Layout:
Home > I probably won't make this month's goal...

I probably won't make this month's goal...

December 15th, 2014 at 12:27 pm

...or the next several months.

First, the market has been very volatile and I have been depending on my money in the market appreciating to make my monthly goal. I'm not concerned about the long term effects of this month-I am not planning on touching any of this money for 30-40 years. There will be plenty of time to make up for this month's losses.

The other thing is that my partner and I are buying a house. We settled on a price with the sellers on Saturday and this week will be used to get the mortgaged settled and start the inspection process. We agreed to a price $5000 higher than I wanted to pay, but when we ran the numbers it added very little to the monthly payment. I was most concerned about the down payment at that price. It is going to make for a couple of tight months. The mortgage payment itself, though, should be right around what we are paying in rent so that won't be a burden at all.

We are paying a very fair price for the house. When we decide to move from our town we can easily rent it out for $500 more than the mortgage. We have some upgrades planned for it over the next couple of years. This year we are turning the basement into a "bonus room" with a kitchenette and full bathroom. It has an exterior door and we think we can rent it out easily once the work is done. We live in a college town and our house is in a very desirable neighborhood for grad students.
We'll update the kitchen and bathroom next year. Both will add significant value to the house and make it more attractive if we ever want to sell it. We plan on keeping it forever but if we need to we're reasonably sure that we'll be able to at least get our money back if we ever sell.

We are trying harder than we have in the past to tighten our belts. We had a fantastic grocery trip to Aldi and are set on dinners through Thursday. We are probably eating our last meal out on Tuesday. This is a planned meal-a celebration for me finally graduating with my TWO master's degrees. (They were held up until I finished my thesis. I got confirmation last week that my thesis has been accepted!)

We're being more mindful with the heat settings and are cutting back on alcohol consumption. I'm going to push my braces start date back a month so that I have a little more wiggle room in my budget (though the HSA should take care of 80-90% of it.) We're thinking of fun things we can do at home, or cheapest things out when we work from home and just need an excuse to get out. All in all, we're heading in the right direction. I am going to try to start updating more regularly to make sure I/we stay on track.

0 Responses to “I probably won't make this month's goal...”

Leave a Reply

(Note: If you were logged in, we could automatically fill in these fields for you.)
*
Will not be published.
   

* Please spell out the number 4.  [ Why? ]

vB Code: You can use these tags: [b] [i] [u] [url] [email]