Expect the unexpected

Sometimes you just have a bad week. Well I got one of those. Here is a quick rundown.  Daughter got an ear infection so a trip to Urgent care, Water heater leaking needed to be replaced, back window of my car decided to stop working and stay open (then it started to snow with 30mph winds), I got sick, dealer wants to charge an insane amount for window to be fixed.

Sometimes these things happen.  Well we came home from a day ski.  Good news kids made it to level 5 meaning they can do some blues. Bad news when I went into the basement to put the ski stuff away I see this ominous wet spot by the base of the water heater. 

Great just what I needed with Tax bill and maybe a tuition bill coming due.  I did a little search to see if it was something I could fix.  Short answer was no.  The leak was coming from the internal tank and only fix is a new one.

Off to Lowes and Home Depot to price shop and see what I need.  I took prices of the current one to make sure I got about the same and what the size of the current one is.  I was thinking this was going to set me back about $500.  I even heard Dave Ramsey talk about getting a new one for about $500 so I was pretty confident it would be around there.


I go to the stores after reading up on water heater from Consumer Reports.  With the size and capacity I needed it looks like they would cost $500-$750 for the unit.  I talked to the Home Depot buy and he said I could install it myself and save myself $900.  WHAT $900 for an install that is crazy.  Just to check it out I ask for a quote and what do you know it was about $900 for someone to install and take away the old one. Then during the install he said we would need a new vent step, because that’s what the city required so an extra $250. So all out the door $2000 just to heat some water.

Now for most people that would of been a bad week.  Not for this Fox that is only the beginning.  On Sunday my daughter started to complain her ear was hurting here so we took her to the Urgent Care and what do you know an ear infection. $300 later we go home with some medicine and miss one day of school.

Then on Tuesday I drop the kids off at school and head to work.  I'm in the car and hear more wind noise then usual.  I look in the back and see the passenger rear window down an inch. So I try to roll it up and it only wiggles.  Thinking it is suck I press down and up and it only went down.  So now I have a window that is half way down and it's like 30-40mph winds outside.  SWEET.  I pull over to try to lift it up and it no worky.  So I just drive to work not knowing what else to do.  I put a blanks to cover the window while I'm at work until I figure out what's next.

I can't find an appointment until Thursday. I email the dealer who was trying to get me to come in for service since I haven’t been there for a while.  Luckily they replied that I could get in today which was awesome since online the earliest was next week.  The other place I looked was SafeLite, but they could get to my car until Friday, but they quoted $260 for the repair.

I take the car to the dealer and at the end of the day they came back with $980 to fix the window. WTF the part was only $130 and it was something I could fix myself.  They also said I needed new tires and $700 other stuff. I laughed when they came back with $3800.00 in total repairs.

After talking to them and quoting other companies estimates at $260 they said the best they could do was $800. Needless to say I said no thanks. But the tires were a good price and I did need new tires, but I didn't want to pay $180 for nothing.  $760 for a set of run-flats was a good deal; plus they can do the alignment.

The next day the called back saying the called to the technicians and they can do it quicker then was quoted.  They can do it for $400.  My guess they may have done the work already :).  With OEM parts and getting it done I went with it. Next time I will go going to SafeLite for window repair.

Grand total week expenses $3800.00

Now this is where a emergency fund is great. Luckly for me I can utilize my credit cards to gain points on these purchases and pay off the cards with either points or emergency funds.

If you don't have it start an emergency fund of 3 to 6 months of expenses.  6 months if only one person works or if you aren't secure in your job or you are very risk adverse. 3 months if you have multiple source of income like spounse, Stable field for 10+ years.

Taxman

Taxes are here.

I subscribe to the do your own taxes school.  I use H&R Block for my tax software and have for many year.  They have been very good and providing support in the past if I have ever need questions answered.

I usually go through this routine.  I create a 20## folder and collect all taxable documents throughout the year.  Then around now I go to all my site and download the tax documents and keep in a tax folder.  

I run through the software and input all the information.  "The average refund in 2018 was $2,135; this year, the number stands at $1,949" -time.com.  So far for Federal we owe ~5500 WTF. No clue what happened.  We usually get money back from the State and will find out how much soon.  

I usually review and go over it a couple of times.  Well one thing it did bring up was my wife has at a high exception when I though so we lowered that. 

This is also a good time to review your investment allocations.  

Turning stuff into cash

Everyone one of us has a lot of stuff just laying around.  I am no exception.  Everyone has to start somewhere.

Today I went into the basement and organized some of my kids old stuff.  They grown out of their old stroller and bikes.  I know it is winter, but spring is coming and the demand will be high.  As someone once said the early bird gets the cash.

Here are the steps I'm going through

1. Clean up the items.  The stroller is in good condition just some food that needs to be wiped down.
2. Photos.  Make sure to take pictures of the items and at various angles.  Also make sure to be careful of the background
3. Posting - here is the tricky part.  I haven't done this yet, but I think either Facebook market place or Cragslist to avoid ebay's fees.
4. Selling exchange - as these items are big and heavy shipping is out of the equation.  I plan to meet at a site like a target parking lot and exchange there.  

Next will be toys/beanie babies/other old baby stuff.

Have we done out life wrong?

I was listening to a podcast this morning and the person they had one had an amazing story of hugh student load dept to paying it off quickly to retiring by 30.  This would be an in couraging story, but it seems like every story on the Financial Independance/ Financial Freedom postcast world has this same theme. Grew up Middle class when to college got 50k-15k student load dept, got a job, paid off student load dept within 5 years, bought a house and house hacked, finally retired or at least reached FI in 30s. 

These are awesome and sinsipering, but also depressing and has me wondering what is wrong with my life.

I didn't have the dept.  I 've been working since I was 15, I've been very adverse to building any debt credit card, didn't get a house/mortege until I was 30.  The list goes on. From the outside looking in it seems I made a lot of right choices. 

Before I was married and lived very furgally.  Car the was paid off and I didn't eat out very much.  The one area I failed was my appartment.  I descided I needed to live on my own after graduating from college.  So I got a nice appartment. I think I was paying 400-500 a month for a 1200sqrt ft. appartment.  This is dumb for many reasons. First being the partment was only a couple of miles from my partents house.  The thing was I was comfortable in the area I grewup in and felt like I have a real job now time to move out. I coule go back and look it up, but I believe I was still only living on 30% of my salary.  I didn't make alot something in the 40k range which is good for right out of college. I did 401k and employee stock options. IDK I did well, but not great. Housing!! Housing!! housing!!

Fastford to today. My wife and I both work in a similar field. We have two elementry age kids and a dog.  We have a mortege and a car loan. At very good rates 3.25 and 2.25 repectivily. Yes it is a since to get a new car in the FIRE community.  I have an issue with buy used which I am working to get over. I've owned a new car for every car I have owned except my first one.  I am currently on my third car ever.  This is the same for my wife.  So far we buy new and keep them for a long time.  The current car we bought was for a couple of reasons.  We moved from California to a snowy state and my wife car was rear driven.  We had twins and needed a SUV or something bigger then a sedan.  You are probably telling yourself hey you can make it work with a sedan I do.  We did for 5 years driving a rear driven sedan in the snow and packing in the family in our sedans.  We both had sedans.
I will tell you trying to pack a family of 4 into a compact sedan on the way to the zoo with a double wide stroller take a Tetris master. Luckly I was. :)  My wife also wanted an 7 seater since we don't have family in town, and want to have room so they don't have to rent a car.  She also wanted a hybrid. 


Anyway here we are present day we both have very good jobs. Only dept is the house which was just refinanced and the SUV.   We save a lot and we spend a lot. Our food budget is reasonable arond the $900 per month range. We do have to pay for after school care since we both work, but that is much cheaper then pre-school, but we use an FSA to get some tax advantages. 

IDK it seems like my wife and I have had many more advantages then these people on the podcast, but have missed those small choices to really exceed in life towards FI.

It's not all doom and gloom.  This is the fun part.  Know that you have failed and know where you can improve and start making changes.  We started with out food budget to prevent the "budget" creep that was happening.  I'm starting to write out month food plans to better make bulk meals. Next we will move on the dreaded "Shopping" categroy and figure out whats up with that.

All hope is not lost.  Some of us had hard journies and some of use made our journies hard.  The point is we can do it in our own way. Good luck and keep up the fight. 

Updating your house

Even the smallest change to can make an impact.  Last your my electric/gas company had rebates on new thermostats.  It was easy to install and has really made an impact.  Now not only has it made an impact on my wallet it better for the community.  From nest.com average savings is $131 to $145. What easily pays for the new nest thermostat.

One extra benefit I discovered was it let me know there was an issue with my furnace.  Apparently my furnace only run 5 mins at a time.  I would of never known this, because my house it comfortable and we use our fire at nights.  

Small changes can make big impacts down the line toward you path to financial freedom. 

Superbowl party

Hope everyone had a save and fun Superbowl.  The best thing about these parties is the crowd sourcing of food.  Everyone brings a couple of things and let the sharing begin.

Now the bad thing is the abundance of food. 

Beside the host just having tons of leftover you have a couple of options.

• Everyone take a portion home with them
• Take the leftovers to work
• Donate the local homeless shelter
• Package for lunches
• Maybe find someone in need that you know

Biggest mistakes in life.. and what to do

On the ChooseFI podcast they ask their guest at the end of the show what is your biggest financial mistake. 

Everyone has one of these.  The point of this question is to think about your life and think about a decision you've made that had a impact to you.  For me most people would say my biggest mistake was buying a new BMW about 10 years ago.  Honestly for a $$ point of view it probably is.  But let me tell you I still own the car and I still love driving it.  I keep very good care of it and plan to keep it for another 5-10 years. To me after learning more about personal finance not investing in a Roth IRA since I started working at 15 was my biggest mistake.  Lost opportunity. 

This also got me thinking what is my biggest financial mistake that effects me day to day.  My biggest mistake is my taste for technology and wanting the best.  Now I don't go out an buy every new gadget when it comes out.  But when I have to replace one of my gadgets I usually buy the best I can find.  Like my phone I replace it every 3-4 years, but I usually buy the newest iPhone out.  I'm sure I'm not the only one, but others things people say is their daily coffee, eating, or driving instead of walking. 

The thing about these mistakes or better yet; life missteps is to learn from them.  Now you can't do anything about the past except to not repeat it, but you can start making changes to your daily missteps. 

Pass on what you've learned.  It doesn't do anyone any good besides yourself if you don't tell someone.  This is why we have history in school to help not repeat the mistakes of the past.  This does for our financial history. If you don't pass it on it can't help anyone.