Car Troubles

It's been an expensive couple of weeks for our poor cars (and our poor checking accounts!). It started out with my battery going out and needing to be replaced. Then, Ben got a pretty bad flat and we realized that rather than repair it, we really did just need to get him all new tires. Then, I got one of my tires replaced because it got a screw in a spot that couldn't be repaired, so now we are getting all new tires for my van as well. For the record, new tires are not cheap! But, you can't go around on bald tires, so there you go.

Flip Or Flop?

I have been a little slack in my posts recently- so I will make up for it by having a really long post today:)

There is a very good reason I have not been posting cute pictures of my kids as frequently: I have been busy. REALLY busy.

Several years ago I decided I wanted to try my hand at landlording. I have a dear friend who is incredibly successful and has over a dozen income properties, and for years she talked to me about getting into the game. I was willing to give it a shot, but Ben had absolutely no desire to do so- he was worried about maintenance issues, bad tenants, crashing housing markets, etc. All good reasons, for sure, but I wanted to take the risk while he did not.

For years we went back and forth on this. Finally, last year, we decided to get a place. For the most part, the house was in great condition and we literally posted the house for rent the day after we bought it. After six months, I asked Ben if it was worth it, and even he admitted it was- everything with that unit was/is going perfectly as planned.

It is a row house in a little subdivisions with 12 row houses all together.

A couple of months ago one of the other owners contacted me and said she was interested in selling her units (she has two) and she wondered if I was interested in buying one. Ben was not. I was.

I went and looked at it- and it was in HORRIBLE shape. I mean, HORRIBLE. It is a 2 bedroom, 1 bath and it had about 12 people living in it. From 30 yards away you could smell the cat urine saturated carpet. Lots of pot smoke as well. Mold, rat poo, you name it- it had it. Absolutely DISGUSTING.

I fell in love! I knew there was GREAT potential! Thankfully, Ben was not with me as there is no way he could fathom just how bad it truly was. I don't think there is any way he would have let me buy it if he had seen it before the day of closing (in fact, he didn't see it until most of the renovations were done)!

After much persuasion (and it really did take my best persuasion skills) I convinced Ben that this was a good buy.

Here's the deal: I don't want to go back to work. EVER. I loved teaching while I taught, but I don't ever want to go back. I LOVE being a stay-at-home-mom! I LOVE the options that being at home affords me.

But realistically, I know there is a possibility that I could at some point in my life be widowed- and the time could possibly come when I would need to be responsible for the financial needs of my family. That's just life- things happen. And if I never need to be financially responsible for my family, it is still really fun for me to have something on the side that doesn't require a huge time commitment (i.e, I can still be a stay-at-home-mom full time), but still brings in some fun vacation money or whatever. It's FUN for me.

With this house, I knew I would need to WORK full-time for a good three weeks before we could put the house on the market. And, three days after closing Ben went out of town for two weeks. UGH!

We thought about flying my mom out to help me out with the kids, but she works so that wasn't really a possibility. Instead, I called in every baby-sitting favor anybody owed me and relied on Ben's parents A LOT.

Basically, I realized why I don't ever want to go to work! It is REALLY hard to balance work and kids! Huge kudos to all of you who do it!!!

Anyway, I went to the house constantly and worked harder than I have in a really, really long time. Manual labor, elbow grease, blood, sweat, and tears. It all came out! I had not been so sore since forever. It was a butt load of work.

But on Wednesday we were able to post our house for rent, after 3 weeks of impossibly hard work. Tomorrow we are having lots and lots of showings (the response has been amazing so far!) and we should get a signed contract tomorrow. The Denver rental market is insane right now, which is great for us.

Ben still isn't thrilled we did this. He is still leery of the land lording business, and with good reason. It is a risk. But, as I hope you will see from the pictures below, it is a risk that I am perfectly capable of handling! Well, I will let you know in 20 years if it was all worth it or not. In the meantime, I promised Ben that I would not buy another house for at least 4 years. This one just about did me in!

Before:

 Old paint, cracked concrete, pretty DUMPY looking- right?

Their dog had scratched up the front door super bad

 The carpet was so disgusting that you could smell the cat urine

saturated carpet from 30 yards away- I'm not joking.

Would you ever want to live here? GROSS!!!!

My only thought was, "HOW can people live here like this???"

It was beyond disgusting. Pictures don't do it justice.

 You can see the dark, dank feel of the entire house- the walls are filthy and have tons of holes. The dog scratched the paint from the outside door off so you can see the medal. Every door in the house was breaking or completely destroyed.

 Mold around the tile in the kitchen (above) and filth under the laundry (below)

 The tub was surrounded by mold- the darkest, most disgusting bathroom I had ever seen:

 In several spots the ceiling was falling down:

The previous owner was a slum lord, plain and simple. She admitted to not doing anything to the house for years, and we could tell.

Ben and I have NO desire to be slum lords. We want rentals that we would be comfortable living in.

So this unit needed the Christina Touch.

I brought it- and here's the end result:

 Nice, open, bright- concrete stained floors (those took 3 days of hard, physical labor, but they turned out fabulous! Perfect for pets- because if they pee on the floor, who cares?)

 Red brick accent walls

 Updated kitchen

 Both bedrooms have access to the back patio:

 CLEAN bathroom- that was a gross job. I'm glad it's over:

 Updated lighting in the dining room:

 Fresh paint outside (oh, and I built the gate all by myself!):

 Back Patio

What do you think? Is the Christina Touch alright?

Even though Ben won't admit it, I think he is proud of what I have done. I caught him bragging about the house to a co-worker, so in his own quiet way I think he is 10% glad that we bought the house and he has something to brag about his wife about.

Hopefully we will get it rented tomorrow! Showings are the scariest part for me, but Ben is surprisingly calm and AWESOME at showings, so we make a great team. It's been really fun to get to know him as a business partner and to be working on the same team. Wish us luck!!!

A Change For The...Better?

By far, the biggest news of the week is that we finally upgraded to this:

For those of you that know us well, you should know that this is a semi-big deal. We have faithfully used our flip phones (the ones "Specially designed for the novice and elderly") until about 4 days ago. We have not had texting or data, and believe it or not: We still were able to function in society! I know, I know- you are surprised.

The thing is, it was very hard to justify the increased monthly payment to get a Smart Phone- no matter how hard people tried to tell us it was worth it for the convenience. Plus, I have a lot of friends who are constantly tied to their phones- it's like they feel like they have to be attached to their phone 24/7 and can't enjoy a meal at a restaurant or a GNO without texting the entire time. I don't want to be like that! I like that my phone sometimes gets forgotten in my pocket for 3 days at a time and I don't even notice (my mom, however, does not like that I do this). So for those reasons we have been slow to change.

But then A T & T came out with a phenomenal new plan. For only $10 a month more, we get unlimited talk, text, and 1 GB of data to share. I can handle $10 more a month! Ben had been researching the different carriers and plans, and he actually discovered this plan and we signed up for it the day BEFORE AT & T started advertising the plan. Ben is good like that!

I went on Craigslist and found an IPhone 4 for $140 (the plan doesn't come with a phone- which is fine by me). My mom had given us her old Smartphone so Ben could use that one for free (Thanks, Mom!). So in the end, it was a cheap way for us to start out on our Smartphone lives. I am certain we will never go back (another reason we were hesitant to change: Once we got them, we knew there was no going back).

Here are some pictures I have taken with the Smartphone:

 Above: We went to my favorite ice-cream  place on the planet, MaGill's, to celebrate the girls' reading success. They completed a reading program at the library, but we turned them in too late for them to get the library prize, so we took them to ice-cream instead.

Below: This is Camille enjoying some Nutella.

You will notice that my IPhone 4 is not taking great pictures. Is it something I did? Or, do you think it is the case? I did buy an Otter Case (the one that makes my IPhone indestructible- I have kids, it seemed like a smart idea), and I wonder if that makes the pictures turn out fuzzy? Or, are IPhone pictures just not very good?

Also, any good, free kid Apps that I just need to get? Actually, I don't even mind paying for an app for the kids if it is educational and will truly keep the kids entertained. Let me know what you guys have all figured out!

See, one good thing about being so late to jump on the Smartphone bandwagon is that I get to learn from all of you!

Some Questions...

Alright, now that Mr. Money Mustache has completely convinced me that I am an over consuming spending monster, it is perhaps time Ben and I buckle down and come up with some concrete plans. But I have some questions for those of you who are smarter than I (and when it comes to investing, I am pretty sure that most of you are smarter than me!).

I'm trying to figure out 529s. I talked to a financial planner today and tried to get some explanations, but I am still confused. If you have a 529, can you help me out???? Here are my questions:

1. He said that amounts contributed were tax-deferred, but that when used on education you didn't have to pay taxes on it either. He made it sound like you never had to pay taxes on the money you put into this fund. Is that true? If so, how does it work- is it a deduction on your taxes, or does it somehow come out of your paycheck pre-tax like a 401K?

2. This company the planner works for uses a fund called AmeriFund, which is apparently a pretty big fund place thingy (how do you like that jargon?). The fees are 5.7% of the money you put in, up to a certain amount when the fees get lowered. That seems very high to me, but I really have nothing to compare it against. They seem especially high because he said a 6-8% return rate is good. That is a pretty low overall return rate- unless, you really do never pay taxes on any of that money, thus saving you 15% right off the top. Right? Not right?

My next question is about a ROTH IRA. We have one that we have been putting a little into, then somebody told me today you can deduct the money you put into that on your taxes. Is that right? I thought a ROTH was after-tax money and you paid taxes on it upon distribution.

So many questions....this investing stuff is tough! No wonder it is so hard to get started. But, I am proud to say that I have about 6 investing books on hold at the library to hopefully try and figure out some of the basics. We'll see.

If the end of the world happens soon, I suppose none of this will matter anyway.

A New Man In My Life

My friend, Jenny, introduced me to a new man, and I have become quite smitten. His name is "Mr. Money Mustache." I have no idea what he actually looks like or what he is like in real life, just that he has a blog with some interesting theories and a really cool name. You can read it HERE.

He was a software engineer and by the time he turned 30 he and his wife retired.

How did he do this? That is what the blog is all about. I read pretty much the whole thing in two days (thank you, Jenny, for turning me into a useless wife and mother for those 48 hours:)).

Basically, for almost a decade, he lived off of 25% of what he and his wife made (including the mortgage payment!) and put everything else in savings. Now, he lives off the interest of that savings, does whatever odd jobs he feels like doing (it is all his choice if and when and how he wants to work), and stays home with his wife to raise his son.

Sounds pretty good, doesn't it? The idea is fascinating to me.

He is a complete anti-consumerist. Even now- with all of his money (and he now has A LOT of money), he only spends about $27,000/year. Why? Because he has decided that the idea of always buying more and more stuff simply does not make one happy. Which is true. We live in the richest society in the world, but are on more anti-depressants than any other country as well.

He and his wife ride their bikes everywhere- they almost never travel by car. They spend only $30/month on electricity. They don't take exotic vacations- they go camping. He owns one pair of pants that do not have holes in them. But by living this incredibly frugal lifestyle, they give themselves the gift of being able to do whatever they want. They don't have to work- unless they want to- and they are not tied down to STUFF.

I have thought about this a lot the last couple of weeks. It would be SO COOL if Ben could quit and hang out with us all day!

But, I have one small problem: I really like the lifestyle we live.

I like our house. I like being able to go out to dinner with friends if I want to. I like date nights. Ben and I are very happy right now at this place in our lives. If we cut out all spending like he advocates-  no cable, no TV, no second car, no home renovations, no eating out EVER, etc. we could have Ben quit his job in a few years- but is that really what we want? I don't know.

So we came up with a compromise. What if we could have Ben semi-retire (go part time) in 10 years? That would require some sacrifices, and we would have to do two main things:

1. Pay off the house
2. Have a couple hundred thousand in savings for emergencies, etc.

How do you do that in 10 years?!? I really don't know if we could ever do that-  unless we did cut all excess spending, which I am not sure we want to do. I am a very frugal person, but frugal enough to put THOUSANDS in savings every month, not just a couple hundred? Hmm...

Which brings me to another point: He insists that we should have our money in a fund that earns 12% interest a year. WHAT?!?

Are any of you earning 12% a year on any kind of investment right now???? If you are, please let me know and tell me your secrets. The absolute best funds I am seeing are at about 3.5%! Speaking of which, where do you put your savings investments- not your retirement fund, but your emergency fund- or as I like to call it "Early semi-retirement Fund"? I'm curious because when it comes to investing I am pretty much an idiot. I am great at saving money, not good at all at investing money.

Anyway, his blog is very interesting. Some definite food for thought.

Christian's Blogtion

I thought I would post real quick to advertise Christian's Blogtion (on-line auction). They have a lot of really great baby gift items that are perfect for baby showers (I go to A LOT of baby showers, so I like to be stocked up on these!), jewelery, homemade truffles, and even a Kindle! Of course, there are lots of other items as well. The prices are fantastic, too- I was very surprised they were not much higher. I ended up bidding on way more items than I originally intended- I couldn't pass the great items up!

Anyway, click HERE to check it out.

Christian has severe brain damage due to a drowning accident and I have been following his story. 100% of the sales will go to his treatments. For more about his story, go HERE.