Counting My Pennies

One Year Later

Megan — Mon, 14 May 2012 11:44:34 +0000

Just over a year ago, I made a giant list of home projects. Let’s see how I’m doing. Updates in red.

I’m actually kind of disappointed in this list. I feel like I’ve made such progress, but it’s just not noted in the list. Another giant task is to organize everything – the closets are a disaster. Maybe I’ve been reading too many organizing blogs, but those things need work. I want neatly labeled shelves and bins.

The big expensive project was the yard. And I couldn’t be happier with how the yard looks. I love it. I’m so excited that it’s summer and I can spend time outside again, just enjoying the weather.

To Dos – The Smaller

Sprayfoam around the basement bathroom window, sump pump pipes, and guest bathroom shower pipe
Purchase and install larger flange for guest bathroom shower
Hang bathroom cabinet in guest bath
Install bathroom organizer in master bath (changed my mind on this one)
Purchase paint and touch-up walls
Sand and repaint guest bathroom molding to hide sticker under paint
Remove residual stickers on all three basement toilets
Finish unpacking all boxes
Finish loading curio cabinet
Hang pictures in master bedroom, upstairs hallway, living room, main entrance, dining room, and basement (Just a few more left)
Paint master bedroom, master bath, basement bath (for now)
Sand and stain border around fireplace
Sand down the poor painting job on the banister and repaint/restain
Scrape the paint from the office door
Repair the jammed lock (there is a rock inside it, but don’t worry, it’s locked nice and tight)
Hang medallion above master bedroom fan to hide hole
Finish furnishing living room

To Dos – The Larger and/or More Expensive

Re-form flower beds
Have yard re-graded and re-seeded
New sidewalk in front yard and new patio in backyard
Strip/repaint porches
New front porch railings
Attic pull-down ladder (this may or may not be possible)
Gas fireplace insert
New windows in dining room and master bedroom
Closet organizer in walk-in closet (Elfa, perhaps?)

Furnishings to Save For and Purchase

New washer/dryer
Breakfast table (or maybe a bench?)
Living room couch and table/ottoman

To Do Someday

New flooring in living room/dining room
New flooring upstairs
New stairs

What would you do with a raise?

Megan — Fri, 04 May 2012 12:10:41 +0000

A friend of mine just found out that he is getting a surprise promotion. His company is restructuring after being sold, and they’re downsizing a bit, so he was worried that he was going to lose his job. Instead, he’s getting a huge promotion with a big increase in responsibilities and about a 25% pay increase.

25%!

I was joking with him that now he can afford to go out to lunch twice a week instead of once a week. But it got me to thinking. What would I do with a substantial pay increase like that? I’m living comfortably enough on my paycheck now. My bills are paid. I’m contributing about 8% of my paycheck to my TSP (government 401k – I have a match on the first 5%) and I put the full amount in my Roth IRA every year. I’m paying my mortgage, but not paying extra.

So what would I do with that 25%?

Logically, I should and probably would increase my retirement contributions. See if I can’t get it up to the max. I have to admit that my returns haven’t been all that stellar, but it’s money that’s being put aside, and I have to have faith that it will grow.

But after that? I don’t know.

Well, I’d probably think about getting a dog. I grew up with dogs. I desperately want a dog. But I cannot afford a dog. I work long hours and would need to get a dog walker. Around here, that runs around $400 a month. And then there are all the other costs associated with a dog (or any other pet). Of course, it would be worth it, but right now, it’s just not financially feasible. So I must remain content with my cats. At least they don’t require walking.

(And before anyone says anything about getting a dog but not being home – I would adopt an older dog from a shelter. One who just needs a home and is happy to sleep all day… which can apply to younger dogs too, in my experience.)

Would I pay extra into my mortgage? Honestly, probably not. Instead, I would put the money into the house. My house was in really good shape when I bought it, but there is work to be done. I need to replace some windows. I need to replace the extremely rickety fence. In the long term, there is some flooring that I would like to replace or at least refinish, and I would like to knock out a closet and enlarge the master bathroom. Of course, these aren’t things that would happen immediately with a pay increase, and they’re something that will happen eventually, but it would just be sooner than planned.

So what would you do with a 25% pay increase?

What do you mean I can’t paint my door electric blue?

Megan — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 13:55:13 +0000

This morning, a coworker came up to me to tell me about her neverending saga with her condo board. Long story short, she lives in a large condo complex, and her building is one of the last buildings in the back of the property. The plus side to this is added privacy. The negative side is that for some reason, that part of the complex gets ignored – they have the worst yard, the ugliest bushes, etc. This isn’t the first time she’s had issues with them either.

So today’s post is about home buying and something that people don’t always look out for – neighborhood associations. When you buy a condo, you’re typically aware that there’s a condo board and a condo fee. But don’t forget that those things can happen in other types of homes as well. And there are good and bad things to neighborhood associations.

The first step is to find out if your property is part of an association and if there are any required fees. If so, what do those fees cover?

Next, find out the rules. What can and can’t you do to your home as part of the association rules? Frequently, there are certain maintenance standards and major changes to the house must be approved. Some associations have restrictions on holiday decorations, colors you can paint your house, etc.

Then you have to decide how you feel about the rules. So your association says you have to get approval before you paint the door to your house. That’s annoying. But it also means you probably won’t have a neighbor with a neon green house and a bright purple door. And maybe you can only have white Christmas lights on your house. Knowing how much you love colored lights, that’s a bummer. But it also means you won’t have Clark Griswold living next door, creating light pollution and crazy traffic every December.

Personally, I chose to live in a neighborhood with no such association. I do, however, live in a city small enough to have various codes. My house must be well maintained. I need to get permission to put up a fence or cut down a tree (and I probably won’t get permission for the tree). But I can paint my front door whatever color I want and if I want my house to look like Clark Griswold’s, I can. But that means my neighbors can do whatever they want as well. It’s a risk, but one I decided to take.

You just have to decide what is right for you.

Summer savings – A clothesline

Megan — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 12:05:38 +0000

Now that the weather is nice… well, mostly nice, anyway, I’ve been thinking about putting up a clothesline in my backyard. I love the smell of clothes that have dried out in the sun.

I haven’t quite figured out how to go about putting up a clothesline though. I like the idea of something portable – or at least semi-portable. Rather than sinking a base into concrete in the ground, I’m thinking I would like to find a weighted base, like the ones used under patio umbrellas. I’m not sure if this actually makes sense or if the whole thing will just tip over. So far, I haven’t found anything I like in a reasonable price range.

Of course, this also means more doing laundry on the weekend. I just don’t have time during the week to do a load of laundry and then hang it up before I head off to work.

Also, while I live in a nice neighborhood, it’s a neighborhood filled with kids who perhaps aren’t as well behaved as I would like them to be. Even though my backyard is fenced off, I don’t know that I trust them to stay out of my laundry if I happen to be gone while it’s out drying. And I really don’t need the neighbor kids using my bedsheets as capes.

I’m just going to keep my eyes out for a clothesline that fits my pick requirements. And I should probably check the city regulations and make sure they’re allowed. I live in a very green, crunchy, earthy city, so I can’t imagine it would be a problem. Any city that gives out free compost bins has to be pro-clothesline, right?

Vacation!

Megan — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 12:18:49 +0000

I did something that I have never done before.

I booked a vacation well over a year in advance.

I have never booked the sort of vacation where I schedule in time to pay a downpayment with the balance due later. And yet now I have.

I am scheduled to go on a cruise next fall with a bunch of my friends. The balance for this isn’t due until next July (though I will likely pay it in June so that I can begin booking excursions). I am so incredibly excited.

I haven’t been on a cruise in over ten years – the last one was a family trip with my extended family, and I was at that weird age where I was too old for the teen stuff and not old enough for the bars. So this one should be fun. Also, it’s the first time I’ve taken a trip that wasn’t based around a race or visiting family in I don’t know when. Years, probably.

(Okay, so there is a distinct possibility that we will be running a 5K on one of the islands and running a ten mile race the day we return to shore. But that is not the point of the vacation.)

I’m really excited to have this out there, and it’s definitely motivation to put aside extra money for the trip, both to pay it off and to pay for fun on the cruise. It’s definitely something to look forward to. I already find myself wanting to plan, and it’s a year and a half away! I have a lot to do before then!

Things in Threes

Megan — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 13:33:05 +0000

I’m not a superstitious person, but it does seem like bad things happen in threes. Of course, when two bad things happen, you’re just looking for a third one.

And it seems to be a categorical thing too. If one thing breaks, two more are going to break.

Last week, my nearly two-year-old Kindle bit the big one. Totally bricked itself, for no apparent reason. Definite bummer, since I was in the middle of a book (thank goodness for the Kindle app on my phone and computer). Given the number of Kindle books I have purchased over the years (this was my second Kindle), I knew I wanted to get another one. Sorry Nook users, but I have picked a platform and now will stick with it, rather than have to re-purchase books. Thankfully, I have been saving up gift certificates earned from various rewards programs, so it’s not a big expense. No, it’s not a necessity, but it is something that I absolutely love.

But now I’m worried about what’s going to break next. My dryer has begun squeaking. I did some research and it seems that it’s likely a belt issue and it’s something that I could potentially repair myself, but I think I’m just going to hire someone when the squeaking becomes too much for me. I’m just not that comfortable with my repair skills. My washer and dryer were new when I bought my house last year, but they are the cheapest of the cheap, and based on reviews, neither will last me all that long. 18 months seems the average, though I don’t do as much laundry as a family of four, obviously.

I’m also worried about my computer. I have just exited the 3 year extended warranty period on my MacBook. The battery is in need of replacement, but again, not something I’ve found to be necessary as of yet. I’ve already had to replace the power cord. But I’m worried about the computer as a whole. I’m hoping that since I went Mac this go around (and love it) that I will get a few more years out of it. All of my PC notebooks bit the big one sometime between year 3 and 4.

Time to start saving.

Planning for Cutbacks

Megan — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 13:41:57 +0000

This has been a rough week for people I love.

To focus only on the finance side of it, two of my friends lost their jobs this week. They work in completely different industries, and even work in different countries, so the only similarity is that they’re both victims of the tough economic times that everyone is going through. One friend is more lucky than the other. One will continue to receive pay for a while, the other only got a week’s notice. She will have one more paycheck coming and then that’s it.

I’m not going to discuss their financial situations, mainly because I’m not privy to all of the details. But I will say that this has made me take a closer look at my financial situation. I’m always planning for the future. Not so much the near future, but the far off future. I have a Roth IRA. I have a TSP (government 401K). When I bought my house and my tax return increased, I changed my withholdings and dumped the extra money into the TSP. I’m not to the point of contributing the max, but I’m moving in the right direction.

Because I work for the government, my job is a little safer than many. That’s not to say that I can’t lose my job if there are cutbacks. But I’ll have a decent amount of warning, and opportunities to find another job. The problem is that I’m not sure I’m prepared for that. I have an emergency fund, but I don’t think it’s large enough. I have enough to live comfortably for 6 months. I could definitely stretch that if necessary, but not for a whole lot longer. The mortgage must be paid, after all.

Given the current economic climate, I would feel more comfortable if I had a bit more set aside, possibly enough to live on for a year.

But I don’t. And I don’t know how feasible it is to get there at this point. Obviously, it never hurts to save more, but at the same time, I feel like I finally have a good balance of spending and saving, allowing me to squirrel away money while still continuing to make small improvements on my house and fund my running addiction.

Maybe it’s simply time to tighten the purse strings again. Make sure that what I’m buying is things I actually want to buy. Every dollar helps.

Gas Fees

Megan — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 12:23:46 +0000

I typically visit the same gas station to fill up my tank. The prices are always good, and the station is part of a chain that honors the gas rewards from my grocery store. I always fill up using the same credit card, one that gives me 2% back at gas stations. I figure that if I have to buy gas, I might as well get the most out of the expense.

The last time I filled up, however, I noticed something that made me want to shake my fist in anger.

The gas prices were very clearly printed on the large sign outside the station, as they are with most gas stations. But down on the ground, there was a little sign listing the prices if you chose to use a credit card. Ten cents a gallon more if I want to use a credit card. Of course, I didn’t see the sign until after I started filling, because it wasn’t exactly well placed. Or perhaps that’s the point – it was very well placed so that people wouldn’t see it until it was too late.

I’ve heard of other stations doing this, but this was the first time that I saw it myself. I will say that the sign is now better positioned so you can see it when you drive into the gas station lot.

I understand that stores have to pay a fee for allowing credit card use, but I still find it very frustrating.

So now I have to decide what to do. I have a number of options. I can switch gas stations and find one without this fee, but then I can’t use my gas rewards (typically anywhere from 10-30 cents off per gallon). I can pay with a debit card or cash (and then lose the 2% rewards – but that’s less money than I’m losing with the extra 10 cent fee).

Honestly, I’m a creature of habit. I will probably continue to patronize the same gas station and hope that I have enough in gas rewards to at least negate the credit card charge. Maybe I’ll start using my debit card. I never use a debit card unless I absolutely have to (like at Costco, for example). But this might be what it takes to get me there.

Frugal Fail

Megan — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 15:07:57 +0000

One of my plans to keep my budget down was to do all my own lawn care.

Yep, that’s not going to happen.

Last year, I started out with my reel mower. Yes, that’s right, one of those old fashioned lawn mowers that’s just a bunch of spinning blades. Why did I go this route and not get a normal mower? I don’t have a garage on my house and I have yet to purchase a freestanding tool shed. That means that all my lawn tools have to live in my house. I am not about to store a gas powered mower inside my house. It’s just not going to happen. I thought about going electric, but the reviews weren’t much better than the reviews for the reel mower, and I figured the odds were good that I would eventually mow over the cord and ruin the whole thing.

The reel mower wasn’t bad… until I let the grass get too long. Anything over 3 inches and that thing wasn’t going to mow. And that means that it missed all the crazy fast-growing weeds. Not awesome. At one point, I was actually going out with the hedge trimmers and cutting them off. Yeah, that’s embarrassing.

Then I hired the neighbor kid to mow for $30 a pop. Problem? He wasn’t entirely reliable, and didn’t actually do the best job. He was only paid after he did the work, so it’s not like he took my money, but I just wasn’t entirely pleased.

So I went back to my landscaping company to get pricing. For a reasonable fee, they would not only mow, but fertilize, overseed, and treat the yard for various bugs and weeds. Not a bad plan. So for this season, that’s the route I’m going. I’ll decide next spring what I want to do next.

Yes, it’s a splurge, and I know all you frugal folks out there are yelling at me through the computer. But I figure that I can cut back elsewhere and leave this to the pros. Best of all, it leaves me time to do all the other things being neglected around the house.

Haircut Success!

Megan — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 11:31:53 +0000

My new haircut was a total success! It was much more expensive than my normal haircuts, but it took significantly longer, and most importantly, my hair looks fabulous. I got nearly six inches chopped off, which always freaks people out quite a bit, but it looks absolutely amazing.

The lesson? Take the risk. It’s not permanent. Yes, it cost about $30 more than my previous salon. But for a good quality cut, it’s worth it.

I’m kind of bummed that I wasn’t able to grow my hair out long enough to donate, but since my hair is so thick, the weight was just too much. It was starting to give me headaches, and I had probably another year of growing to do. Lesson learned.