were struggling to find a house with walls and floors (literally) at $350k.

We lived a meager state for that year. Our goal was to spend less than $5 per day on food. That meant we weren’t spending money at restaurants. We were packing our lunches for work days. We were living off of macaroni and cheese. We weren’t taking trips. And yes, we were literally tracking our expenses on food each day.

THIS IS IMPORTANT: We were preapproved to buy a house up to $750,000. THAT IS STUPID. We didn’t want to pay PMI, so our purchasing power was based on our down payment being 20% (if you don’t come to the table for a conventional loan with 20% of the purchase price, the bank tacks on PMI). Between loans we could take from each TSP, cash on hand that we projected to have with our savings over the year, and possible liquidation of investments, we projected we could have about $70,000 on hand. That means we were shooting for $350,000 as the purchase price.

Our Realtor knew we were approved for double that, but we held our ground on our price range. We considered several properties. We put an offer in on a house at $380k. It was a bank owned foreclosure that they had flipped for resale. The flip was bare bones, but the house looked ok. We wouldn’t need to put immediate work into it. Our offer was declined. Then later that day, the bank called and asked if we still wanted it. We were instructed that the previous bidder attempted to counter the bank, and that’s why we were given the offer. We weren’t willing to lose it and accepted. We were under contract for a $380,000 house. That meant we needed at least $76,000 by closing.

Mr. ODA and I each took out TSP loans, we were gifted money from our parents, and we used our savings. Our final closing costs were just over $78k. We got our 20% down, so no PMI. We then spent the next 3-5 years paying ourselves back in our TSP. The loan payment amounts were adjustable, so we paid more when we could, but we had the flexibility to back off some of the payment totals if we needed to.

OUR FINANCIAL HISTORY: SELLING OUR FIRST HOUSE

We bought our first house in July 2012. We sold the house in September 2015. In that time, the house appreciated by $70k. On top of that, we had the 20% equity we had put down, and we had the equity for the principal payments we made over the previous 3 years. We were moving from the DC area down to the Richmond, VA area. We ended up purchasing a new construction home for about $360k. After putting 20% down on that purchase and paying off some debt (I had a car payment, and even though it was 0.9% interest, I wanted to manage less payments per month), we needed to decide on what to do with the rest of the money from the sale. Mr. ODA convinced my to put that towards rentals.

OUR FINANCIAL HISTORY: RENTAL PURCHASES

With that extra equity we had sitting in our account (which we had in an interest earning account), we purchased 3 rental properties (all with at least 20% down). The leap of faith we took into a landlord role, while figuring out things we didn’t know as we went is why we’re where we are now. We created a semi-passive income stream with these rental properties. Our savings continued to grow, which we used to purchase several more rental properties (again, with at least 20% down each time).

OUR FINANCIAL HISTORY: MRS. ODA ‘RETIRED’

By 2017, we had several rental properties, had paid off all our debts (e.g., car, TSP loans, IVF cost), and the net from the rentals was enough to replace my six-figure income. At that time, we had no kids, so there was no ‘real’ reason for me to not be working. As I continued to work, we kept it in mind that we’d be losing my regular income in the near future. I kept working, drawing down my leave balances, until our son was 8 months old (May 2019). I’ve worked a few random jobs here and there since then, but that was for something to do and not because we needed money.

MAKING GOALS

Mr. ODA had a goal of $1 million by 30. He exceeded it. At no point did we say “reach $4 million by 40” or anything like that. However, we’ve regularly tracked our net worth and made smart moves with the money we have. We don’t keep money in a liquid state for long. We make sure our money is working for us as much as possible. We take calculated risks that allow for interest earnings.

We also keep our ears open for extra income opportunities. We’ve been secret shoppers before, and I’ve taken on different short term work roles. That extra income isn’t meant to be frivolously spent; it’s income that we still utilize to move our family’s goals forward. We don’t buy the latest gadgets, but it’s not like we don’t have nice things. We spend will intention within our means; we don’t take out personal loans (e.g., furniture loans, layaway loans).

A goal that keeps moving due to preference is that Mr. ODA will stop working a full time job as well. The lack of insurance options is keeping that from becoming a reality, but if we really wanted to push it, he could quit tomorrow because we’re in a good financial spot. Nearly a year ago, we set up a separate bank account to have his pay check go into. It’s nice to know that we can live without his income, all the while having that bank account as a safety net.

Tax Returns

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Typically, I write a post around this time of year on how we handled submitting our taxes. This year, I’m going to focus on the return itself, and the concept that a large return is somehow “gaming” the system.

OUR TAX FILING

First, I’ll remind you of our process. I spend all year getting ready to do our taxes. This isn’t a last minute activity where I’m trying to find all the income and expenses and recreate data. I know more than one small business owner that constantly files for an extension because they’re not ready. Make it a routine all year to be organized. This way, once the year is over, you’re just verifying you have everything recorded, instead of compiling all paperwork and documentation for the first time. It’s less stress and you’re doing less work (because it’s still work to file the extension).

Most people have just their W2 income, maybe a little other income, and a standard deduction. However, if you have any more than that, you should make it a whole-year process. I have a spreadsheet that I keep for each rental property. I copy the template over each year for a new workbook, keeping the basics (rent income, routine utility costs, taxes, insurance, etc.) and deleting the extra maintenance costs that went into the houses (plumbing calls, HVAC repairs, etc.). As expenses occur through the year, I input them into the appropriate tab in the spreadsheet. At the end of the year, I verify I have all my receipts/invoices recorded.

Then Mr. ODA sits at his computer while I read off each house’s totals from my spreadsheets. This year, I think we hit a record in that it only took about 90 minutes to do our taxes! That’s probably the quickest we’ve done it since we’ve had all these houses. Actually, let me back track for one second there. I’ve spent all year preparing for tax season by inputting information as it happens. Then I spend about 2-3 hours reviewing all the data to ensure I haven’t erroneously recorded data, haven’t missed data, or haven’t omitted recording an expense or income. But the actual time that it took to go from spreadsheet into software and press file was 90 minutes.

“THE GOVERNMENT IS SAVING FOR ME”

A financial friend asked for “financial wins” recently on Instagram. Someone responded that they received a $5,000 tax return. He then said that he had several people comment that this isn’t a win, but he came to this person’s defense that some people need the government to do their savings for them. He said that, for some people, if they had an $100 each week of the year, they would have spent it frivolously.

I actually think that’s an excellent thought process. I see where he’s coming from there. Instead of someone thinking “let me set aside $100 this week to put towards debt,” it just becomes part of the pot of money that goes out with each pay check. That’s also easy to see as not worth putting towards a separate financial goal because it feels like not enough.

My frustration with the thought process of wanting a large return is that people think they’ve gamed the system and done something special to obtain (or earn) that amount, rather than realizing it was “their money” all along. You can project your tax burden for the year; it’s not a secret formula. Paycheck withholdings throughout the year simply allow you to work with your employer to gradually meet that tax burden as you earn your salary.

We project our tax burden each year. Sometimes Mr. ODA doesn’t listen to me on what our net for the rentals is going to be, and then we owe a lot come April, but that’s our own fault for not projecting with the right variables. For most people, the projection is a much simpler formula.

AIM FOR A $0 TAX RETURN

If you are someone who is going to put that $5,000 towards something productive, rather than frivolously spending it just as you would have all year, then that’s fine. However, I encourage a look at your opportunity costs.

Did you receive your tax return and go buy a 75″ tv? Was that a necessity? Did the money that went towards that tv have a better financial purpose?

Did you spend the whole year living paycheck to paycheck and worrying about the next bill to come in? Did you pay bills late because you needed funds from a future paycheck to cover the balance?

Did you spend the year carrying credit card debt, paying 26% interest on the balance, and then wait for your tax return to pay towards your balance? If you did, then maybe realize that the $5,000 you got in a lump sum could have saved you in interest costs had you just put $400 extra per month towards your credit card balance.

If you pay $200 per month (assuming a 26% interest rate):

If you pay $600 per month (that extra $100 per week that went into your taxes paid instead of into your pocket all year, causing a $5000 return):

You’ve paid off the balance in less than a year, and saved $1704 worth of interest payments. If you had paid $200 per month for a year and then used your tax return to pay off the balance, you’d have paid about $1,100 of interest, and then would be putting over $3800 of your tax return to pay it off. You also have the benefit of not having a bill hanging over your head at some point within that year, instead of worrying about meeting the minimum payments and continuing to accrue interest.

SUMMARY

So that’s my angst with the “financial win” of the tax return. Something as large as $5000 is an entirely different ball game than $500. Looking to get some money back and using the taxes as a ‘forced’ savings is an option. Perhaps you use that to take the only vacation in your year. But that should still be a reasonable vacation. Spend $1000 or $1500. You don’t need a $5000 vacation when struggling to pay bills or having debt that’s accruing interest.

So while I agree that the forced savings could be an excuse for a large refund, once someone receives a large refund, there should be an evaluation of their financial standing and an education on how that could be turned into a true, productive financial goal.

April Financial Update

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I had this post mostly written by Wednesday, but we traveled earlier this week, and I haven’t kept track of the day very well. This is the first I’ve been able to update our net worth and get this done. Ironic, considering how I started this post when I expected it to be on time. And now..

This past month has been exhausting on me. I knew March was going to be busy. We had a bunch of sports schedules to manage, lots of kids birthday parties, hosting my dad for a long weekend that coincided with 3 family birthdays and the first anniversary of my mom’s passing, an assortment of Easter activities, a trip, and random other events. On top of managing these day-to-day things for our family, our deck replacement started, and we had to work on a massive turnover of a rental property. I’m in a perpetual state of tired these last few weeks.

DECK REPLACEMENT

On July 2nd of last year, a storm blew threw that destroyed our neighborhood. Honestly, we’re surprised by how little actual structure damage there was for our neighborhood because it looked like a war zone with the amount of trees down. A couple of houses had a tree fall on their roof, but only cause minimal damage that resulted in shingle replacement. We appeared to bear the brunt of the worst, which was a tree falling on our deck, crushing our furniture, moving all the supports, and cracking the concrete blow it. Another tree missed falling on one of our cars by centimeters, but that limb ended up cracking our driveway apron. We struggled communicating the extent of the damage with our insurance company, and they eventually realized what was needed and paid out on it five months after the incident. Our construction started on March 18th.

It hasn’t been an easy process. It’s emotionally draining on me because there were communication issues with our contractor that he wasn’t taking responsibility for. Then there were minor issues, but issues nonetheless. For instance, they installed waterproofing so the patio would be a dry area, but they cut through one of the barriers. Instead of realizing that was going to be an issue and fixing it themselves, I had to point it out. Then we went out there while it was raining to check it, only to see that there are 3 spots where water is just pouring through the seams. That just takes a lot out of me to have that conversation. They cracked off the top of our sewer cleanout, which not only made a mess in the yard, also caused a backup into our basement tub and toilet once it was glued back on because of a pressurizing issue (we think).

Then there are those hidden things that take energy, such as managing how to move money out of savings (while not exceeding the maximum of six transfers) and keeping track of all the bills, while ensuring the checking account has the right amount of money to cover the bills paid.

RENTAL PROPERTIES

Everyone paid rent on time! I had two technically pay on the 6th, but I sat waiting to see if it showed up before reaching out that morning. One of our tenants bought a house and vacated as of March 31st. They actually had left the house a little early, which was really helpful to us because the house needed a lot of work. The house had been flipped before we bought it. We knew everything was going to eventually need attention, but we hung on as long as possible. The neighborhood is really nice, so it was time to bring the state of the house up to a better standard. It had been “good enough” all these years, but there were definitely some items that should be replaced. This ended up being a huge overhaul, costing us over $10k. I’ll go into all the details in a future post.

NET WORTH

We’ve made a few substantial payments on the deck. We had been investing the money from the insurance company, while we waited for them to finish their estimates and then while waiting for the contractor to begin. Our taxable investment accounts have decreased a bit from that, and they’ll continue to decrease as this project finishes up in the next 2-3 weeks. The market is lower than it was a month ago, but our house values are starting their upward Spring trend, offsetting some of that loss. Overall, our net worth increased over the last month, but only by about $4,500 instead of the drastic increases we had been seeing month-to-month.

2023 in Review: Rentals

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After several years of very minimal time having to be put into rentals once they were rented, 2023 made up for it. We had a lot of damage to properties, a lot of tenant payment issues, and just a general “can we not talk about rentals for ONE week please” moments. But even with that frustration, this is still the best.

All of these stories were elaborated on in posts throughout the year. This is meant as a summary of all our activities. You can search for the stories through keywords on the website, or just email me, and I’ll elaborate.

PROPERTY MANAGEMENT

In January, I took over management of our Kentucky properties. When we moved here in 2020, it was easier to maintain status quo. In Virginia, we had established contacts in the trades we’d need, and we felt comfortable there. In Kentucky, since we hadn’t lived there, nor did we have direct management of the properties (plus, the property manager did a lot of work in house), we just left it alone and kept paying the management fees. We bought a 4th property in Kentucky in 2022, and I kept it under my management. Through that process, I grew more comfortable with the area and any trades people I would need. Then over the course of 2022, the property management issues finally were painful enough that we cut ties.

We had cut ties with our first management company who was doing zero of the work they were supposed to do. In the process, we learned a few ways we wanted to see a future management company operate. We negotiated some of the fees that this company had. I didn’t foresee how frustrating that would be. For instance, they’d charge us 10% of the contracted price when hiring a company if they couldn’t do something in house. I said, “that’s what management is, and what I’m paying you for monthly.” They agreed to not add 10% to contractor payments. But I never saw the invoices, even when I asked for them, so it was hard for me to know whether I was being charged by them correctly. It turns out, I was always charged that extra 10%, and I needed to request the refund, every single time.

Problems really got bad when a single employee claimed we didn’t pay something we had and immediately charged us for it (over $1,000). We had to get the owner of the company involved. It was a mess. I finally said that’s enough, and even though I had a one month old baby, I took over management. Luckily, we had a clause in our contract that allowed us to cancel the contract (by either party) with 30 days notice.

I met with each of the 3 properties’ tenants they had under management, and I executed my own leases with them. First, their lease was a mess and disorganized (and had errors that were crossed out and initialed). Second, I like having my template in place so that I know what it says, and how it’s laid out. I recently learned that my VA property manager’s lease didn’t have some key information I would have preferred to see there, so I even started using my leases for the properties she manages.

INSURANCE CLAIMS

After having no insurance claims for all our homeownership years, we had three this year. One was on our personal house, and two were rental properties. I covered our own issues in a previous post; a wind storm caused a tree to fall on our deck, one (well, one and a half) on the fence, and a few limbs on the driveway.

We had a bad wind storm come through in March. The tree fell from the back of the property and hit the roof of a rental property. By some miracle, there was not a single puncture of a limb into the house. The roof sustained the fall and weight of the tree. We didn’t even need to fix the roof, just the fascia board and gutter. Insurance was super easy to work with. An adjuster came out, reviewed the damage, and issued a check.

We had another rental property with the water heater in the attic (instead of the crawl space or just anywhere better conditioned than the attic). A 2-week freeze came through in December 2022, and it froze the pipes. When it thawed, water just poured through the ceiling and into the house. There was 2 inches of water everywhere. The ceiling in the master bedroom, master bathroom, laundry room, and part of the kitchen caved in. The walls in the master bedroom and bathroom needed to be taken down to the studs and rebuilt. The bottom 2′ of all the walls in the house had to be torn out and put back together. All the flooring (that we had put in 5 months earlier) had to be replaced. And with all of that said, it actually wasn’t that bad of a process. Since insurance covered everything, it was just what it was. If I had to pay for each step, it would have been more painful (in time, contractor management, and cost). We were “out of commission” for about 3 months, but insurance even covered lost rent.

I sit here and type this while my back deck is still damaged. By the time we got through our claim with the insurance company, we were months out from the contractor getting to us. I’m hoping it’ll be replaced by May.

MAINTENANCE CALLS

I was surprised to realize that we only replaced two dishwashers and one refrigerator this year. Then I realized it’s probably because we’ve replaced almost all the other ones in the last few years – yikes.

We had a house cited by the City for unsightly conditions in the front yard. The tenant mowed and cleaned up some things right away, and we hired someone to come cut up a fallen tree limb that we didn’t know about.

We had another house cited by insurance for not having a handrail on the front stoop (even though we’ve owned this house for 6 years at that point, with the same insurance). We had our handyman install one for us. While he was there, he fixed the ceiling in a bedroom where there had been water damage.

We paid for a flat roof to be fixed, after several years of fighting it and it continuing to leak (it’s so hard to find a roofer to work on a flat roof). That was a debacle because he was delayed for weeks, didn’t communicate, and then took it upon himself to change the scope of work. I wasn’t happy with the new scope and forced him to uphold the contract and do it right.

One house was completely painted during the turnover. We also had the tile and cast iron tub in that house newly epoxied (and then learned that it didn’t even last a year and is flaking).

We also had a new one – wildlife traps. A tenant had a raccoon living in her attic. The management company “fixed” it, but didn’t actually. I hired a professional when I took over management. They didn’t catch anything over the course of a few days, so they were confident nothing was in the attic. They then repaired the hole.

And then the usual – several plumbing/HVAC issues that were resolved throughout the year. Those will always be there. We had a big one with a water main line leak due to trees infiltrating the pipes (and unfortunately, that wasn’t the first time we’ve done that type of work).

We spent $15k across the 13 properties (some had $0 spent) on maintenance calls.

INCREASE IN TAXES AND INSURANCE

In November, I had posted about how our taxes and insurance charges have increased over the previous year. Our escrow accounts increased by $312 in payments. Our taxes were over $3,400 more than the previous year’s payments, and our insurance policies increased by over $1,000. Both the tax assessments and the replacement value costs were increased by these entities to reflect the higher home prices over the last few years, and that caused a higher-than-expected increase in all these costs. Some tax jurisdictions took their time in catching up their assessments to the skyrocketing prices of 2020/2021, but some took advantage of it right away. We have two houses where the taxes over the last 4 years have hardly changed, but we have others where the costs increased significantly.

INCREASE IN RENTAL INCOME

Our total income in 2023 increased from 2022 by almost $12,000. Although, I’ll note that we had over $4,000 paid from a rent relief program in January 2023 that really counted some towards 2022 amounts owed.

Most of my rent increases went into effect in 2022, just based on how the years played out. I had two properties increase by $50/month each in May 2023.

When the tenant flooded the house, we were able to upgrade a few things in there. In that time, the market rent always increased. So we went from $1200/month to $1600/month in rent over that time. It ended up being a problem because the new tenant lost her job, but that becomes a problem in 2024, after we struggled with her paying rent from October 1 through February.

We also had tenant turnover in another property, where the rent went from $800/month to $925/month. The previous tenant had been there several years. We had decent numbers (e.g., covering of expenses) on the house, and she kept struggling to pay on time, so I didn’t have the heart to increase the rent on her. It was my way of giving her a break because she had done something really big/difficult in her life. When we put it on the market, it wasn’t an ideal time of year, so we went low at $925. This tenant asked to leave mid-lease. We ended up re-renting the house at $995.

We had another tenant buy a house and vacate their lease early, leaving us to re-rent it for January 1. We were able to get someone in by February. Luckily, their lease break fee for that time of year was a month’s worth of rent, so we technically weren’t out of any income for that month-long gap. We were able to re-rent the house at $1,650 (from 1,350); that’s not realized until 2024 income though. We also took a leap of faith on this new tenant, who didn’t completely meet our criteria, but she asked for a chance; hopefully when I’m making this post next year, I haven’t regretted the decision to rent to her.

SUMMARY

This year, we had one tenant egregiously not pay rent on time, another tenant continuously pay late by a few days (although for their track record, paying 33% of payments due late is actually low), and a few who needed a bit more time (and communicated in advance) so we didn’t charge them a late fee. We had two houses with insurance claims, two major expenses (main water line replacement and flat roof repairs), and about $9k worth of other maintenance expenses on the houses.

I took over management of 3 of the 4 properties in Kentucky that were under a property manager. We added a house to the Virginia property manager’s portfolio. We had to turn over two properties in the winter wasn’t ideal, but we made it work. Technically, it was 3 properties over the winter, but one gave notice in 2024. We increased the rent on two houses by $50/month each to cover large increases in taxes and insurance payments.

Overall, this was a time-consuming year. We spent more time managing these properties and dealing with issues than any previous year. I can’t say that there was a single month where we just collected rent without any calls or discussion with a property manager. Heck, I could handle the “is it ok if I pay rent on the 9th” type messages, but this year was more than that. Here’s to hoping that everything is moving smoothly in 2024.

2023 in Review: Personal Spending

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I’ve been working on the ‘year in review’ posts for 3 months. I really want to be consistent on tracking our spending and making sure I’m being intentional in our spending. Our main credit card had the nerve to tell me that it was exporting 461 line items for me to categorize and manipulate in Excel. We have 8 credit cards. So that wasn’t a fun realization.

Additionally, if I track it more than once every two years, I may be able to better categorize our spending. For example, a Walgreens purchase may be pictures that I printed, or it could be a prescription. My Amazon purchase may be clothes for the kids they needed, a gift for someone, something in the home improvement category, etc. The entertainment category can include exercise that we’ve paid for (e.g., 5K, ultimate frisbee, kids’ activities) or a trip we went on.

There’s also no direct way that I’m tracking where a credit card expense has been offset by someone paying us back. For instance, I put $980 on my credit card for a trip, but someone paid me $480 for it via Venmo. That offset is in my year’s total transactions, but not in a manner where I can capture it for this year-long-view of expenses. Additionally, we go out to eat at restaurants, but Mr. ODA gets paid for some of those as a secret shopper.

EXPENSES

This doesn’t identify the actual money spent in each category, but it shows how categories align with each other. To simplify this graph (and to allow all bars to even be seen), I combined several smaller categories into an overarching category. For example, the entertainment category includes anything from doing a brewery tour to traveling to another state. Home Improvement includes $10,000 worth of new carpeting, so it’s an outlier. This also doesn’t include expenses that were paid for out of our checking account(s); although nearly all of our expenses are paid via credit card to gain the rewards.

MEDICAL: We spent the first half of the year managing doctor appointments. They were mostly for the baby, and then halfway through the year, I started having serious vertigo issues. The baby was born a little early, had jaundice, diagnosed with reflux and put on medication, and then had trouble gaining weight. My 3rd baby then needed to have formula supplemented, after I nursed two kids and had extra milk to donate to NICU babies. That was an unexpected psychological and financial change. Once he started to become healthier, I hit a wall. After a week of wondering why I kept feeling lightheaded and dizzy, I woke up one morning not able to walk a straight line, and if I even attempted to, I’d throw up. I was diagnosed with an ear infection, which seemed to make sense, but the antibiotics didn’t stop the vertigo episodes. After several specialists, I was given the same thing that I always am: “your symptoms don’t fit neatly into any one category, and I don’t know what’s wrong with you.” Luckily, most of my symptoms have died down at this point. And thankfully, outside of random viruses and a bout of pink eye through 3/5 of us, the others were healthy.

SPORTS: We joined the Y and were really strong for the first 3 months. Once my mom died, I didn’t have it in me to go exercise, and then I got sick for most of the summer with that vertigo issue. Mr. ODA played softball, vintage baseball, and ultimate frisbee; I was able to play some ultimate frisbee and run a 5K. The kids did swim lessons at the Y (and was quite a terrible experience). Our oldest attempted soccer for the second time, and then cried through all practices and games. Our middle thrived in ‘acro’ for the second half of the year. I plan to finish our this semester with her in acro, but I think she’s going to love gymnastics after that.

TRAVEL: We traveled to NY for my mom’s funeral. I took 3 flights in a few days with the baby, all with points (which American Airlines was super easy to work with for last minute flights and using points). We went to the middle of nowhere Tennessee with Mr. ODA’s family, to NY two more times, a short family camping trip, to Indy for some kid-related fun, and a trip to Cincinnati to see Christmas lights and take the kids skiing for the first time. I bought myself new skis (I had been snowboarding for the last 13 years), which led to buying the kids ski equipment (although, it’s noteworthy that we bought them second hand and their skis and boots totaled $100 for two kids). That then led to buying mid-week season passes at our local ski resort. On top of our family trips, Mr. ODA took two work trips, a golf trip, and a mountain biking trip.

GAS: Typically, our gas usage can correlate to our travel because we usually drive somewhere instead of fly with 3 little kids and all the gear they come with. In June and November, we drove to NY, so those have bigger spikes in the graph below (June also included a trip about 4 hours away). In the beginning of the year, we were more interested in staying home because we had a new little baby, but we ventured out more towards the end of the summer.

RESTAURANTS: I was pleasantly surprised to see the amount spent each month in this category. I didn’t feel like we ate at restaurants all that much in the last year, but I was concerned with whether the numbers who support that. There’s an outlier in March because we spent a lot at one restaurant during the week of my mom’s funeral. On Long Island, food is a big deal; while every one else was paying for meals, I felt it was our turn. We don’t need to actually mention how much that meal was. May’s spike was simply the volume of times we went out to eat, and the majority of them being related to Mr. ODA’s secret shopper gig.

HOME: In July, we had a storm come through that wrecked our neighborhood. No one reported the damage to the National Weather Service, which makes me sad because I wanted to know if it was a tornado! We had several trees fall. One took out our deck, another took out our fence, and another cracked our driveway, but missed Mr. ODA’s car by centimeters. We fought insurance for 5 months, and now we’re in the queue to have it replaced some time late Spring.

CAR: We bought a car. That’s $6,000 worth of the “Home Bills” category. Since most of our bills actually can’t be paid by credit card, it’s surprising to have such a high category for that on the graph, but that’s why. They allowed us to do two $3,000 transactions on a credit card so we could get the points, and then we paid the balance by personal check.

GROCERIES: I’d like to watch this spending more in the future. A purchase at Walmart may include non-grocery items (e.g., shoes), but that is being lumped in with the groceries because I can’t possibly siphon out individual transaction expenses for an entire year in one sitting. So here’s a graph of our “grocery” spending per month, but noting such a caveat.

SUMMARY

While I know we’ve had some larger one-time expenses, I’m still not happy to see the amount spent in each category. I feel we’re diligent in our food spending, but I think we can reduce that amount.

I removed rental information, any rewards received, the $6,000 car purchase, and the $10,000 worth of carpet purchase to try to show that our spending is consistent month-to-month. Again, the baby kept us home in January and February, but we’re generally consistent in spending. I hope that I can review our expenses more often going forward so that I can more accurately categorize our spending.

March Financial Update

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We’re just going to cut to the chase – $4 million net worth! I mentioned that this was a goal for this year. Unlike other years worth of large jumps because of purchasing houses, this was less in our control (granted, our market allocation decisions are what’s driving it…. and by “our,” I absolutely mean only Mr. ODA’s because I don’t do anything in that realm).

RENTALS

Well, we’ve had a quiet month. What’s going to be funny is, I’m going to list the things that we did. Quiet doesn’t mean silent or without effort, but we’ve had a rough go of it over the last year, so this was a welcomed break.

We had termites at a property. We pay $98 annually for their termite warranty program, since we found extensive termite damage and live termites when we bought the house. We’ve had to treat the house several times, so this $98 is a steal. However, I’m wondering why we keep needing to treat the house.

We paid $125 for a plumber to go out to a clogged sink. When we received the invoice, it was for 2 plumbers to go. Between the phone call that they were on their way and the tenant saying they were great, only 35 minutes had elapsed. The company charged us almost $300. Mr. ODA called to ask why they choose to send two plumbers to do a one-man job, while also charging us for it. The owner said it was for liability purposes, which Mr. ODA fought back on. They agreed to a reduced rate, but we were only charged $125, which was less than agreed upon.

We had our third tenant move in, after we unexpectedly had to turnover three houses in the middle of winter. We also were given notice by another tenant that she’s vacating by the end of March. We handled increases for two houses (one handled by a property manager to increase $50/month, and one handled by me to increase by $25/month).

We had one tenant pay on the morning of the 6th with no communication, so I did have our property manager let them know that’s not going to be ok. We also had a usual suspect pay late, with the late fee. However, their communication was frustrating. They said they’d pay on the 6th. At the end of the 6th, they said the money hadn’t cleared like they expected. No communication on the 7th. I asked for an updated on the morning of the 8th, and they said it would be that day. At 11 pm, I hadn’t received anything and reached out. I was then told that money was going into the ATM right then so that she could pay. Sometimes I wish I could do a deep dive into tenant finances so that I could help them out.

PERSONAL

Mr. ODA has a trip in July where a group of guys will hike in the Rockies. Our family is going out before that trip is scheduled to do our own exploring. We booked 4 round trip plane tickets, and Mr. ODA handled the lodging booking for the guys’ portion. That’s almost $3,000 worth of purchases, so our credit cards are higher than usual.

Speaking of the plane tickets. We purchased gift cards from Costco for Southwest. The gift cards are essentially $450 for $500 worth of purchasing power at Southwest. We bought two, therefore saving $100 on the tickets. For an extra few clicks on the computer, and the 15 minutes waiting time before the e-gift cards were delivered to my email, that’s $100 that can be used somewhere else.

We bought a new vanity for our bathroom. That was about $700 for the vanity, faucet, toilet flusher, and mirror. I sold the old vanity (in rough shape) for $30. And because I’m proud that I did most of it on my own, here’s a picture. I needed Mr. ODA’s help with the supply lines because I lost patience with how tightly they were screwed on and my lack of progress. I cut the baseboards down to size, except I somehow measured wrong on one quarter round cut (I was cutting while it was on the wall). Mr. ODA cut and installed the replacement piece for me.

We finished up the ski season. The kids did great. I was really proud of them for sticking with it. We used our season pass well (i.e., exceeding the cost had we bought individual tickets for each visit). I took two of the three kids to the aquarium, and we took the baby for a procedure at a local children’s hospital. We’ve started tee ball for our oldest. Our March is very full and busy, so we’re getting into the swing of things and keeping track of the schedule.

NET WORTH

Well, we far exceeded that $4 million goal. The market went up big, with our biggest changes being in our retirement account, IRAs, and cash. Our cash increase is offset by the lower amount in our Treasury account. Some of the short term bonds were transferred back into our savings account, and we’ve kept that money in savings since our deck replacement is slated to begin.

February Financial Update

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RENTALS

The rentals were expensive this month with $4600 paid out. This doesn’t include work that’s currently under way, but not paid for yet.

I paid for a water heater replacement, which was $1,904. I had to pay insurance on a larger property ($793). I paid the balance of the window replacement at one property, which was $1,064. I also paid for a plumber to address a leaking toilet and a rotted faucet ($325). We had a new tenant move into a vacant property, so we had that cleaned before her arrival ($165).

I had to pay for a plumber’s service call ($95) for clogged drains, for them to refer me to a rooter company ($250). I emailed that tenant that preventive measures need to be taken because I’ve not had so many calls to one property. She assured me they have taken appropriate measures and it’s just old pipes. The only problem being that we have several other properties with old pipes that never call for clogs.

We’ve turned over two properties and are about to turnover another property in the dead of winter. It’s so frustrating to be in such a position. All of those stories will be elaborated on in future posts.
– On one property, we charged a lease break fee of one month’s rent to cover our losses (the fee was different based on the month in which they broke the lease). Luckily, that covered our entire month of January being vacant, but we found someone for 2/1.
– Another tenant asked to leave a property because he lost his job. That was handled a bit different because we didn’t know in advance that this tenant would want to leave mid-lease. We told them there’s a fee of $250 (which is what it costs us to pay the property manager to find a new tenant), and that they had to pay rent until we found a new tenant. We didn’t lose any rent on that property.
– Now, we have a newly vacant property because the tenant can no longer afford it. I’m not expecting to recover her unpaid rent at this point. We approved a tenant to start 2/28, leaving us with 27 days of lost rent. However, we sent a lease over for them to sign. They’re currently dragging their feet on signing because they want to pay with their tax return. I don’t love that idea. They’ve been easy to communicate with up until this point, just slow. I’m hoping this gamble works out.

PERSONAL FINANCES

I had to transfer money to Mr. ODA’s account to cover the purchase of our new back door and a new treadmill (although that was only $400). This is an interesting concept for us. Mr. ODA had an account before we met. His account was grandfathered in to new terms and conditions at this bank. He’s kept his checking account and credit card for the rewards (I have access to the account; my name just isn’t on it). Any online purchases go on that credit card. However, that account only receives $250 every other week from Mr. ODA’s pay check (occasionally it’ll receive rent via Zelle). So sometimes, we need to transfer money from our main checking account to cover that credit card payment. All our security deposit accounts are with that bank too. So I had to then transfer from a security deposit account into his checking account, and then have him send that money to our main account. It wasn’t our finest money management moment.

Not much else happened this past month. We’ve gone skiing with the kids some more, I went on a moms’ cruise (which was amazing), took a small trip to piggyback Mr. ODA’s work trip, and have done activities around town. We’re gearing up for a procedure at a local children’s hospital next week, which I’m expecting will wipe out our deductible. Luckily that’s only $3,000, but I’m sure we’ll hit it. We’ll actually be late hitting it this year; it’s usually done in January.

NET WORTH

One of this year’s goal is to hit $4 million net worth. I thought it was going to be a ways away, but the market has been up big recently. We’re only about $14k away from that goal now!

January Financial Update

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As an intro for newbies: I write a monthly finance post. These posts started out as a way to manage our dollars spent per category. It evolved to show insight into my monthly money management and thought process. It’s also meant as a way to remind people that they should be looking at their money regularly.

Every month, I’m looking back at my spending, looking at trends on the higher level (e.g., why is my credit card higher than I expected), and sharing the rental property expenses and activities that I’ve accomplished.

I typically post on Thursdays. Unfortunately, life got in the way. I had 98% of this written, but I hadn’t updated our accounts until 10 pm, so this is now posting off-schedule, on Friday morning. Sorry about that!

RENTALS

I suppose with 13 houses, it’s inevitable that I’ll have to keep track of one.. or a few.. to collect their rent. One tenant is set up to pay twice per month (they pay a premium for this). They paid both parts of December late, and the first part of January late. They pay a late fee with that. I had two other tenants pay late by a few days, but they communicated this up front, and I didn’t collect late fees.

I’ve been sharing that I have a tenant who has been behind on rent since October 1 and has communicated very poorly. By the end of December, she was caught up with rent due, but no late fees. We’re now 11 days into January without any payment. My frustration with her was that she didn’t communicate at all for the first two months, and didn’t keep her word on anything that she said she was going to do, but didn’t tell us that something would change. I always say that I’m willing to help and work with you, but you have to talk to me. If I have to beg you to tell me what the plan is, I can’t help.

I paid a carpet cleaner $250 and paid a painter $2000 for a house that we’re turning over. The carpet was new before the last tenant, but they were there for over 3 years, so it had to be done. They didn’t damage the walls, but my property manager said that all the walls looked like different colors, and I didn’t trust “touching up” 4 year old paint. The paint looks amazing, so I’m happy I went for the whole house.

I paid just over $1000 as a deposit on 3 new windows for a house, which are scheduled to be replaced on Monday (a couple of weeks for new windows far exceeded my expectations!). We had replaced the majority of windows when we bought the house. However, at the time, the kitchen and bathroom windows were considered an irregular size, and we were told they were going to be $2000 just themselves, when we were paying $2000 for all the other windows. I don’t know what pricing scheme changed in 5 years, but now all sizes are the same price, and the 3 of them are $2000 now.

We had a tenant ask to be released from his lease, which we concurred to. We had terms associated with that, which I’ll share in a separate post. We were able to get a couple into that house with no loss of rent, which has been appreciated.

We’re under contract with our handyman to do work on a house, so that’s over $5,000 of cost that is waiting to rear its head out there.

PERSONAL

This was a month of spending in activities. I signed up for a 5k in August with “early bird” pricing, our daughter’s acro class had semester tuition due, and the kids’ monthly school tuition was paid as usual. Mr. ODA bought a new battery for his car and installed that. On somewhat of a whim, we replaced our back door, which was over $1100 added to Mr. ODA’s credit card.

Just before Christmas, we took a trip. It was just to Cincinnati, which we regularly do as a day-trip. However, we wanted to accomplish a few things this time around. We went to Top Golf for 90 minutes and lunch, let the baby nap at the AirBnB, went to Zoo Lights, spent the night, and then went skiing the next morning (the kids’ first time!). We already purchased season passes (and equipment) for skiing for 4 of us, and had already purchased the zoo annual membership. Without the cost of those two things, our trip cost $330 for Top Golf, lodging, parking (we stayed in the city), a ski lesson for our 5 year old, and food. Our lodging for 1 night was nearly $200 and was significantly more than we’d typically spend on lodging. However, we’re still in a phase of life where the baby needs the be in a space by himself so he sleeps for a nap and through the night. That means we look for a place with at least 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, or 3 bedrooms and 1 bathroom (bonus points for master-sized closets or an extra bathroom with no windows for me to black out). We then made 2 day trips since then, and the kids are doing awesome on skis.

NET WORTH

Our cash has decreased, but that was offset to taxable investments because of our Treasury Direct accounts. Even with our extra spending, our credit card balances are comparable to last month’s. The increase in net worth from last month is mostly due to increases in our investment accounts.

This year’s goal is to hit $4 million net worth. Mr. ODA said that to our financial advisor via Instagram, and he didn’t share that publicly because it wasn’t relatable. The point in sharing here is that, well it’s January and people set goals, and to note that even if this goal specifically isn’t attainable to you in the short term, know that we also once had an account balance well below where we’re currently at. Consistent investing in the market (maxing out the 401k, maxing out the Roth IRAs, and establishing regular investing and watching the market) is a large contributing factor to where we are 10 years later. If I take the investment properties out of the equation, we’re still over $2 million net worth. That doesn’t happen overnight, and it’s something you can start working towards today.

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.