travel

Big Summer Trip: Part 3

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I did not intend for this to be a 3 part post, but NJ had a lot more to it than I expected. Now it’s Delaware’s turn.

We arrived in Delaware on the Cape May ferry and drove straight to our hotel in Lewes. We got there fairly late, but the room was amazing. We always seem to get the nicest places when we have no intention of being there for very long! Mr. ODA was able to book it for cheaper than we expected, and it was about half the cost of what we planned to spend on a crappy motel in Wildwood.

LEWES

Our first stop in Lewes was the Cannonball House. It was a small house by the water that commemorated the early 1900s of navigation on the water. It was free and worth a visit. Our oldest got to hold a real cannonball. There were examples of how early morse code was used, and the kids got to try their hand at communicating in that language. We also visited the Zwaanendael Museum. This was also free and was very welcoming of children. There were activities for them to do on both floors, and they were encouraged to touch and explore. I wanted to do Lightship Overfalls, but their hours are very limited, and we weren’t going to be around for the timing. Lewes is an adorable, quaint town that gives New England vibes. I would definitely recommend a visit.

DOVER

From Lewes, we drove north to Dover. As I’ve mentioned in the past, we love to see the state capitol buildings, so this is a must for us if we’re nearby. There were no assigned tour times, just that the tour needed to conclude by 1:00. After visiting, I’m assuming this was because the lady giving the tours just does tours as people show up, but she wants to leave by 1. She brings her german shephard to work with her, and she was just the sweetest pup. This lady doing the tour was incredible. You could tell she cared a lot about the history. She spoke with enthusiasm instead of regurgitating data memorized. Her dad served in the House in the 1930s too! The security guards and this lady were very welcoming. We shared the awful NJ experience with them, and they said they hear it often. We ended up staying there until 2:30 when the kids finally made it known that they had to get moving and were tired of sitting around while we chatted. We walked around the area and visited the original capitol house. It was so hot, and we were hungry, so we had to give up exploring and fix that.

We grabbed some Wawa sandwiches and found picnic benches to eat our late lunch. There were quite a few homeless people around, so I kept my head on a swivel. Our youngest left his water bottle at Wawa. When I went back for it, the worker laughed and said “oh honey, you’re in the hood. That thing is long gone.” I actually laughed in her face because nothing about Dover felt ghetto or unsafe having grown up on Long Island and visiting Queens and the City.

We came back on another day to visit the Air Mobility Command Museum. This was also free. It had planes that were open for us to explore, an old air traffic control tower to explore, and several areas with things to learn about war planes and the history of communication in the military.

MILFORD

Our visit was to a friend’s house in Milford. We didn’t explore very much of Milford itself because we went to the beaches, but it was a great little area. One afternoon, we went to Big Oyster Brewery for happy hour. It’s a bar with a playground area for the kids. The weather was great with no humidity, so it was a lovely afternoon hanging out there.

BEACHES

The first day, we went to Cape Henlopen State Park. It was $20 for a day pass to enter. The beach was lovely. Mr. ODA likes to play in the waves, so we went to a place on the ocean. Turns out, the two older kids absolutely love playing in the waves also. We were on the beach for about 4 hours. We went to the food truck for lunch. It was really expensive, and, other than the fries, not great. There are lots of trails to explore the area there, but we just drove around to get the sights instead of taking tired and cranky kids on walking trails in the heat.

On the third day, we visited Rehoboth. We got there at 9:30. Parking starts at 10, which is also when people start showing up. When we got there, there were hardly any people. It filled in as the day went by. We spent 4.5 hours on the beach that day and had packed our own food. We rode a few rides at Fun Land and walked the boardwalk. We wrapped up with ice cream on the main drag. But the place was just so crowded that we were happy to head home for dinner.

SUMMARY

So for 17 days, we explored NY, NJ, and DE. In total, we spent over $1300, which included two hotel nights, but otherwise we stayed with family and friends. In DE, we bought groceries, some meals out, parking at the beaches, and gas, so the total spending came to $340 for the 4 nights we were there.

Big Summer Trip: Part 2

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I discussed the first half of this trip in a previous post. We spent over a week in NY visiting my family, and then we went to NJ for two days and finally on to DE for several days. Mr. ODA thought we could use the opportunity to explore some areas we typically wouldn’t. Usually we’re just trying to get home, which takes a whole day, so we don’t make stops near NY. The whole trip only cost us about $1350, which included two hotel stays ($437). We were entertained the whole time and the kids had fun. 

I make these posts after our trips to share that you can explore different places, give your kids exposure to lots of things, and it doesn’t need to cost a lot of money. I see so many people save all year to splurge on one trip (e.g., Disney), when there’s a lot of learning experiences out there for little growing minds. I understand everyone has their own preferences, and if it works for you, that’s great! I just want to share another perspective of how we manage our trips and activities.

NEW JERSEY: PARKS

We left NY on a Monday morning. We explored northern Jersey for the day. Honestly, we could have spent more time in each place. I was surprised at how early we made it to a hotel.

Our first stop was the Palisades. While some parts of it were nice to see, it was overall disappointing. The park also requires payment to park in the parking lots instead of an access payment, and that was a surprise from all of our travels.

Stop two was Paterson Great Falls National Historic Park. The kids love to get their junior ranger badgers from the National Park Service, so that kept us entertained for a while. They give you a booklet and ask the kid to fill out a few pages to earn the badge. This one had a bingo game where you walked the park to find the images in the pictures and cross them off. Even the littlest one got into it. While the park and the huge waterfall was cool to see, I wouldn’t recommend spending much time in the area.

Stop three was Liberty Park. While I didn’t care to go to the Statue of Liberty itself, it was nice to show the kids it. We spent a while at the huge playground there, got some Mister Softee (my personal favorite), walked the waterfront trail, and drove around the park. We didn’t rush being there, but we were also cognizant of heading south before NYC rush hour started.

We stayed in Cranbury, NJ for the night. The hotel was outdated with a bunch of deferred maintenance, but they had an evening social hour that we were able to get a snack at. We hung out in the lobby and played card games.

NEW JERSEY: TRENTON

The next morning we had a tour scheduled at the Capitol in Trenton, which is why we had stayed in Cranbury (to be close, but not too close because #trenton). Mr. ODA booked a 10:00 tour. They were adamant that a tour had to be booked. He was given general instruction that he, logically, thought would be obvious when we got there. It wasn’t.

The first stop is to enter the parking garage under the Capitol. There’s a police officer sitting on the street and one sitting in the middle of the entrance area (not welcoming – giving “this isn’t safe” vibes). I pull up to the gate, and the man asks what we’re doing. I said we have a 10:00 Capitol tour. He seemed put off by us, but I think it was just his general demeanor. He then gave a bajillion instructions on where to go. Let me say what he should have: You’re on the 3rd floor. Go to the 1st floor. Park in visitor parking in section 1F. Do not go to the elevators near 1F. Go to the elevators at 1C.

The elevators are extremely important.

When Mr. ODA got the instructions over the phone, the lady said “do not go outside.” Out of context, that makes no sense. Turns out, behind all these instructions was a simple fact: the welcome center is your destination, not the Capitol security entrance. That is so unbelievably important. And yet, no one could clearly communicate that.

We got on the elevator at 1F. We followed the instructions that were printed and taped to the wall (so seemingly an important update because it required extra signage to be printed) to go straight to security at the entrance. We walked outside. Followed signs to the entrance. The lady at the security guard desk called the tour people to say we were there. It was 9:49.

Now, here, the security guard could have said, “it’s better if you go back to the welcome center and meet the tour there.” But nooooooo. She said “hang out in the vestibule. Do not go outside. She will come get you.” No one came at 10 for us. We kept asking what the plan was while we sat in a muggy vestibule with 3 small kids. “They’re coming.”

Turns out, there’s a welcome center. Turns out, the tour starts there. Turns out, they were going to get to us when they got to us and there was no rush.

So many failures on that part.

Then we take the tour. There are police officers everywhere, and always more than one. A buddy system. Inside a Capitol building. All over the building. That’s new to us. And we’ve been to a lot of Capitols. The tour wasn’t great. I tried really hard to ask myself questions like, “I grew up in NY, is this not good because I already just don’t like NJ?” and “I had to wait 22 minutes for our tour to start because of terrible communication and signage, am I just angry about that, or does this really suck?” It was bad. There was nothing all that noteworthy to NJ’s history to share. The tour guide told us twice that Abraham Lincoln walked the halls for one day on his way back to DC. One day. This story came up twice. Wow.

At the end of the tour, we’re escorted directly into the parking garage. Ummm, I have 3 kids who likely should pee even if they don’t say they need to go, and I need to pee. The tour guide escorted us back into the building, then stood outside the bathrooms while we went, and it wasn’t until we finally said “there are 3 cops here, do you still need to be here or can we look at the WELCOME center?” that he finally got permission from the cops that he could leave.

It was just a surprisingly terrible experience all around. We didn’t feel welcomed at any point. I’ve never visited a Capitol that made you feel like it wasn’t safe around every corner and that didn’t say “go ahead and explore the building” after the tour.

We were going to explore Trenton, but at that point, we just wanted out.

NEW JERSEY: THE SHORE AND CAPE MAY

We headed south through the Pine Barrens for a scenic drive and arrived at the Cape May Zoo. That was incredible and free. There was also a gigantic playground there, but it was hot, and I was ready to move on, but in case anyone has plans to be in southern Jersey – plan a day at the zoo and park. The food in the zoo was expensive, but I justified it that we hadn’t paid to enter the place.

From there, we drove over to Wildwood. Mr. ODA and I played ultimate frisbee for multiple summers on the beach there. It was a cool experience, and I wanted to do it with my kids. Originally, I had planned to pick a hotel we had once stayed in. I figured we’d walk the boardwalk, get dinner at one of the diner type places, and then just swim in the pool at the hotel. Well, the weather had other plans. Severe storms were descending on us. We grabbed the picture of the kids in front of the Wildwood sign and decided we didn’t want to ride out the storms in the little motels, so we booked the last ferry out of Cape May.

We grabbed some McDonalds just before the ferry. Since our ferry was at 6:00, we arrived around 5:15. There’s free putt putt and a playground there while you wait, but the putt putt had closed at 5 (I was also happy that my kids were not going to be holding a metal stick with lightning strikes nearby). We drove onto the ferry just before the rain started. As we’re waiting for the final loading of the cars and people, everyone’s phones start alerting to a tornado warning. The captain had tried to pull out and get through the storm, but he ended up saying we were going to ride it out back at the dock. We stayed awkwardly near the dock but not actually docked through the worst of it. A tornado came onshore right near the ferry terminal while we were sitting still at the dock, but the rain and wind was so bad, I didn’t get to see it with my own eyes! By 6:22, we were on our way to Lewes, Delaware.

SUMMARY

Look, I hate to make a part 3 on this, but I’m tired. The Capitol tour was so egregiously bad that this post got longer than I thought it would. So here’s the update for the two days in NJ, and next week I’ll finish up our Delaware activities. For a hotel, food, and gas, we spent $315 while in NJ plus $63 for the ferry.

Big Summer Trip: Part 1

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We took a 17 day trip, and it went much better than I thought it would. There wasn’t any reason it would go poorly, but we’re managing 3 kids and a really long time away from home, so I was reasonably worried. We usually go to NY to visit my family each summer. It’s an easy time to get there for a solid week and make the 12-14 hour drive worth it. This year, I decided I was finally up for the adventure of visiting Mr. ODA’s friend in Delaware too, so we locked it in.

TRAVEL TO NEW YORK

My niece was getting baptized and turning 1. My sister had planned a few options for her baptism, but there were some snafus, and it ended up working out that she could plan both events on one day. It just so happened that these events fell the week before a family wedding in NY as well, so it solidified our travel plans without much effort. The only problem was that the two older kids were in camp until 5 every day the week before. So we needed to get from Central KY at 5 pm on Friday to Long Island by 12 pm on Saturday. No traffic, no incidents creating longer stops out of the car, etc. and it’ll take 12 hours to get there. And that it did.

We picked the kids up at about 4:45 pm. We drove a few hours until it was time for dinner. We made a quick stop for food and then drove until 9:30 when we stopped for gas and got the kids situated for sleeping in the car. I was worried it wouldn’t go well because there’s a history of kids crying because they can’t move freely once falling asleep, but they made it the whole night. I was very happy and impressed. Mr. ODA drove from then until just after 2:30 am. I probably got an hour of sleep that whole stretch. Then I took over and we pulled into my dad’s house at 4:45 am. I was worried about getting there before the sun came up so that the kids wouldn’t think it’s day time and would go back to sleep, and we were cutting it close. I put the two big kids in a room with it fully blacked out and then I slept with the youngest in a twin bed to make sure he understood the assignment. He struggled, and we had light peeking in at 6:15, but we got back to sleep until 9:20.

NEW YORK ADVENTURES

Baptism and first birthday party took the whole first day, and the kids actually did pretty well considering the lack of sleep. Then we spent the rest of the week either in my dad’s pool or at a beach, except for the one night we went to a wedding. We traveled to Fire Island for a day to visit family friends. My dad has ferry tickets from his days working on the island, so that didn’t cost us anything, and we just paid for parking. The family that is there vacationing offered us lunch, so there weren’t any costs for being there.

While in NY, our costs are usually minimal because we stay at my dad’s, and the goal is to just be around family, so there aren’t huge expenditures. Our total spent in NY was $400. Just under $100 was gas, and $25 went towards EZ Pass (who knew that starting our EZ Pass journey in NY when we lived in Albany would pay off for so long because now we have a NY-issued pass that gets us discounts for traveling over NYC bridges).

Our biggest expense was the night that Mr. ODA and I went out for dinner in a waterfront town. We had dinner and drinks and spent a whopping $135. It’s super out of character for us, but, on that note, it’s also nice to spend time just the two of us, which is rare. My dad and his girlfriend took the kids for the night. They had the time of their life! I was really nervous, but it was totally worth it for them, even if they didn’t get home until nearly 10 pm! I love that they have those memories.

We didn’t make it to NYC. We had planned to be in NY for a couple more days than we ended up doing. We also didn’t plan to have so many activities while we were there. Being that the first two days were significantly busier than I anticipated after a night of overnight travel, I wanted that Monday to be more relaxing on the kids and not so stimulating. Then we planned to go to Fire Island on Thursday, and I was worried about dragging them through NYC and all that walking instead of resting. As Mr. ODA started mapping out a plan, it seemed the costs were going to be higher than he thought. So between the cost and the anticipated kid behavior, we didn’t end up making it there.

TRAVEL TO NEW JERSEY

For the second phase of the trip, we spent two days in NJ and then moved on to Delaware. We had originally planned to be in NY until we went to Delaware on that Wednesday, but Mr. ODA thought we could use the opportunity to explore some areas we typically wouldn’t. Usually we’re just trying to get home, which takes a whole day, so we don’t make stops near NY. It was definitely worth it, but that’s a story for the next post.

SUMMARY

The whole trip only cost us $1350, which included two hotel stays. We were entertained the whole time and the kids had fun. All the time in the pool ended up giving the kids some new skills. The littlest one started swimming independently. The two bigger ones grew so comfortable that they started working on dives and flips into the pool. They also were diving for things at the bottom of the pool, which was fun to watch, and not something they felt comfortable doing in the past. It may be time for us to invest in our own pool. 😉

Fall Creek Falls

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We took a trip in June to Fall Creek Falls in TN. We had looked into it a couple of years ago, but it was hard to find things to do and places to stay. This year, less people were planning to go, we have a big trip as a family planned later this year, and so we went for it. It was a nice relaxing trip.

The grandparents graciously pay for the lodging when we do family trips. We had a nice big cabin for 12 of us. We purchased food to eat at the cabin, which was really the only option because there was hardly anything for 25 miles. The first day, we went hiking and swimming in waterfalls around the park. It was supposed to rain all day, but we made it out only getting rained on towards the end of the last hike for a little bit. The next day, we hung out for the morning, went to rent some canoes ($10 for one hour), found a swimming hole, and then some of us went hiking a bit more.

I usually do trip summaries when we get back so we remember what we did and share how much we spent. In this case, we spent about $40 on gas, about $20 on meals during our travel, and about $50 on groceries. With that, it’s hard to accurately portray what we spent because it’s not the full picture since we didn’t pay for lodging. But I’m making it down that we went on a trip for 3 nights that was nice and relaxing!

June Financial Update

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We have been busy! The kids ended school the first few days of June, we’ve taken two trips, and one kid is has done a camp so far. The rest of May had finished up graduation and baseball things. I’ve taken a step back from work a bit. I’m not on a schedule going into work now that the kids are out of school, but I’m helping train the new girl. I eventually will get the chance to step out of the day to day, and then we go into a mode where I do more behind-the-scenes work.

PERSONAL

I started working less. At least that’s the goal. I had been working part time, and for a long while, there was another guy there to fill in my absences. He left a few months back, and it was becoming too much to manage. Even if I logged 20 hours per week, there was the weight of feeling I had to check in on things and needing to be responsive. Then there were all the random texts or calls that would take my attention, even if they were much less than they ever were. The office was in the process of hiring a full time position person for that role, but I wanted out. I wanted to enjoy my summer with my kids and not have the pull to be there. I tried to quit twice. They pushed forward the position that we had been discussing for a year and made it official, while calling in a promotion with no added pay (I guess the increased flexibility will be the benefit). The new person started on the 15th. She has been really great, but I’ve still put in more hours than I wish. The good thing is that I stepped foot in the office for the first time this week for a couple of hours yesterday. My general goal is to get to like 15 hours per week, and my tasks will be organizing financial data and not agent-facing anymore.

I’ve been working on getting my things in order as a notary. At work, we have our own title company, and there have been several issues with the closings. Their work load is down, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s because our own agent investors are tired of the problems and letting their clients go elsewhere. It’s quite frustrating to see. Well, I’m a fixer and helper. I wanted to get my notary so I could manage these relationships better. I got the main paperwork in order, but now I need to do the classes to be a title closer and get myself registered online so I can be selected for business. It wasn’t that expensive. I’m all in for about $120 once I buy a stamp (more if there’s a fee for the classes). Supposedly one closing could bring in that amount, so we’ll see.

Mr. ODA is working still, and it’s going better than it was. It’s become less of a hurdle to figuring out the schedule and conflicts with baseball season and end-of-year school activities out of the way. Now the hurdles are the swaths of days off for our trips.

We’ve taken two trips so far this month. We have another one next month. We’ve also gone to Kentucky Kingdom on our season pass for a day, with a few more planned for the summer. Our trip there was awesome. The kids had such a great time and everyone was in a good mood all day. We did the regular rides and were there for about double the hours I had expected because it was going so well. Our next trip will explore the water park, and I think it’ll be a perfect day for that next week in the 90s (our last trip was 73, so we intentionally didn’t plan to get in the water).

We have one camp week of the summer done for one of the kids. Two big kids go to an outdoor camp soon, and then there’s a half day camp for the oldest later this summer. This week’s camp has been across town. I was looking forward to getting things done with 2 kids in tow instead of 3, but I haven’t been able to prioritize playing with them and running errands like I had hoped, which you’ll see why in the next section.

RENTALS

Well, this post is late, so technically the blog world shouldn’t know about the week we’ve been through yet, but let’s lay it out. I actually had quite a few people pay rent late this month, but everyone communicated their issues and timing, so it worked out fine. Two people paid a late fee because they didn’t tell me the right information or told me late (and they’re repeat offenders on poor communication). If you communicate with me and give me the right information and uphold your commitment, I won’t charge you a late fee. That’s not income I’m expecting, so it does more to a tenant’s life to not have that money going out than it does to my life to have the money coming in. However, if you can’t tell me the truth or communicate clearly, I need to protect myself. I don’t want to set a precedent that you can walk all over me or pay whenever you feel like it because I still have my bills to pay for that house to stay standing. Anyway, with that rant out of the way, one house has not paid rent still.

We have a tenant who fell on hard times in February. She intends to pay June rent on July 3rd. She has been consistently later and later in paying her rent. While we work with our tenants regularly, they have to do their part and show their effort to prioritize us. It will never cease to amaze me how many people do not prioritize the roof over their head. Her financials were questionable when she applied, but she technically qualified for our list. The fact that there have been no partial payments and she continuously tells us a date she’ll pay, but she doesn’t pay then, has made me lose patience. She said she prayed on it, and she wants to stay in our place for another year. We said we needed to see rent paid, and if she could make a partial payment on the 12th, then we’d consider an extension. No payment. And then when I finally got Mr. ODA to take the hard stance in their communication, she tried to guilt us that she did tell us she’s working on it, and he had to explain that she in fact did not follow through on what she’s been saying. She was supposed to vacate June 30, but now that this has dragged on, she’s vacating July 31, which makes me mad. I had purposely put her as June 30 so that I wouldn’t be looking at an August rental period with back to school for a house that is notoriously hard to get rented because of all the stairs, and now here I am again. Oh well, I have no control over that anymore and just need to get through it.

Last weekend we received inches of rain. One of our KY houses has a history of water intrusion at the back door. We can’t figure it out, but the lack of lip/sill/curb because the door was installed at concrete level is really the issue. We probably need to install a curb and get a smaller door in there now that I think of it. Well, the tenants have been really patient with the water intrusion and they just lay towels when it happens. Last weekend, it was way worse. They had water in two spots they never do, and a lot more water than usual by the back door. It happened on Monday, and on Thursday, I could still get water to come through the floor boards. I started pulling the LVP out. As soon as I got everything exposed, it dried really quickly. The problem was that the washer was blocking my ability to get anymore boards out. I tried to get a board out of the middle that I could just reinstall with wood glue down the road, but my utility knife was useless. The board was eating more out of my blade than the blade was doing damage to the board connection. I regrouped. I went to Lowe’s and got a new tool and a different kind of blade for the utility knife. We’re heading over there today to get some more flooring out of the way. While this sounds awful – for me to pull out the floor at the back door, where there’s been consistent water intrusion, and not see any mold, was absolutely the best thing on my day yesterday. There was mold behind the baseboard in the drywall at the back door, which wasn’t surprising in the least. I threw that away and will be able to install new stuff. We’ll likely go with the plastic version of that so that it keeps the water away better because this isn’t a problem that’s going away any time soon. There’s a flood advisory for the next couple of days, so it’ll be good that the floor is out of the way for a bit.

So while Mr. ODA and I are grappling with next steps on this basement water issue, a tenant in VA texts me. I love my tenants that apologize profusely for telling me something is wrong. I promise, it’s OK to report that there’s an issue to me! This is the house that had MAJOR termite damage (look, another storm we’ve weathered!). She reported that a burner on the stove won’t turn on anymore and that the toilet in the bathroom is taking a long time to fill up. I texted my handyman buddy and he said he could get out there. That’s off my plate now. I’ll just pay an invoice when it comes in.

And finally (dare I say, this is the last issue of the month??), a house in KY also apologized profusely, telling me the AC is out. I checked my maintenance log, and while I’ve managed issues at this house for the AC, it hasn’t been replaced. Knowing the house, this HVAC guy this morning is going to tell me to replace the whole thing. HVAC is one of those things that I can’t do a single thing to trouble shoot it, so I just contact “my guy” and he’ll tell me what’s next. This is definitely a “throw money at the problem” situation, but it doesn’t take any of my time, and that’s the priority to me these days.

SUMMARY

Over the years, I’ve learned to just get through things. I’ve learned that even the biggest seeming problems subside. A tenant trashes a house; we get junk luggers out there and replace everything. Our wallet hurts for a bit, but then you move on. A house floods; insurance kicks in, and we basically did nothing except send a few emails. When I started my job, there was a bison on the front cover of my welcome binder. They were pointing to the fact that bison will walk into a storm because the fastest way through a storm is through it, not trying to outrun it. This thought consumed me. I had heard it before, but it didn’t stick like it did then. So while there may be juggling for a little while, it’s not the end of the world.

NET WORTH

Because of the things I’m juggling these days and trying to prioritize time with my kids, I don’t have a break down of our spending since the last update. Mr. ODA also asked me to split out our Roth IRA accounts from the investment line item because we’re going to be doing Roth conversions. Maybe I’ll do a post about what that is, and that’ll help me finally know what that even means to us. I’m a very visual person, so once I start seeing the implications of that, I’ll understand it better. He’s been managing that and how it affects our money/income/taxes all along.

Our credit cards are $3k less than last month, and the majority of the balance is because of the windows we replaced in our personal residence. We paid the deposit back in January or February. They came and replaced the windows in March, but there were two broken frames and several sashes with imperfections. They came a couple of weeks ago with the replacements, only for one sash to have broken glass. I had also found the same etching on the inside of the glass in the mean time, so they have two sashes to bring me. For some reason, they haven’t come looking for the balance owed while they’re still not installing complete windows, which I appreciate, but also would have understood if they wanted their payment. At some point in the near future, about $5k will be added to the credit card balance for that. It’s on a 0% interest credit card so that we can manage our cashflow and not have to pay that off until the promotional rate expires (this is a regular thing we do, and I have posts about it). It would seem there’s a high probability our next promotional rate credit card we open is for braces because we’re at that age now – eek.

This past month, I paid multiple insurance premiums for rental properties and our car insurance (which is paid twice a year). In May I had paid just under $2k for taxes on rental properties. But overall, our net worth is higher than last month.

Now I’m off to make a lunch for my camp kid, get her across town to camp, tear up some more tenant basement flooring, play some pickleball, and maybe lay on the couch for a quick minute before I go across town for her camp pick up and a 90 minute gymnastics sessions.

Camping Trip

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We have a summer full of trips planned, and stop 1 was camping. We took the kids camping in the fall, and they didn’t stop talking about it for weeks. It was a purposefully quick trip to be able to gauge how it went. We got there in the evening, just before dark. In the morning, we packed everything up and then went for a hike. The consensus was that we needed two nights because they wanted more time to enjoy the camp site.

We planned a two night trip to Zilpo Campground in the Daniel Boone National Forest in Kentucky. The reservation for the campground cost us $70.62. We drove there, but that gas usage was nominal. We put a lot of time and effort into planning the meals for that duration, so that cost us about $20.

We stayed in Loop H, which is a place we had stayed before. I love how tree covered the entire loop is. Our site was H17. There was a path down to the water, and the kids enjoyed swimming there. There’s a beach area at the campground, where we spent a few hours. We did a hike off Deer Loop. And we roasted lots of marshmallows!

We planned the trip a few weeks ago, so we obviously didn’t know how the weather would turn out. It rained for a bit on the last morning, but hardly any of our things got wet thanks to the tree cover. The unfortunate part was that a humid wave came into town just for the time that we were camping. The week before or after, and we would have had a nice high 70s day with low 60s nights. Instead, we had highs in the 90s and lows barely breaking below 80.

A simple post for a simple trip. 🙂 Not to mention, we got away from home for 2 nights and spent less than $100!

Kansas City Trip

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After we take a trip, I like to document our spending and activities. For one, it helps me keep track of where we’ve been and what we did there. But also, it’s meant to show that you can take a trip without extravagant spending.

Mr. ODA and I have a plan to see all the baseball stadiums. I’ve been to 15. He has a few more from childhood. He thought it would be good to get to a new stadium as our Spring Break travel. Kansas City is about 9 hours away, meaning it’s driving distance and we don’t need to pay for 5 flights. We didn’t do much research, but found things to do there. We also took a day to go to Topeka and see the Capitol, which is another favorite thing for me.

WHAT TO DO

Topeka was just over an hour away, so we went there for a day. Honestly, Kansas City was so sketchy feeling that it was a nice break to be somewhere else. We visited the Capitol and did 2 tours (Dome Tour and the regular free historic tour), both of which were free. We then stopped by the Brown v Board of Education site, where we spent a considerable amount of time. We finished up with a stop at the airport where they had an Army museum.

For the Royals Game, they had a Sunday family pass where it was $20 per person. That included upper level seats, a hot dog, a soda, and parking. There’s a monopoly on parking there, which was $21 on it’s own. So we spent $100 on the tickets. Then we spent $6 on coins for the outfield experience, where the kids were able to play putt putt and ride the carousel, which was adorable. We like walking around the whole concourse at stadiums. I was nervous that there wasn’t much to see at this stadium, but the outfield experience was a nice surprise out there. On Sundays, they also let the kids run the bases, so that was a fun experience for them. They went from 1st to 3rd and got a coupon for a free ice cream cone at the end.

There was a WWI Memorial Tower, which was $6 per person to go to the top. I thought we were climbing stairs, but it was an elevator ride. Kids 5 and under were free, so the total cost of this was $18.

We went to the money museum in the Federal Reserve building there. That was really cool, free, and definitely worth the visit. We got to see the vault and how they count money.

Street Car is free. Our house was 2 blocks from the stop. It would have been an easy walk if there weren’t 3 little kids involved. The first block was really long, and the second block was straight up hill. So we opted to drive the two blocks and park right by the stop, but that saved us from paying for parking downtown. Although, there were hardly any people there, so it wasn’t like we would have struggled to find parking, just that we’d have to pay for it.

We tried exploring the city. We stopped at the river walk. There’s a nice mural down there, but otherwise not much of interest. We stopped at the library. It was pretty, and the kids appreciated the ability to play in the kids section and read some books. They were fairly disappointed that they couldn’t check out a book!

We stopped at the art museum. It was free, but it was a real art museum, which is not conducive to 3 little kids. They did great, and they’re not crazy. But man… you don’t realize how many times a kid just casually rubs their hand along something until you’re in a place where you can’t even touch the walls that are holding the art! They had a sculpture garden, so we got to run and have fun after the tension of being inside. There is also an art alley in the city. It’s graffiti art and worth a look, but it doesn’t feel safe when you’re there, so keep your head on a swivel.

We walked the mall, which had a cute little dinosaur exhibit for the kids to play at. And we walked around Union Station. If you have time to kill and want to spend money, there’s plenty for families to do there, but that wasn’t of interest to our type of trip (e.g., childrens museum).

TOTAL COST: $1,577

The AirBnB was a struggle, but it ended up costing $1,077. We had a place booked for about a week, and then she cancelled on us at 6 pm the night before our arrival. The silver lining was that we didn’t get there and have to move to a different place (which we’ve done before). She said the house was without water, but we weren’t able to corroborate that with the city’s water outage map. We contacted AirBnB to address the fact that this was a huge inconvenience, and that there wasn’t anything else in the same price range and location that we wanted. AirBnB was amazing (albeit slow) to work with, and they were very helpful. We were awake until 11 pm trying to solve that situation. They gave us a huge credit to a place in the same location to bring it to about the same price as the original booking. Note that AirBnB owners are able to charge whatever they want under the ‘tax’ section, and that’s not dictated by the area they’re in, which I find fascinating. One place had a 28% tax added, even though everyone else in the area was around 16%.

As we drove in, we were a bit concerned about the area. Houses were boarded up and the whole area just looked desolate. When we got to the house, I happened to check a window and see that it was unlocked. I then proceeded to check the rest of the windows only to find that in a 3 story building, only 3 windows were locked upon our arrival. That gave me an eerie feeling and clouded the trip. One window couldn’t even be locked because I could hold the locking mechanism in my hand. It took them until the last full day of our trip to get there with 2 screws to put it together, so that was annoying. We also had a weird experience on the last night where it sounded like someone was trying to enter via the key pad. That brings me to another AirBnB complaint: there should be a way to lock guests into the house at night. I don’t like that there’s no extra locking mechanism on top of the keypad once I’m inside.

Kansas City gas was $3.29-3.39, while Lexington KY was sitting at $3.99. That was a nice surprise when we got there. Our total gas cost was $125.

We eat most of our meals at the AirBnB when we travel. Three little kids who are picky eaters just doesn’t yield to much fun when we go to a restaurant. We did travel into Kansas for a BBQ meal. Otherwise, we grabbed quick meals on the go or ate at the house. This kept our eating expense to $251 for a family of 5, gone for 5 days.

OVERALL

The officials there seem to be working on the city. I don’t know if it’s related to FIFA hosting or just a general need to build it back up, and what this place may have been a few years ago. The city itself is actually very clean. There wasn’t trash and graffiti all over. But it gave a very heavy ‘abandoned’ feeling. There were hardly any professionals walking around during the work day. There were hardly any cars parked on the street or in the garages. The Census claims over 500k people in the city limits, and I absolutely didn’t get that feeling. There was a large homeless population. As the week wore on, I realized they really kept to themselves. They weren’t asking for handouts and they just existed around us, but it was overwhelming when we first got there.

We’ve been really busy around here, so my goal of the trip was to relax and not feel rushed. We brought the kids’ scooters and let them play outside at the house a good bit. We never felt rushed to get to the next place and were happy just seeing the sights versus doing things that we could do at home (like a childrens museum).

March Financial Update

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Well, tracking spending is just bugging me. We’re over where I want to be in monthly spending. I registered the kids for summer camps, so that was $580 more than usual spending. I also paid for a kid to take swim lessons ($85) and our gymnastics cost went up because she earned a spot in an advanced class that’s a half hour longer. If I take out the camp registration cost, then our spending is about $1700. My goal is $1350 per month. That’s not what we can actually afford (Mr. ODA’s number is higher), and I’m learning may not be realistic, but that’s my general goal each month. I’m halfway into March and can tell you that we’re going to be nowhere near that number this month, which is frustrating, but also reality.

RENTALS

We had two service calls this last month. One was a water heater being out and the other was unnecessary but cost us $100. This lady has actually been a problem in this realm. She claimed the mail key didn’t work for weeks and took forever to respond to messages. Mr. ODA finally went over there and it turned out she was trying the wrong box and not paying attention to what Mr. ODA was telling her. Then she said the microwave wasn’t working. The circuit was tripped, and Mr. ODA let her know that she can’t run an airfryer and microwave at the same time. Then she said the washing machine wasn’t working. We had an appliance guy go out and he said, “it’s working fine. There’s not supposed to be any more water than this in a high efficiency machine.” So much fun.

I’m expecting a tenant to move out at the end of this month. I still haven’t heard the final information on that, which isn’t surprising, but that’s on the horizon.

I increased the rent on two units over the last couple of weeks, which is in addition to a raise I put into effect on another one last month. I also have let three renew at the rate they were at the past year (or more) based on their cash flow numbers and the tenants in there.

PERSONAL

I’m still working part time. Although, these hours are 50% more than I had signed up for. I’m helping get another office organized and training a new hire. It’s been a lot. I feel productive, but I want more hours in my day. Mr. ODA started a part time job as well. We’re on the hunt for insurance help. We’re paying out of pocket for the whole policy that we were under for the last 5-6 years. While we’re not expecting a lot of coverage to be paid by the employer, there is a benefit to having the funds come out pretax.

NET WORTH

Well, my update isn’t really that accurate. I’ve updated the numbers I could, but I’m already days behind on my schedule, so I couldn’t wait for Mr. ODA’s numbers anymore. We are still carrying half of the window order on credit cards (and that install should be next week… hopefully… it’s been pushed back once already). Our investments are down even more than last month, but I don’t know the extent at this time. Our net worth decreased from last month, with 10 accounts not updated, so I’d say it’s a substantial hit.

November Financial Update

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Another month, and another delayed post while I juggle life. These numbers are mostly based on last Wednesday’s market close. I had big intentions of writing this on Thursday last week.

RENTALS

Our rental that we purchased a month ago is still vacant. It’s a commercial loan, so the first payment was just made on it yesterday. It always hurts to pay those bills without income. I’ve spent some time cleaning it. It looked fine if you just did a quick glance. But the details were terrible. I wiped down all the walls in the house and all the outlets and switch plates, which were extremely necessary. I wiped the baseboards with their first clean using the mop, but I’ll need to go back and do a wipe with something that gets directly on it. We were excited that the house didn’t need painted, but the closets are a bit of a mess. If I decide to make the time, I’ll throw some fresh paint on some parts. The bathrooms were pretty bad, and they’re about 70% done being cleaned. Maintenance wise, we just needed to replace a missing cabinet door pull, clean out the air return vent, and do a few random small fixes with caulk and screws. I’ve shown in several times. I even had a lease drawn up for one person, but it fell through.

We’ve had issues with our two new tenants getting their utilities in their name. We had one in Virginia who claimed she tried to get the water bill in her name and it just wasn’t happening. She always paid the day I sent the bill to her, so I just let it go. This past month was terrible. It took her over a month to get it paid, and I threatened to turn it off so that it would force her to get it in her name and keep me (and my property manager) out of it. One in Lexington was annoying that she didn’t get it done, and she’s not very communicative. Then the other in Winchester had to go in person to get the water in her name, so that wasn’t surprising that it took a while.

PERSONAL

Our 3rd kid got off the waitlist for preschool! Our beloved preschool closed down last year. Everyone flocked to this other preschool. I followed the “rules” and did things “ethically,” but we got waitlisted. Long story. I wasn’t pushing for him to be in preschool in the 2s year (he’ll be 3 next week, but our age cut off here is August 1st). I figured I’d push really hard in the next couple of months to make sure he got a spot for next year. This place I want him to go to has a lot more spots for 3 year olds than 2 year olds, so I had high expectations we’d get a spot next year. Well, we got the email a couple of weeks ago that there was room available for him! It’s a longer day than we’re used to, but he’s so excited to go to school. He asks to go to the playground daily, so that’s going to be nice that he’ll have TWO playground times twice a week. I can’t wait to hear all his stories.

My work schedule has me in the office for half a day on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. We’re going to look into adjusting that in January to account for the days he’s in school so that I can actually enjoy some kid free (guilt free…no strict schedules and babysitter availability) time since 2018.

We paid off the 0% interest card that was sitting at $14,000. It didn’t bother me to have that balance sitting there because it was for a good reason, but it sure does feel good to have that off our plate. Our spending has been relatively low the last few months. This month will see a small spike because I have’t preemptively bought any Christmas gifts, so that will likely be a large purchase amount later this week. We’re also in the market for camping gear since we took the kids camping this past weekend and noted a few gaps in our equipment.

SUMMARY

We’re up $1.5 million from 2 years ago, which is a cool number to see. Considering we paid off large credit card balances, I’m surprised our net worth only went up about $5k since last month. I updated the value of the houses in the past few weeks, so that’s where the hit is. Home values are expected to go down in the Fall, so I like to capture that adjustment from the higher values that appear in the Spring. Our cash value obviously went down since it went towards credit card payments and a down payment on a house (except it only decreased by $11k).

October Financial Update

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We had two tenants move out at the end of July. We also had back to back trips scheduled for the end of July and beginning of August, with the kids starting school on the 13th. We also had the cruise planned for the end of September into October, so that was a decent push to get the rentals rented before we left. We put countless hours into those two houses and it definitely took its toll.

RENTALS

As of October 1st all our rentals are rented! That’s a good feeling after two months of vacancy. This is the month of taxes. We have several houses that are paid off, which means they aren’t escrowed, and I’m responsible for paying the taxes and insurance on them. The 4 houses we have in KY are owed this month, and it’s about $7k worth. We’ll owe 2 houses in VA that come to about $3k next month.

I have a couple of houses that are struggling to pay rent on time. Usually it happens for a couple of months and they get back on track, but that’s not happening quickly. I’m trying to remain optimistic, but there isn’t a track record of it getting easier if they have taken this long needing to catch up.

We closed on a new property near our house. It’s a townhouse that we hope to get rented later this month. We’ll see what it looks like once it’s empty, but it didn’t appear we’ll need to do anything to it to get it rented (which is how we buy our rentals). There will be separate posts going into the details of each rental turnover and the purchase of House15 using a commercial loan.

PERSONAL

This is the last month for the 0% interest credit card. When we have a major purchase on the horizon (it was house-wide carpet this time last year), we open a 0% interest credit card. We started this concept about 8 years ago. We look for a credit card that has 0% interest for at least 12 months and that gives us a bonus of some sort. We make more than the minimum payment each month and then pay it off before the deadline. A default payment can cause you to lose your 0%, so it’s important you’re making your payments. But we don’t pay a lot towards it because the money is doing more for us in our savings account (or the investments) than it would by paying down a 0% interest balance. This time around was a bit different. The carpet only cost us $10k, but the balance is over $14k. This credit card had the same incentive as our typically used card (2% cash back), so Mr. ODA used it a majority of the time. For a while, my goal was just to pay what gets our balance lower than the original balance from the carpet. But then we had some big rental purchases that we put on the card, and it just wasn’t worth paying $5k+ to the card. We will make a transfer from our big savings account to make that payment at the end of the month.

Mr. ODA’s last pay check arrived on October 11. He took the “deferred resignation program” as of April 30. The sunset date was September 30, so that covered the payout that we just received, including his balance of annual leave.

Outside of rentals, our spending has been minimal. With the cruise, we didn’t spend much since that was a week of almost everything paid for in advance. The dog had his annual check up, so he was the bulk of our costs. We have our routine costs we see, but happy to see lower balances after all the rental work costs.

SUMMARY

I don’t even want to admit what is about to leave our account this month. I guess the positive is that it’s under $100k..? We have to pay the taxes on the houses that aren’t escrowed, pay off that credit card, and buy a house. At least the house purchase goes right towards equity. Since I didn’t get all the account numbers yesterday morning like I planned, here’s an update that captures our new purchase.