Kitchen Makeover

Kat and I have been mulling a kitchen face-lift for a few years now. My reluctance to get started stemmed from what I figured would be the high cost. Our appliances started to crap out -- the disposal, the dishwasher -- and we have lived with them in their various stages of brokenness, figuring all would be replaced with the makeover. 

My real estate days had given me a few contacts, and one was a semi-retired carpenter who gave us an itemized quote for completing a wish list we had given him. We were happily able to afford most of it, and here are the results in before and after shots:

BEFORE

AFTER

Unfortunately my pictures are like those cheesy weight loss ads that run in tabloids with the 'before' featuring a woman grumpy and slouching, and an 'after' of the same woman upright and smiling. I somehow misplaced my 'before' pictures and all I could find was this one of a dirty kitchen taken when I was trying out a new camera. Egads. But you get the idea.

We replaced our upper cabinets with cabinets extending to the ceiling and over the refrigerator, installed an over the range microwave, extended our counter with new laminate countertops and built-in shelves above and below, put in a backsplash, a new single-basin sink and faucet, and added crown molding to the kitchen and living room. 

The only appliance we replaced other than the microwave was the dishwasher, which, as I mentioned, was stumbling toward broke. The range and refrigerator (both nearly 15 years old but hanging in there) we will keep until they no longer function.

To save money, we did a few things ourselves. We put in the backsplash — subway tile — and Kat installed the dishwasher. As our carpenter worked, Kat realized that she could have done some of the trim work and the shelves herself, but he did give us a good price, so not too much regret.

We were able to pay cash, though we now need to replenish our short-term savings. We spend so much time at home, though, and have such a stream of company coming through, that we felt this project worth it.

What did it cost?

Carpenter (including countertops, custom cabinets, crown molding, a lower corner cabinet with large lazy susan, installation of new sink, faucet, and disposal, upper and lower shelves for extended counter, over the range microwave with installation and a vent through the roof) -- $6500

Backsplash -- $100

Window treatments (bamboo blinds) -- $150

Paint -- $70

Baskets, napkin holder, other -- $80

Sink and disposal -- $230 (The price of the faucet is included in the $6500)

Dishwasher -- $400

Total cost was right at $7500 for a beautiful, more functional new kitchen that we love!

Catching Up

I'm back!

I’ve been struggling to jump back into the blog pool. I climbed out, dried off, went in for a snack, and have felt reluctant to get wet again. I’ve been circling the pool for months and . . .

Ok enough of that metaphor. I ignored my writing goals and time passed. 

Since I last checked in, Kat and I have a new(ish) kitchen and another murphy bed. Hooray!

First, the kitchen. We had saved toward sprucing up our kitchen — adding storage and counter space — but we knew it wasn’t enough. We took out a small loan, hired a semi-retired carpenter who quoted us a very reasonable price, and went to work. 

Second, Kat took the opportunity of some time off and having her dad visit to build a murphy bed in our office. We had one already in the sewing room, and it is beyond wonderful. We have LOTS of visitors and need both rooms (sewing room and office) for guests, and now I will be able to simply pull down the already made up beds each time a sibling with family comes to visit. We’re heading into that bed and breakfast time of the year, and I am ready.

With our home improvement projects, along with work and being in charge of multiple events that happened to fall in September and early October, we let good habits lapse but also shed a few bad habits. More on that in a future post, and I’ll also be posting before and after pictures of the kitchen and office.

It’s good to be back!

Procrastination and Money

I drove back from Houston yesterday just in time to shower and dash to an HOA board meeting. I am one of three on the board for our neighborhood. Fortunately, we enjoy each other, and each of us is willing to work hard, so it's a good board and I don't mind the rather long meetings (only once a quarter) with our management company rep.

My least favorite part of the meeting is our executive session in which we review violations of the covenants and restrictions as well as homeowners non-compliant with paying dues. With the latter, we ensure that all notices have been sent, and if the homeowner is well overdue and has not contacted our management company despite all the notices, we vote to send to legal. Which adds hundreds and sometimes thousands to the homeowner's bill (over time), so that an original bill of $170 can balloon to two or three thousand or more (with late fees, title searches, legal costs, etc).

I HATE doing that. I know that some of these people are probably suffering some hardship or other, perhaps an illness or loss of job or divorce. The thing is, if they would just call and tell us what's going on, we could work with them and not have to send to our attorney. We have in the past asked our rep to contact each of them by phone, even though it's not required, in a last ditch attempt to communicate the financial consequences of ignoring the bills and many overdue notices. We've discovered this doesn't do much good.

Recently I saw an article somewhere, perhaps a blog post, on the high cost of procrastination. I'm not sure if this situation would fall under that heading or would belong more to the act of burying one's head in the sand and hoping the problem will go away. It doesn't really matter in this case, the consequence is the same, and it is quite costly.

I have to say, I've been kicking myself recently for some costly consequences to issues I've put off dealing with. Mine were due to classic procrastination. My term life insurance expired earlier this year, and I've had looking into a new policy on my to-do list for at least three years. THREE YEARS. Finally I had a "just do it" day and took care of aged to-do tasks, including the life insurance. Because of the skin cancer I had removed in April, I fell out of the preferred category. If I had done this two or three years ago, my rate would have been much lower. Ooooh, that burns.

I have a few other old tasks on the to-do list that have to do with money, including contacting the cable company about lowering our rate and visiting Verizon to ensure our plan is right-sized. I'm due another "just do it" day.

Money Goals and How We Save

I am writing down specific budget goals for the year. April’s not too late, right? Kat’s buy-in is critical of course, but I’ll discuss with her after I’m satisfied with them. I’ve been sort of working toward these goals already; just haven’t taken the time to record them.

Most have to do with savings — increasing what I call our “cushion” savings as well as our larger "emergency" savings. The former is a savings account where our checking is. I dip into it easily via on-line banking and use it to chunk surplus income into (Kat gets overtime, so some months are better than others), then to take money out for large unexpected expenses.

The “emergency” savings is intended to support us for a few months in case of a major event that might lead to losing a steady paycheck. It is in a separate bank which I cannot access quite as easily. I have an automatic payment plan set up with my primary bank that sends money over with each paycheck.

Automating our savings is something I wish I had done much, much sooner. Since I started doing it two years ago, the account has grown to nearly $7,000 (which equals only about three months of pared down spending). If it weren’t automated, we would be lucky to have $2,000 there. The other $5,000 would have been frittered away.

I also want to increase our targeted savings for the kitchen update. The problem with this targeted savings is the current set-up. I separate it in Quicken from our cushion savings, but in reality it’s in the same account. I will be tempted to dip into that for “cushion” type expenses if my cushion account doesn’t bear up under the weight of those pesky financial hits that seem to keep coming.

The latest is a kitty issue. Our sweet, thirteen-year-old cat Beano (Kat named her; long story) has an abscessed molar. The cost of finding this out and fixing it will probably be close to $700. We’ll find out the extent of the damage after her blood work comes back, the results of which will determine the vet’s approach to the surgery. Fortunately  we just received a bit of a bonus. I paid the last of my real estate taxes, and I had over-saved, giving me an unplanned for $400.

I’ve mentioned before that we’re in a better situation with savings and debt than we’ve ever been before, and yet my worry over this latest set-back feels about the same as it would have a few years ago. As I left the vet’s office, I worried about Miss Bean of course, but then I started worrying about the fact that we have five senior pets, and are we well enough prepared for the inevitable increase in vet expenses? (Not really). What happens if they all get sick or need surgery at the same time?

So I indulged in a little hyperventilation.

Going back to what I wrote about Murphy vs Providence, I am determined to cultivate gratitude. I will be grateful for the bonus we received just in time to defray the cost of Beano’s surgery; grateful that it wasn’t worse than it is; grateful that we are in a decent financial position and have the resources to handle home and auto and pet and health issues, even if doing so means we can’t have some of the things we want. How many people don’t have these resources? How many have to deal with problems I can’t even imagine dealing with? I say “Thank you” through gritted teeth and hope that the practice  becomes an orientation toward life -- without the gritted teeth.

So there’s my number one financial goal — to continue to practice gratitude and to trust in life’s abundance. Trust that what we need will somehow be there, and to be grateful when it is. I do have more specific goals to work toward and will post them after chatting with Kat.

Murphy? or Providence?

My dad has a story he likes to tell of his and mom’s first years of married life back in the sixties. He worked at a steel mill; she was a full-time homemaker. They had very little money, but one month he earned an extra $200 on his paycheck. They came up with all sorts of plans for what they might do with the money, but then Mom had a dental emergency, and the cost to fix her teeth was exactly $200. “We just couldn’t get ahead,” Dad says. “Could not get ahead.”

Which is how I feel sometimes. Kat and I have a little extra left over from the tax return that didn’t get spent on the sewing room project. This is the first year we haven’t had to put our tax return on debt, having paid off our credit card. We’ve been talking of putting it toward either our kitchen re-do or our emergency savings. Or, hmm, I’ve always wanted a KitchenAid stand mixer. Is now the time to start researching deals? We could consider it part of the kitchen update (I can rationalize any purchase).

But life throws curves. We had a severe wind storm blow through San Antonio last month. A few of our shingles were knocked off. The repairs cost $270. Then my primary care doc sent me to the dermatologist for a suspicious mole. Two biopsies later, I find out I am to have two skin thingies excised (one a basil cell carcinoma, the other some atypical cells that could turn into a melanoma). I’m sure we’ll pay at least up to our deductible, which is $500, then whatever the co-insurance is after that. Those two things together take care of the last of the tax return and more.

I’ve thought about Dad’s story over the years. This phenomenon of coming into money at the same time some unexpected expense pops up is certainly not unique to my parents. It happens to everyone. I can look at it as Murphy riding in to snatch that extra money out of our hands, or see it as a caring universe (or Providence or however you might name it) giving me what we need when we need it. The first viewpoint leads to frustration and a lot of “Why me’s?” The second evokes gratitude. I will admit I feel frustrated, but I am going to choose to be grateful that we happen to have this money when we need it to repair our home and take care of my health. And I don’t need a mixer anyway :-)

Unexpected Expenses of the Young New Year

Today the sun is shining! But it's still too cold for me. Brrr.

Kat and I had decided to take a break from household maintenance projects at least for the months of January and February. But God laughs at our plans!! It's been so cold (for South Texas; I'm sure many would think our shivering at temps in the 30's and 40's is amusing), that we've wanted to make our feral kitties more comfortable.

Kat built a little door in the side of the garage that can be closed off at night when our furry friends are safely inside, then we bought some Purr Pads and a small heater. Those boys are nice and warm at night now (you can guess they're not very feral any more, if they ever were true ferals). Cost was around $100, but worth it for the peace of mind.

Unexpected expenses in other categories in the new year are a defunct hard drive in Kat's laptop ($160 to replace) and a $170 trip to the dentist for me. It was a routine cleaning, but I was due x-rays and a consult with the dentist. All is fine except that I have two teeth with recessed gumlines that need to be filled at a cost of $270. Sigh. That comes up in February.

Not so good, but on the other hand, where we can better control expenses -- such as dining in and keeping our grocery bill in check -- we've done well. I'm determined to NOT be like the king in the old nursery rhyme who sat in his counting house counting out his money. Being budget conscious is one thing, but in the past few years I've gotten obsessive and overly anxious about it. We'll do what we can to be prudent, and beyond that I will trust life (part of my personal mission statement).

Awash in Cash (Sort Of)

Here we are into July, and I'm no closer to making a decision about my business.

Tomorrow Kat and I go on a 5 day vacation with my family -- parents, siblings and their spouses, and lovely nieces and nephews. It's a frugal vacation for all of us. We meet at campgrounds on the nearby San Marcos River, rent tiny duplexes (with the required AC), and haul our own groceries. Five days of visiting, napping, playing cards, reading, and tubing down the river. Bliss!

The sticker shock for us is the price of providing care for our pets while we're gone. Our two big dogs are geriatric now, both with arthritis in their back legs. I researched the best place possible to keep them and found a kennel with private suites and in-door play areas that will give them quiet rest and air-conditioned exercise. For both girls, it's $75.00 a night -- choke! That's almost the cost of our own accommodations!! It's worth it though. We also pay our neighbor's kids $120 to take care of our cats, fish, outdoor ferals, and plants.

We've thought about a house sitter for all the pets, but we have one cat who is very crafty about dashing out the door. She is a house cat and would not make it outside, and we're afraid to lose her if we had someone here letting the dogs in and out. Also, the neighbor's kids are able to make money for back to school stuff, and I know their parents more than appreciate it. So this is just the cost of our going places, which is why we do so little of it (Something I am fine with, being a homebody and not liking to travel much).

We have better cash flow this year than we've had in a long time, and much less worry as a result. All of our travel expenses, including the pet care, will be paid cash, and at the same time, we've managed to bring the balance of our credit card from over $9,000 at the beginning of the year to $2,900.

But I've taken a look at our finances, and a lot of our increased cash comes from sources other than my real estate business. Kat received a significant raise at work last August, and in January of this year, the city extended medical benefits to domestic partners. My being on Kat's health insurance saves us nearly $200 a month, and the insurance is much better than my private insurance, so we're paying less out of pocket for physicals and such.

The cash flow has felt so good, I thought I was making more than I am. If I take my gross and subtract ALL business-related expenses, taxes, and tithe, I've made nearly $5,000 in profit so far this year. The expenses are more than I realized. As you know, $5,000 is not a living wage!! It's a nice supplement, and a big part of the reason that we're not worrying over money nearly as much, but is it worth it for the aggravation and the hours I put in? Could be too early to pull the plug, but I don't feel momentum going forward, and that's my fault. If I can't be passionate about this, I don't think it will work, but God I don't want another failed thing.

So as not to end on a glum note, I have to share that I feel unreasonably happy right now. Well, maybe not unreasonably. I WILL be with family tomorrow, with the very people who would not at all see this as "another failed thing" (and neither would Kat). That's one bad thought I need to somehow bar from this decision-making process.