The Weight of Money

I feel like I’m in a whirlpool of financial directions, every thing has it’s own individual course and nothing is overlapping, just spiraling instead. With the purchase of the house comes many new options, needs, and priorities. Where, what, and how will we approach these, consolidate them, make them work.

Not everything is a real need, merely wants dressed up and vying for attention. Most of them are my own constructs and I’m not sure where the partner stands on these issues. It seems that the house has been our decision, but everything beyond that is just individual assumptions not communicated. It is as though all of our shared energy ends at the contract negotiations and we’re too drained to talk about what will happen afterwards.

The issues/wants/needs that I’ve been mulling over:

1. I stop working. When I decided to leave my full-time job and take a part-time position, I thought that it would be a temporary position. I figured that I’d work the part-time position until we moved into the new house and then just stop. What was I thinking?

   I was thinking that we’d buy less house and actually spend less per month on our mortgage than we’re paying in rent. Well, that isn’t happening and I’m okay with that, except quitting work isn’t as possible now.

2. Build a Workshop. I’ve mentioned that we need a workshop. Buying a house without a garage really puts us in a jam. There are two small sheds on the property, one is quite cute, but neither can hold the weight of the partners “stuff!”. I want to just get one built, but it’ll be some serious cash. I’ve pushed the partner to find out how much cash, but we’re both unsure of where to even start in looking up that stuff.
3. Expand the family. Having another child has been really pushing on my mind lately. It’s an on-again-off-again feeling of a couple of intense months wanting a kid and a few more refusing the thought of another kid. Since I’m on the upswing of desire, I want to add this to not working. But, babies cost money — or at least thats what some people want you to believe (another post on this another time).
4. Repairs/Updates/Furniture: The house will need a variety of repairs and many of them fall within the restoration range. We could go about doing restoration work on this house, but that does increase costs in some places. There are some tax incentives for doing restoration on an old house, but I’ve not read up on more recent laws and the book I’m currently reading only talks about restoration of commercial properties. Perhaps this only applies to commercial/income-producing properties still.

The partner and I need to talk about these things, but we are too tired to add more to our day. So much going on, not enough time to deal with it all.

Buying a house sure seems to take a while. Dealing with an estate takes even longer. Throw in the fact that the place is really old and more creeping, crawling pace ensues. We’re finally at the moving forward post home inspection and termite inspection. Good news is that there are no live termites and the sellers will pay for treatment. However, there is some evidence of some previous damage and the purchase price will drop $4,000 to cover the repairs that may be needed at some point (ha! $4,000 feels like nothing).

However, my concerns on the structural stuff haven’t been met and I guess it’s time to get over it. I’ve fussed a great deal and it seems to have gotten no where, but I’m not at the point of fussing that I’ll say that we need to walk. There are two more inspections, water and septic, and I’m hoping they go much faster. However, I’m not too happy about the $1K we’ll be spending on them, sheesh!

So, I’m somewhat disappointed in the house, but only because I really wanted to press the structural issues some more. But, the house is priced as such that it has problems, so I guess that I should just be content with that. I’ve done lots and lots of research on fixing the problem (as I estimate it to be) seems much easier than I originally thought. Yeah, structural work is a major project, but amazingly it can be a do-it-yourself project if you actually know what you’re doing. So, we can take our get-to-it motivation with a little support from our wealth of personal relationship resources, and take care of it. In the meantime, it ain’t going anywhere.

So now, I’m working to move past the disappointment in not getting the repairs (aka price reduction) I wanted and on to getting re-excited about the house. And, suddenly more financial issues crop up — like what are we going to do with the partner’s stuff.

This property doesn’t have a garage, a major negative point, and we have to get all those heavy machines out of their current location (they’ve seriously over-stayed their welcome at this point). I want to just find out how much it’ll be and work out a way to come up with some more cash (maybe 5K is enough) and get it built. The partner admires his buddy’s method of piecing together a shop by finding all the elements and putting together bit by bit — we ain’t go time for bit by bit, get it built, get it done!

Last night I got two $30 screws for my car; $60 for a pair of screws, thats outrageous! No, I didn’t get them at the hardware store or some specialty one-of-a-kind screw emporium. I don’t even have them in hand yet, they’re still waiting for me to pick them up at the store. Instead, I got the bill yesterday evening, hand delivered by a fine officer from Prince George’s County Police Department.

When I got Maryland tags for my car, I also got two license plates to put on the front and back of my car. Having been previously tagged in Oklahoma, where front plates are not required, I had nothing on hand to attach the front plate with. The partner hooked me up with a couple screws and I dutifully went to attach my plate — but, the screws were too short. Instead of heading right to the hardware store, I put it on my to-do list and never crossed it off.

Last night, on the way home from yoga, I got pulled over. The officer didn’t seem to care too much that I had both my plate (stored in the glove box) and the too-short screws. Instead, he handed over a $60 citation and told me to get it fixed.

Procrastination certainly costs ya; I’ll consider it a $60 Life Lesson and go pick up some screws today.