Ceejay74's Personal Finance Blog

I sent a third of the condo escrow to the line of credit, and this time it did decrease the amount I owe, by $60. That takes May debt payment to $484 down, $16 to go. Every little bit helps! Actually, I'm hoping to pay off all the non-mortgage debt in one fell swoop next month if/when the WV money comes through. But whatever I pay now saves us a bit of interest, plus I might have a bit of WV money left over if I pay some debt now. I figure any WV money left after taxes, charitable contribution and debt payoff, I'll split 50/50 between retirement and fun money.

Speaking of retirement, I figured out I had my 6/15 paychecks mislabeled as 6/16. What it means is I can do AS's first-quarter SEP contribution now instead of waiting until mid-June. But when I went to the new Vanguard account I just opened, it was called a traditional IRA and it had a $5500 limit. SEP retirement funds are supposed to be up to 25% of income. I figure I made a mistake when setting it up. I emailed Vanguard as AS so they'd contact her and hopefully convert it to an SEP. I'm not going to send her first-quarter payment to it until we get that figured out, even though it wouldn't be over the limit.

I'm a bit too keyed up to go to sleep just yet. I think I'm excited about my five-day weekend!

The kids are home Friday through Monday, and then us grownups took an extra day Tuesday to hang out together. We don't have any big plans, just some rough ideas; the playground and park if it's nice weather; going to the movies if there's a rainy day (which there will probably be a couple of).

We do have a plumber coming out tomorrow to look at this basement bathroom and see what's not up to code about it, and hopefully estimate how much it would cost to bring it up to code.

Also, NT and AA are going to the university to participate in a father-daughter study tomorrow.

Oh, and NT is at an all-day music festival Sunday. Nothing big for me to do, though. I just want to hang out with my family and relax.

Maybe I'll do a little shopping; I do need a couple pieces of clothing for work and I have some big client meetings coming up. And perhaps we can look at fridges and a few other smaller household needs.

I've been really busy at work, and several money things have happened that I haven't had time to blog about. Let's see if I can remember them all ...

The escrow from my old duplex mortgage came in! Over $3K. Most of it I used to make up for the money we had to put into new escrow, but there was about $450 more than I needed for that. I put one-third toward retirement, one-third into our shared spending money and a third toward debt payment.

(The debt payment only covered accrued interest on that $15K line of credit, but at least it means future payments will go more toward principal. And actually I noticed we now have some available credit on the line, so they did put most of it toward principal, but since I can see the accrued interest keeping the balance at nearly $15K, I'm not counting that way. So no debt paid off with that payment, but that's OK.)

And, since the money is in the bank now, I was able to open AS's SEP IRA (retirement account). I put $957 in there: 10% of the money she made from freelancing in the last quarter of 2014. As soon as I have enough money in the bank to do so, I'll add in the 10% she made in the first quarter of 2015, but right now I need to keep that in checking to make sure we can cover her 2nd quarter income tax prepayments. As soon as we have enough in the bank to cover both, I'll add to her SEP.

I wrote to the county about condo property taxes because we double-paid first half due to closing on the sale of it. The county got back and said they considered property taxes to be paid in full for the year and wouldn't be able to refund any until they were overpaid -- presumably whenever the new owners paid 2nd half taxes later this year or early next year! I wrote to the title company and they called the county and got it straightened out -- they should refund the overpayment sometime next week.

Then, I got the remainder of the condo mortgage escrow in the mail today. Only $193, but certainly welcome! I'm dividing it into thirds like I did the surplus from the duplex escrow refund.

NT's UK property manager wrote to ask for more money -- just 114 pounds this time ($182). Luckily we'd waited to wire the other amount he asked for, so we'll only pay the wire fee once. We still don't know what the council taxes will be that he mentioned, but it sounds like we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. I'll wire the money for the last two renovation expenses tomorrow -- I've got the day off work.

Good news about that though -- he also let us know he's found somebody to rent the place starting May 29 for 825 pounds per month -- 30 more than the 795 he initially projected. That means we'll be able to pay his mum back a bit more quickly and start saving up spending money for a trip over there.

Speaking of which, we decided when we're going to visit England next. In late June/early July of 2016. We've got a while to plan, which is good because we've got to save up airfare for 5 passengers now that neither girl can sit on our laps anymore.

We also talked about leaving the kids with their grandparents for a few days and checking out another European city with some of our Oxford friends, and the grandparents agreed. We've more or less settled on Barcelona. I'm excited -- the only European city I've visited outside the UK is Amsterdam!

NT ran a check to see how much it would cost if we were traveling THIS June/July instead of next. It probably doesn't have much to do with reality, but it gives us a rough number to start working toward. Get this: round trip airfare for 5 from US to England, plus round trip airfare for us three adults from England to Barcelona, came to about $9000! That's more than we've ever spent on an entire trip including hotel and food, and that's just for the airfare. It freaks me out a bit, but we really want to do it and can afford it, so we will. And hopefully the actual fares will be a bit less than that.

The good part is, NT's mum is paying for lodging for us while we're in UK, and we'll have money saved up in the UK account for dining and other spending, so the only other expenses we'll need to cover are a hotel in Barcelona and maybe rental cars. And, of course, we have well over a year to come up with the money, so we can start saving up a few months before we want to purchase the tickets.

Assets:
NT's UK pensions:
#1: 17,105 pounds ($27,368)
#2: 20,501 pounds ($32,801)
#3: 4,452 pounds ($7,123)
NT's 401(k): $37,098
NT's Roth IRA: $7,888
AS's trad. IRA: $15,613
AS's Roth IRA: $21,399
CJ's 401(k): $84,582
CJ's Roth IRA: $7,888
NT's flat: 140,000 pounds ($224,000)
CJ/NT/AS house: $440,000
---
Total Assets: $905,760

Total Debt: $524,753

Current Estimated Net Worth: $381,007

April 2015 estimate: $377,561

Change in net worth: +$3,446

Summary: Modest gains and modest debt paydown equals a modest change.

Starting next month our retirement funds will increase faster. I can't wait!

I'll update the Individual Net Worth page shortly, breaking it out by person.

Notes on the numbers above: House value estimates are approximate. I don't have a way to check NT's UK pensions or flat value, so their values stay static for the purpose of this update (unless I happen to get some info by chance). UK asset values and debt amounts are calculated figuring $1.60 for every British pound.

The garage sale finally happened. Not a ton of traffic, so we didn't make much. We spent $45 on supplies, snacks and sodas for the sale. We didn't sell many snacks or sodas, so a lot of that wasn't helpful money to spend. Sometimes drinks and snacks go over really big at sales, but not this one. We made a little over $100, which means we netted about $60.

Then we spent the rest of Saturday in a gardening flurry. Our backyard is (was) completely paved over with bricks, and we wanted at least a little patch of green out there. So we pulled up the bricks on about a third of the yard, tilled the sandy ground underneath, bought a ton of topsoil and tilled that in, and bought several rolls of sod and placed that. Now we have a small patch of grass that's going to look so nice! We used some of the pavers to build a raised border around the area we're going to use to plant fruits and veggies, and the rest we stuck in the garage for now. Then I weeded like a madwoman and pulled up a ton of deep-seated roots in the fruit/veggie bed. I believe our downstairs neighbors planted some stuff there today, but it's been raining off and on and I haven't had time to ask, so I'm not sure.

Sunday morning I hired a carshare and took the rest of the garage sale items that would fit (everything except a mattress, a table and a chair) to a donation drop site.

Then from about 2:30 to 7:30pm (counting travel to and from the campus), I was at NT's official graduation. Over a thousand grads in the ceremony, so it took ages! Kind of an anticlimax since he graduated in December, but fun at the same time. I took some nice pics of him in cap and gown on campus, to please his parents. That was the important part anyway.

AS got another check yesterday, for $525. We're thinking our next purchase will be a new fridge, since the one we have doesn't stay shut unless you really slam it or use the child-proofing latches that NT installed. But we have a ton of items on our wish list, so we should probably go through and vote again.

We also want a couple of date nights and minor personal items (clothing, shoes), so we'll use some of AS's money for that. And we still have to figure out what to do with the basement area that the city wants us to make un-rentable, and how much that will cost.

Feeling unstuck is such a wonderful feeling that we really don't care how long it takes to have all the wants we've withheld for so long. We're happy to take it slow.

I'm feeling SO much better, no longer stuck in a holding pattern. Yesterday and today were both big money days for AS: She got $3600 and $1400 respectively. Add in the $4K from earlier in the week and she received $9K this week!

NT has started shopping for some LONG-overdue work clothes -- dress shirts, slacks and a suit. He thinks he can keep it to about $600.

We went ahead and set aside money for the rental cars for our two upcoming road trips, and reserved hotels for the longer one. The rentals will be about $575 for the longer trip and $230 for the shorter one. The hotels came to less than $500 for three one-night stays in different cities.

The fence guy came by to finalize his estimate. It was very close to the initial one -- $2640. We're splitting 50/50 with our neighbors. And we should have the back yard fenced in within 3 weeks! I've taken some "before" photos so I can share them along with the "afters." I think it's going to make a world of difference.

Today I had off work and spent much of the day prepping for the garage sale tomorrow. AS helped me a ton. We lugged out boxes from various places, and tables from the porches. We bought sodas and snacks to sell at the sale as well. I spent $45 on sodas, granola bars, fruit snacks, posterboard and pricing stickers. Any food/drinks we don't sell will definitely get eaten up by the family.

It's the only expense for the sale -- our $10 registration to the neighborhood sale will be refunded because NT discovered we got left off the map. But there are enough sales around us that we're not too worried. They did give us a sign to put in our yard to signal that we're part of the sale.

Our neighbors contributed some items too. Instead of keeping track of what money came from whom, we agreed that any proceeds would go toward something shared -- probably plants or soil for the garden.

Now that we've been getting serious about fixing up the house together, I've been giving some thought to their wish that we sell a portion of it to them. I'm definitely in favor of that in theory. But I feel like I want to talk through the ramifications -- tax, insurance, estate planning -- with others before we finalize it. All this past year, I've felt reactive -- trying to make up for not having properly prepared before each big decision. I want to be knowledgable about this next step before we take it.

AS called me today at work to let me know at last some money had come in. It was a big 'un, too: a $4000 check!

Not long after, NT forwarded an email from his UK property manager letting him know they need more money. :/ We just can't borrow any more money from his mum--we're already nearly $3K in the hole with her--so we'll have to wire some of our newfound riches. NT asked them to make sure this was the last additional charge, because sending money from the U.S. costs money, and we don't want to have to pay multiple wire charges. The manager also said council taxes would be due soon, but he didn't have any details on that.

On the upside, he says the place will be rentable soon, and at 40 pounds more per month than before. So once it's all said and done, we should be able to pay off NT's mum in 5 or 6 months and start saving money in the UK account again.

NT also had to get his bike repaired, so that will come out of our shared money as well. About $46.

So here's how $4000 becomes a shadow of its former self:
Tax/retirement $1200
Our half of fence costs (est) $1,300
Send to UK for reno (min) $616.40
Bike repairs $46.48

Left over: $837.12

Still, that's a lot more shared spending money than we've had in a while!

I booked a rental car for our July trip to my family reunion, but we won't have to pay that until we actually rent it. I added a note to my budget sheet so it doesn't fall off the radar, but I don't need to take it out of shared money right now. We know AS has lots more money coming in that will definitely be here before July! I figured out how to use my company's discount on the rental and saved about $100!

Even though it's just a road trip through Indiana to Ohio for a gathering of family (most of whom I don't know terribly well, except my nuclear family), I'm excited at the thought of traveling again. Before that, we've got a weekend in June in our friends' giant home in Winona (small town south of us). So two trips coming up!

My stomach is about 90% better. It's hurting and grumbling now that I had dinner, but not nearly as angrily as the past couple days.

Cat's not back. It's only been 5 days, whereas he was gone 10 days last time. I hope he gets hungry sooner and comes home!

Garage sale is this weekend. I'm taking Friday off to prep for it. We don't really think we'll make much money but it's a good excuse to go through our house looking for things to get rid of. I'm more excited about decluttering than I care whether we make money!

NT's official graduation is Sunday. Kind of anticlimactic; this is mostly so his dad gets pictures of him. And he did work hard on that degree, so it's worth celebrating again.

It's been a few days of ups and downs, and I either haven't had a chance to blog or haven't felt like it.

- Down: Our Noodles ran off again! Even the first night, NT was leaving doors open and letting the cats hang out on the porches. AS and I were worried about that and she mentioned it but we didn't do anything. Well, the second night, he was suddenly gone! There was only one door open, to our front porch (second floor), so he must have gone that way.

I'm not as gutted this time because A) He's demonstrated an ability to find his way home, B) I know it was voluntary on his part this time (last time I thought he might have been shut out), and C) I was very worried about NT last time, but I feel like he was asking for it this time. That was Thursday night and Noodles hasn't shown up. I hope he gets back safe! I've already implemented a strict indoor policy for our remaining cat, and if/when Noodles gets back, he won't get another chance to disappear if I can help it.

Up: NT's work has been pulling in so much money that they gave everyone a $200 Visa gift card!

Down: AS still hasn't received any of the big checks we're expecting. Our small amount of discretionary money is gone mainly thanks to getting NT's cap and gown for his official graduation ceremony, and me and AS going out to brunch for Mother's Day.

Up: We got the property tax money refunded from the duplex refi. I was able to pay off that high-interest reserve line loan. I still need to receive the escrow refund to make my budget work, but I can float everything until mid-June at least, and they're supposed to mail out that refund by May 24 at the latest.

Down: I caught some kind of 24-hour bug and had to go home early yesterday and work from home today. It just wasn't a good time to take sick days, unfortunately. But I've been getting better gradually over the course of the day. And I got a fair amount of work done.

I think that's most of the news. I still feel a bit out of it so I may be forgetting something!

Just kidding; I'm not superstitious, but that doesn't stop me from feeling "lucky" when more than one good thing happens in a row. So first, this morning, I'm awakened to the good news that Noodles came back.

Tonight my broker emailed (that's right, he and the title company actually did their job without my nagging!) to say the property taxes had been paid, so they can refund that portion of my money that they'd been holding. They'll mail a check tomorrow and it'll be to me Friday or Saturday. (I should ask them to wire it and pay a fee like I had to! But I know that's not how it works.)

I hope this means tomorrow we start receiving some of AS's long-awaited freelance checks!

After a mysterious 9-day absence, our cat has returned. He just showed up this morning and meowed to be let in. We don't know where he went or why, but at least he's back! Scratch on his ear, some dust in his coat, and he's lost his paunch (looks like a fit cat now!), but otherwise unchanged. If anything, he was more loving with us than usual and more mellow with our newer cat Clue. (She, on the other hand, is very displeased he came back and keeps growling and trying to intimidate him. I guess she took ownership of the whole house while he was gone!)

Ah well. Just so happy my family is complete again!

Nothing much has happened the past few days. Not much money coming in or out. We did get two Truvia settlement checks for $7.89 each, but no new freelance checks for AS. She keeps working, so the expected money keeps building up. Sure will be fun when it comes in!

We agreed with our neighbors to get started on fencing the backyard in. They said they can cover our share until AS's checks come in. We might have them by the time work starts, but we're just not sure.

NT borrowed another 600 pounds from his mum to finish the UK renovations. I need to transfer it over to the management company this week.

No sign of our cat. I wish he would come home, and I still think there's a good chance he will, though my hope gets a little dimmer every day. We're still hunting for him, have signs up, and are checking found-pets sites.

Tomorrow a big credit card payment goes out, and our bank account will be down to less than $100, either until payday next Friday or until AS gets some checks.

I checked with the broker and the property taxes supposedly sent by my old mortgage company April 10 have still not posted. Which means we can't get that money refunded. Still waiting on the refund of escrow money from the old mortgage as well, and property taxes from the condo that we also double-paid because of closing requirements.

So, in a holding pattern on most things. But I had a nice chat with AS where she assured me I didn't need to feel stressed out on their account because none of our fun money had come in; she and NT know it's coming and they're feeling patient about making big purchases.

AS saw my blog the other day and nicely offered to handle figuring out what to do about the basement area so I don't have to.

I did decide we'll drive to the family reunion in July. Now that the kids don't fly for free, it would be over $2K for airfare, vs. about $600 for a car share. Can't ignore that price difference even if it is a 12-hour drive each way! We'll take the Friday and Monday around the weekend so we can divvy up the driving over two days each way.

I won't actually book the car or the hotels until we have some money in our shared spending, though. Just to make sure we have enough.

I guess that's it for now. Good things brewing but nothing much happening!

The UK mortgage payments and our 0% credit card payment hit.
UK1: $223 to principal
UK2: $48
UK3: $50
CC: $104

All told, that's $424 down, $76 to go on the May debt goal. I underestimated what our minimum payments would be this month, so we'll easily surpass that with the student loan payments at the end of the month.

NT's had a stomach bug for a couple days, so I don't think anything's been done about the $900 we owe the UK management company for the additional renovation expense. We should figure it out soon, because we don't want the renovation to be held up. Our only two options are to ask his mum for money or ask the management company if they can wait a week or two (whenever AS receives some more freelance income) and then wire it over once we have the funds.

I guess a third option would be to take out some reserve line funds in the US and wire it over, but at the 29% interest rate, I really want to avoid that if possible.

No sign of our Noodles yet. We have signs up around the neighborhood, and NT looks for him at least twice a day.

I had a follow-up budget meeting with my second friend I'm helping. She was unable to stick to the plan we laid out, so she's going to try cash only for her fun money and see if that helps her control her spending. She's also got some homework; to apply to have her student loan payments lowered now that she's single, check on her credit card interest rates, and see if she can put her gym membership on hold without penalty. I've also added a weekly reminder to check in with her to my calendar because she says being accountable to someone might help.

Yesterday was payday. I managed to pay off $2000 of the reserve line funds I borrowed, so there's just $1850 left, plus some interest. I'm using the money that's usually there because we're ahead on our bills; I still need to get escrow and property tax money back from the duplex refi in order for it all to work out. I just emailed our broker to make sure he's on top of it.

In good news, the condo mortgage company found my funds and applied them to that mortgage, so it's gone. I just checked the original duplex mortgage and it's also paid off. So, even though everything still feels chaotic, things are still moving along. I thought May would be the month I started to find out what the new normal felt like, but now I'm thinking it'll be more like June. Oh well. Getting there!

Well, in the absence of any U.S. mortgage payments, and assuming we will not receive the WV money this coming month, I'm setting the debt repayment goal at a paltry $500. Hoping June's will be much more exciting!

I'm looking forward to June in several ways. Not only will we hopefully receive the WV money and paid off all non-mortgage debt, but I also hope to ramp up retirement contributions after a year of putting only about 5% of my paychecks and 6% of NT's paychecks toward it. I think the first thing I'll do is start an SEP with Vanguard for AS.

Speaking of AS, it felt like April was a slow month for getting paid, so I added it up. She received $1403.75 this month. By comparison, in March she raked in $8325.38! Some of it is due to her taking 2 weeks vacation in March, but some of it is just luck of the draw.

I'm so glad we can cover our bills with my and NT's more predictable income. I'd be pretty nervous otherwise!

Luckily May is looking like it'll be more like March. A lot of checks are due soon (or overdue).

The management company of our UK rental contacted us, saying they need another £558 ($893) for the renovation.

Obviously, we don't have that.

We'll probably need to borrow more from NT's mum, unless the company can wait until we receive more checks for AS's freelance work. Money we couldn't wait to use to fix up our home. Sigh.

Oh, and the rental inspection finished. Only minor stuff with the actual unit we rent out, but since our basement has a kitchen and bathroom and door with a lock, we need to either dismantle some of that stuff or apply for a permit to have it be a separate unit. Pissing away more money on stuff I don't care about, I guess.

On the upside, I got the third May utilities bill, and our total for the month is going to be $312 -- our lowest total utilities cost since last November.

NT's student loan hit, with $43 going to principal. Autopay finally went through; I tried once and it didn't work, but this time it did. What's funny is I'll probably be paying this debt off soon (assuming my dad's WV deal is for the expected amount).

That takes April debt paydown to $12,824.

Guess that's it! I'll set May goals later in the week.

Our cat Noodles wasn't around last night when he usually gets a treat and gets shut in the bathroom. We looked around, rattled his bowl, then gave up. It was late and our house is big.

This morning NT woke us up to say Noodles was still missing. He looked all over, but we all had to get to work.

He still wasn't here when we got home. NT has biked around the neighborhood, and I made flyers for him to put up.

We think he got out an open door, which got shut likely while he was still out there. It was on the third floor, but he could have climbed down the roof, I guess.

Hope he turns up. He's not very friendly to anyone but us, and he doesn't like other animals. He needs to be home with us!

In other news, first half property tax still hadn't been paid as of noon today, so I wired the $5400 amount to the title company. On a whim I went to a different bank branch a block from the one with the guy I'd worked with twice. Huge difference! The woman who processed it did it in a third of the time, didn't have to ask any questions, and the money was gone from my account when I got a chance to check. Glad to stumble across a competent person for once!

AS did get two checks yesterday, so we're not down to a few bucks in checking. But we're down to less than $400, which is the least we've had in the account in years and years. Feels weird! NT and I get paid Thursday, so even without AS receiving more checks, I'll be able to pay back over half of the reserve line loan. Once again, SO glad I didn't pay the extra federal and state taxes for AS that I was going to. We'd have been in trouble when my broker sprang this news on us! As is, we'll be able to pay off the reserve line loan by May 15 at the latest, with or without more checks for AS, or the expected refunds.

If NT's flat doesn't receive rental income before June 1, we'll need to wire some money to his UK account. Then THAT should be the last wire transfer we do for a while! Whew! At $30-$50 a pop, it adds up.

We've got a rental property inspection tomorrow. Hoping the downstairs unit passes muster. It's sure nicer than when our friends moved in there!

Tonight I've got a carshare rental to go pick up a bunch of free outdoor furniture. It'll only cost about $8 and we're getting a TON of stuff.

I guess that's it. Wish us luck on finding poor Noodles! It's been a hard month for kitties on SA.

AS's student loan hit, with $140 going to principal. That takes our debt paid this month to $12,781.

The condo title company emailed to say they have proof they wired the payoff to my mortgage company, and they will work with them to resolve the issue with the late-payment notice and the appearance of still having a balance with them.

The duplex broker will check one more time tomorrow to see whether first half property taxes have been paid, and will let me know which amount I need to wire ($5400 or $3000). Just to be prepared, I borrowed $3850 from my reserve line so I can wire the higher amount tomorrow if need be.

AS hasn't received a check in a while; a few of them are later than expected. But she's still bringing in work; eventually the checks will roll in! She took $2500 worth of writing assignments from my job and is also working here on site today and tomorrow. And they want her to take a few more writing jobs too, which she has to think about since she's already got a lot on her plate. She decided to drop one client from her list, because they drastically reduced their pay rate AND cut turnaround times. She has enough other higher-paying clients that she doesn't have to settle for this one. It's great to be able to be a little picky!

I got a late notice on the mortgage for my condo...you know, the one I don't own anymore? The one where the title company told me not to make the April 1 payment because we were closing April 9 and it would get paid off before a late fee was triggered? Yep, that's the one.

I went online to check the balance. I can't believe I never checked the balance -- I had so many things going on that I just trusted the title company and assumed it was paid off. Nope, there's still a balance.

I emailed the title company asking what was up. I also told them I do not intend to pay a late fee, so they'll either need to pay it for me or work it out with the mortgage company.

I'm going to have to stay on top of them, as well as my credit report to make sure it doesn't suffer as a result.

I wish at least one thing would just work out the way it's supposed to without a bunch of extra work on my part. Isn't that why I pay these companies thousands of dollars?

Stressed and bummed. I feel like my day is ruined, but I will hopefully feel better soon.

Oh, I just got an email from them. "Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I will check into this first this Monday morning and let you know once I have it resolved."

I hope they get it resolved with no late fee and no significant ding to our credit scores!

Ugh.

So in a matter of days, the broker went from saying "this refi will cost you less than nothing" to "you might need to write a check at closing but we'd tear it up once property taxes were paid" to "you need to bring $5400 to closing but it'll be refunded within 2 weeks" to "well, they have 30 days to send the check but usually they do it within 2 weeks."

Long story short, the closing went through tonight (they brought the papers to our home to sign, so that was something), but we'll need to wire some money to the title company by Tuesday. Probably $5400 but could be more like $3000 if first-half property taxes reach the county by Tuesday morning.

Of course, having just gone through an expensive closing and paid off the promissory note, we don't have that much in checking. So it looks like unless AS gets a couple of the big checks by Monday, we are going to have to take a short-term reserve line advance.

It looks like, worst case scenario (we have to pay the $5400, AS doesn't get any checks, and we don't get the refund for 3 weeks) we'd have to borrow $3850. We could pay back $1650 of it a couple days later, when we get paid 4/30. If we still don't have the refund or any of AS's checks, we could pay off the rest after our 5/15 paychecks hit.

So not a big deal, couple bucks of interest at most. Still, ugh.

The closing lady knew nothing about our relationship situation and kept saying it was amazing three friends were able to buy a home together and not want to kill each other. :-/ We didn't bother trying to explain, just signed all the papers and said all the right things to get the closing done fast.

Our new mortgage payment is a little less than $2800, so $400+ less than our old payment. We got $3K added to the principal, which I'm not crazy about, but with how much we're saving per month, it's worth it.

So, not quite out of the woods in terms of crazy financial wranglings, but one step closer. (Even though new steps keep getting added, the finish line seems closer now that the refi is signed.)

No checks have come in for AS for a while, but she keeps booking work. At some point there's going to be a flood of checks coming in!

My sister visited this past weekend. She is the mellowest house guest you could ever ask for, and she loves playing with the kids, so it was really kind of a vacation for us. We ate out or ordered in a lot, but she paid for several of the meals, so it wasn't too expensive.

We had many interesting conversations. She is a complete and utter philanthropist, always thinking of ways she can help people. She literally almost gave the coat off her back to a guy on the street until I talked her out of it. One of her activities while she was her was going to a Kenyan church service and surprising some of the kids she knew from a group home she visits in Kenya, who live in MN now.

Her finances are interesting. She told me her husband does most of the work, and he's a super-saver on one hand, but really disorganized in some ways. She said for a while he routinely paid a $50 late fee on the mortgage because he could never send the payment in on time. And their taxes have been late from procrastinating too.

Their communication about finances is dysfunctional. She pretty much gets to spend her income on whatever, which is mostly ordering out for dinner, helping the homeless and others in need, and helping out her adult children with some of their bills. He handles all the bills and retirement, and occasionally freaks out over some long-delayed tax or bill issue. It sounds like it works for them; I don't think our system would work because if they completely pooled their money, they'd have lots of disagreements about how to spend it. And it sounds like they're doing OK because the husband is really good about stashing money for retirement.

She also told me some things about my family I didn't know. I didn't know my mom was a hoarder long before I came along; once a floor of a rental home caved in because a big heavy cabinet was so crammed and stacked with stuff. I thought maybe she'd gotten worse over the years, but no, she's always been that way.

I also found out that now that my mom is more or less immobile (doesn't like to walk because her knees hurt, so she just stays in the living room all day), my dad has been systematically clearing out all the rooms in the house. Surprisingly, my mom is aware of it and has found a way to cope: she told my sister "I don't go in those rooms anymore, because it's better if I don't know what he's gotten rid of." Which, for a hoarder, is pretty impressive!

It's really interesting to get news from my sister because she's pretty open and honest about things. My family can be weirdly secretive within itself, just about random things, and doesn't always deal openly with problems.

Once I confirmed with my downstairs neighbor who's a real estate lawyer that the association dues refund check was valid, I deposited it and put half toward making up retirement, half toward shared spending money.

Last night NT had a carshare that his company was paying for (has an all-day meeting today), so I suggested he and AS use it to go oven shopping. They found one they liked for $710 (with tax and haul away of the old one). It will be delivered Friday, May 1.

It puts us about $150 in the hole in our shared spending money, but AS is expecting a $500 check any day now, so we decided it was OK to go ahead with it.

This morning, I woke up to a nasty surprise: the monthly autopay check to the duplex seller had been sent. Guess in everything that was happening, I forgot to cancel autopay! I emailed the title co. because I still haven't heard 100% confirmation that he got the payoff. As soon as they confirm that, I'll let him know to ignore the check that's coming. Don't want to confuse matters, or get an earful from him if he hasn't received the promised payoff.

I heard from the broker on the duplex refi; he should have final numbers by tomorrow and wants to close on Friday. That's inconvenient for NT but if we can arrange to meet in downtown Minneapolis, we could do it. I know I'm naive, but I'd hoped a streamline refi could all be handled electronically without an in-person closing!

I really just want to get those exact numbers on the monthly mortgage payment so I can finalize my budget for the next couple of months.

We forgot to bring in the mail yesterday, but my sister picked it up this afternoon. One envelope contained a check, with a rebate of a full month's worth of condo association dues: $696.03!

I wasn't expecting it; I thought that was figured into closing. So I'm not going to cash it right away. I emailed the title company contact that sent me the amount I needed to bring to closing. Hopefully she'll have some insight.

I can't help but get my hopes up that it's a real windfall and not a mistake, but I'll wait to find out before I count it as ours.

Yesterday the title company lady called; their computers were down, but they'd been able to verify my wire had come through. She got the duplex seller's contact info from me to see how she could get the money to him. She called me back a couple hours later saying she'd wired the money to him. She'd get a signed satisfaction from him once her computers came back up.

She still hasn't emailed that to me, so I'll check in Monday. But I'm assuming it's just the seller dragging his feet as usual.

I provided some more forms to the broker and it seems the refinance is in process. So I'm hopeful it will be finalized next week. I canceled the autopay on my current mortgage (after confirming with my broker that I should), so it feels pretty real!

My sister's in town until Monday afternoon, so we'll be spending a bit of money eating out and such. Not too much, especially since AS hasn't received any more freelance checks this week. There's quite a backlog, so it'll be exciting when it all starts rolling in.

I started a simple spreadsheet that I'll refresh once a week with the balance of shared and individual spending money. My hope is that AS and NT will get in the habit of recording their purchases there, making it easier to update my main worksheet. And there will be less of me telling them what we can afford; we'll all give input into how we spend the available funds.

I even set it up to email me when someone updates it, so I know when to check it and add something to my main spreadsheet. I hope it works out!

OK, things aren't quite wrapped up on the duplex refi and payoff. I waited 4 long hours after emailing the title company that I'd wired the payoff funds, then called them. Turns out their computer system was completely down. So they were unable to process my payment. I don't think it's a big deal; one day shouldn't make a difference to the guy who typically didn't cash my monthly checks for a week or more after receiving them.

And, maybe because of this delay, the closing on the duplex refi is probably going to be next Wednesday. I should get more exact numbers about the mortgage balance and monthly payment amount today or tomorrow, though, which is the part I'm really most concerned with.

So we're close, not there yet, but I still feel OK about everything.

On an unrelated note, we unexpectedly got a little over 100 pounds deposited into our UK checking account. Apparently the renters stayed until April 6 and so paid a small amount of rent in April. That's nice in case we don't get a new renter in time to receive rent before the June 1 mortgage payments; it'll mean less money we need to either wire over or borrow from NT's family.

Assets:
NT's UK pensions:
#1: 17,105 pounds ($27,368)
#2: 20,501 pounds ($32,801)
#3: 4,452 pounds ($7,123)
NT's 401(k): $36,631
NT's Roth IRA: $7,780
AS's trad. IRA: $15,460
AS's Roth IRA: $21,106
CJ's 401(k): $82,872
CJ's Roth IRA: $7,780
NT's flat: 140,000 pounds ($224,000)
CJ/NT/AS house: $440,000
---
Total Assets: $902,921

Total Debt: $525,360

Current Estimated Net Worth: $377,561

February 2015 estimate: $366,009

Change in net worth: +$11,552

Summary: Apparently all our recent property doings -- including selling the condo at a loss -- and shifting around of debt did have a net positive effect! Some of this gain was due to decent performance of our retirement accounts, but a lot of it was from debt reduction.

It was kind of fun to have our assets worth over a million bucks, and now with the condo sale they're below that. But we'll get up there again eventually! At least our debt is getting close to going below the half-million mark. That'll be a relief.

I'll update the Individual Net Worth page shortly, breaking it out by person.

Notes on the numbers above: House value estimates are approximate. I don't have a way to check NT's UK pensions or flat value, so their values stay static for the purpose of this update (unless I happen to get some info by chance). UK asset values and debt amounts are calculated figuring $1.60 for every British pound..60 for every British pound.

I made the wire transfer to pay off the promissory note! I haven't got confirmation from the title company or my broker, but the money is out of my bank so I'm counting that debt as PAID.

It's been a couple of confusing weeks, with some debts being paid off and some being added to my balance. I was trying to work out how to figure that into my debt repayment calculations, and I came up with a way.

Before closing on the condo and paying off the seller, I had $670,005 of debt. After eliminating the condo mortgage and duplex promissory note, and adding a student loan, a credit card and a line of credit to my debt, my new debt balance is $525,360.

I got rid of $133,000 of it by selling the condo, so that doesn't count as debt repayment. But the rest of the debt reduction does. So that means through the whole confusing mess, I paid down $11,645 of debt over the past two weeks! That takes my April debt repayment to $12,641. Definitely a new record, and the month isn't even over yet!

In other news, last night I decided to take snafu's advice and just pay the minimum for AS's quarterly tax prepayment, and keep the other $2500 or so in my account for now, adding it to her June tax prepayments. Well, even if I hadn't decided that last night, I would have done so this morning, when I saw I'd forgotten to cancel the auto-contributions to our Roths for April! So that's $450 out that I wasn't expecting. Luckily I had that choice to pay less on AS's estimated tax, so we'll be OK. And I don't have to take out a reserve line loan to bridge the gap until April 30 payday. I was planning to restart Roth contributions in June anyway, so I can float this amount until June with no impact to our regular budget.

The banker who helped me with the wire was the same one who messed up last week on the other wire, but since this one was to go out immediately, I wasn't as worried. I hovered while he handed it to the lady who was going to process it.

The banker's a real sad sack, hinting at financial woes of his own. I think he assumed I was in over my head like him, but from what he was saying, I think he's just an average everyday person, which means he has no real idea or plan with his money. One comment, when he was telling me about these condos on Lake Superior that he admired: "I really wish I had $40,000 so I could buy one. Heck, I wish I had $1,000." Hopefully he was kidding! But he also mentioned having a second mortgage on his place, and not having any money to eat out, so I wonder.

He made that comment after I mentioned I hadn't eaten out much but could start to do so more now that I'd gotten these deals done. It was like, we had a lot of the same problems, but I have a plan to get out of them and he seemed kind of stuck. It was just interesting. You'd think a banker would have a better handle on things, but of course I know better than that.

Anyway, in other bits of financial news, we think the fencing of our backyard is going to run around $2500. Our neighbor is getting estimates and planning it. We'll be splitting the cost with them. AS should have some bigger checks coming through in the next couple of weeks, so shouldn't be a problem.

We've been looking at ovens, but one thing we want to avoid is ovens that get really hot to the touch on the outside, and ones that vent all the hot air right over the cooktop at you so you're pummelled with it while you're cooking. We're having trouble discerning from online descriptions which might be better in those areas. So we might have to go into a store and talk to someone.

AS did some last-minute coverage at my job yesterday and should get about $300 for that. She also accepted some new jobs from other places: a $600 one and a $1600 one. She quietly passed a milestone the other day: she's now booked enough work to surpass what her annual salary at her old job would be. It only took her three and a half months, with a 2-week vacation in the middle! Of course, $6K of that is the teaching gig which she doesn't get paid for until the end of the year. But it's pretty exciting nonetheless.

I guess I'll probably do my net worth calculation today or tomorrow. It should be interesting! I think I'll about break even, since we took a loss on the condo but also paid off some debt. But I won't know until I add it all up.

Tomorrow is a big day.

We close on the duplex refinance, saving about $400 per month on our mortgage payment.

As part of that, we pay off the second mortgage (promissory note) that we borrowed from the seller. To pay off that $26,500 debt ($26,559.35 since we're paying interest for the first half of April), we had to borrow $15,000 from a line of credit.

The promissory note payment ($119) will be gone but will be replaced temporarily by a $265 monthly payment to the line of credit.

When the money from my dad's WV land deal comes through (hopefully in mid-June), that line of credit will be the first thing I pay off. So hopefully we'll only have that $265 payment for two months.

Also tomorrow, I need to pay our 2014 tax bills:
CJ/NT state taxes $240
AS federal taxes $3,099
AS owe state taxes $435
This is mainly covered by the CJ/NT federal refund, which I already received.

Then I have to pay AS's estimated quarterly federal and state taxes. I could pay the minimum advised by my tax guy, but I decided to go ahead and pay what I thought she actually owes for the quarter:
Federal $2,724.48
State $1,167.63

In order to do that, I need to take out a $1400 loan from my reserve line. I know, it's foolish to do that when I could simply make smaller payments for federal and state taxes. But it's worth it to me to feel like everything is current and paid up. I'll be able to pay off the $1400 on April 30 (some of it earlier, if AS gets any more freelance checks between now and then). So it'll just be a few bucks of interest.

So in total, the money out tomorrow will be ... drum roll ... $34,225.46.

I should probably feel freaked out! We'll be at an all-time low in actual cash, since the UK account is also cleared out for the UK renovations. But starting April 30 (or whenever AS's next freelance check comes through), we begin to rebuild. AS is expecting about $6K to come in over the next month or so. And we're expecting that big check from my dad's deal in June. So I'm actually feeling great!

I think a large part of it is a relief that I'll finally sever the relationship with the duplex seller. I'm glad I didn't know what that was going to be like when I agreed to it, and I'm glad it's almost over!

Loosening the reins of spending felt a bit odd, but I went with it. Unfortunately we "lost" $300 out of the budget, so it made it seem like we spent more than we really did. I'm trying to remind myself that's not the case!

We used the carshare twice; that will come out of our monthly line item, but it did take us through our April amount, so I'll need to go into May (or take from unallocated funds) for when my sister is here next weekend. (I promised her one trip to St. Paul.)

We started the weekend with $589 in the unallocated category and ended it with $103. Trying to retrace my steps:

Registered the girls for another session of swim class: $168.

We spent $29 on bday gifts for two kids from our daughters' daycare. We were going to their joint party, and they'd brought gifts to both of our kids' bdays recently.

We spent $29, oddly enough, at the hardware store for gardening gloves, a light switch and a shovel.

AS and I went to a big publishing happy hour (conference was in town and her old job was hosting a night) where we thought drinks would be covered, but we only got one drink ticket (and that's because a friend of hers gave us one). They were all out of drink tickets a half hour after the thing began! So we spent $26; AS covered $15 with her spending money and we took $11 out of the unallocated.

AS got a medical bill for a recent visit: $98.

And I discovered a nearly $200 accounting error in my budgeting spreadsheet! Somehow I'd messed up the balance on the Amex card that we use for groceries. I've never made an error that serious before. I combed the spreadsheet for a clue as to how that could have happened. I have no idea; it could have happened weeks ago for all I know. I moved a few things around to lessen the blow, but most of it had to come out of our unallocated fund. That left us with $103.

So the only truly frivolous things were the bday gifts and the drinks. But it still felt like we'd spent a ton when that number went down so drastically. Ah well, AS is expecting several freelance checks that may come in this next week.

Today we (along with our downstairs neighbors) got a ton of work done in the back yard. We raked up a bunch of old leaves, shoveled up cedar chips, uprooted husks of old plants, scraped away a large collection of bird poop in one spot, cleaned and organized the storage area attached to the garage, removed old birds nests from the porch, trimmed away twigs and vines coming through the fence from the other side, took up some cement chunks that had been used to border a flower bed, and swept the whole area.

Our neighbor is going to get quotes on fencing in the back yard. We plan to split the cost of that. It's going to be so great once it's fenced off and really feels like our space!

Closing was at 10am today; it went without a hitch. We are now down to two properties and about $130K less in debt.

Coming on the heels of my dad's email from yesterday, it felt like our lives changed in the span of a day. We feel light, optimistic, and eager to stop denying ourselves every little thing. We've already thought of a few long-delayed wants that we want to spend some of our freed-up cash on. A stove with all the burners working, for one!

We passed the condo on the bus on the way back and there was a very little nostalgic tug, but mostly just a feeling of a weight and unwanted responsibility being gone.

I bought us lunch from our favorite deli before we went our respective ways to work the rest of the afternoon. It was from my spending money. We decided we'd still have some allocated spending money, but also a bucket of unallocated money that we agree on uses for. It's a small bucket right now, but as AS's freelance checks roll in, we'll start to fill it up (and pull from it).

I sent the last few documents off to the duplex broker, and he said he'd try to submit the refi to underwriting today.

So happy.

Practically unbelievable, anyway...

I just read this on the way home from my all-day meeting, so I'm still processing. My dad wrote me to say the energy company is exercising the right-of-way option on his property!

They say there needs to be a "closing" which will have to be scheduled within 60 days, and they will hand my dad the checks at that meeting.

I don't want to count my chickens in terms of money because of a few vaguely worded statements from our contacts there. From my dad's email:

"J did say some things are unsettled, like a survey still has to be done (which implies that the path could change). I asked a few times "Will the check amounts correspond exactly to the amounts in the agreement"? The answers were like "They should ...." and "will be based on the agreement"."

So I don't know how much the promised amount could be reduced; I think it would only be by changing the path and therefore the number of feet. The original quoted amount for my share was $80K. (I assume about 40% will go to taxes, but I'll have to check with my tax guy after it comes through to see if that's right.) I've also committed (mentally) to putting at least 10% of it toward good causes.

I guess I need to be patient for another month or two. It's up to the energy co. to schedule the closing, so we're at their mercy for timing.

What a weird week it's been. Heck, what a weird year it's been!

Today was supremely slow at work, so I asked for the afternoon off. I don't like work being slow at a time when I'm putting out tons of money! But the rest of the week will be busier.

I'd brought in a mortgage statement to scan and send along with other duplex refi info, but I was still waiting on the payoff quote from the mortgage company, so I never scanned it.

Which was stupid, because I checked my work email from home and I did get the fax (my work scans and emails them to us). But my mortgage statement was sitting on my desk at work. And I've been assigned to an all-day off-site meeting tomorrow. And the condo closing is Thursday morning. So the next time I'll get in the office is Thursday afternoon.

But I can get all the other pieces to our broker and just send in that last one on its own. Tonight we worked on signing and scanning about 100 pages of documents for the duplex refi, and scanned and saved a file of copies of our driver's licenses. I found a bank statement online and saved a copy of that. So we'll be able to get all of that over to the broker and he'll just be waiting on the mortgage statement.

It's weird to be working on the duplex refi right before the condo sale. It's all blending together in my mind.

So here's the week ahead:
- Tomorrow: All-day client meeting; email all docs but the mortgage statement to duplex broker.
- Thursday: Closing on the condo at 10am; nothing more to do on that except show up. Scan and email final document to duplex broker in the afternoon.
- Friday: Take out the line of credit loan in preparation for paying off promissory note.
- Sunday: WV option expires. My dad's been hearing conflicting rumors and nothing concrete, so we have no idea what's going on with that.
- Wednesday (15th): Close on the duplex refi and pay off the promissory note.

And maybe, next Thursday, I'll breathe easier than I have in a while!

Today I've been riding herd on various professionals to make sure the stuff I need done *gets* done.

I saw that the check to the electrician cleared, so I emailed the contractor to make sure he was on top of getting me the paid-in-full receipt. He sent it a few minutes later.

Then I called the LOC bank to see what the minimum payment would be if I took out the full $15,000. The customer service rep told me "$150 a monhth." On further reflection that didn't seem right; that would be 1% of the balance but no interest. I did a Bankrate calculation and came up with $266 the first month. I'm going to use that number and I'll be pleasantly surprised if it's only $150.

Then, the banker yesterday told me that the wire transfer for the condo closing would go through this morning and that it would show up in my account by noon. He set himself a reminder to handle it while I was sitting there. I checked my bank account promptly at 12:05 and saw nothing, so I called the branch. After some hold time they came back to say there'd been "miscommunication" but that their manager was putting it through right then. Naturally I asked for a call to confirm that, and I checked my online account with the manager on the phone to verify that I could see the transfer pending.

I'm not saying the first instance was a case of incompetence, and the jury's out on the rep who quoted me the $150 minimum payment. It's just that nobody cares about getting this stuff done as much as me, so it pays to stay on top of everyone and make sure it keeps moving.