The Saga Continues

Home ownership is not for the faint of heart. 

As a Realtor, I see how hard it is to find "the home" and then get all the paperwork done before you are given the keys to your new home.  Right now, I have a client that is supposed to close on a house on Monday, but their paperwork has still not been cleared because the bank is waiting to get the appraisal report back from the appraiser (who completed the appraisal last Friday!).  To say my buyers are on pins and needles is an understatement.  Especially since they have to travel here to get to closing and they have a child in middle school that either needs to skip school or find a friend's house to stay while they are gone. 

I've seen it time and time again, no matter the stress leading up to closing day, the buyers are so excited to have a place to call their own.  Once those keys are placed in their hands, the troubles they just overcame are forgotten.  After all, they have a home that someone else can't tell them what to do (except if they live in an HOA where they restrict what you can do to the outside of the property), right?

Last fall I learned that's a bit of a fallacy.  My insurance company was able to force me to replace my roof (or else they would drop my insurance).  If I didn't have insurance on the house, my mortgage company would have forced me to pay for their policy (which cost 3X as much and only covered the structure of the house and not any of our stuff).

We closed on our house almost 3 years ago.  Since then, we have repaired or replaced:

• Pool pump
• Kitchen sink (rusting and ruining counter) and kitchen faucet (leaking)
• Roof
• Air Conditioner
• Carpet through pretty much the entire house
• Washer & Dryer
• Refrigerator
• Oven element
• "Storage Room" flooding with water when it rained heavily

And last night we had septic water start backing up into one of our showers.  We're praying it's a simple plugged pipe.  If it's not that, at a minimum we will need the septic pumped but we could also need to have our septic tank and or drain field replaced.  Add to that the fact that we have a detached pole barn that is beginning to fall apart and we've got more expenses on the horizon.

Like I said in the beginning... home ownership is not for the faint of heart.  We will get through this.  We always have.  But for those of you out there that think you'll get those keys and life will be easy after that.  Not necessarily true.  It takes work to keep the house in good shape.  It takes money (sometimes lots of it) to be able to sell your house a few years down the road and gain some equity (and that's not even guaranteed).  But it is nice being able to have a place that, for the most part, you can call your own and decorate it as you see fit.

Paying the Piper... Yet Again

My regular readers know that over the last 7 months, my daughter has been to the dentist MANY times in order to get fillings.  To the tune of $1000+.  Today we got to add another $200 to that amount. 

Why?  Because when she was 2 she bumped her tooth.  And a couple years ago when we were living in our camper she bumped it again.  But apparently that time she damaged the nerve and last week the nerve revolted.  It started to swell and her gums started to turn dark red.  Never a good sign. 

Friday, I got in contact with her dentist and sent her a picture slightly more detailed than the one below (I love email and tech save medical professionals).

You can see the swelling above her left front tooth.

After she looked at it, she confirmed my suspicion that the tooth was going to need to be pulled.  Luckily, it wasn't too bad yet so we didn't have to schedule something over the weekend.  So, first thing this morning I was able to get her an appointment for this afternoon to get her tooth pulled.  She did great (as usual)!  She is somewhat of a pro at this point with all she's had done.

What you may not be aware of is that my daughter is 7.5, and until today she still had all her baby teeth.  That's right, she hadn't lost a tooth yet.  And I will say this, it's gross interesting to see a tooth pulled that wasn't set to fall out on it's own for some time yet.  It still had the root on it!  Of course my son thought that was a little cool.

Although I am a bit bummed this tooth cost money to come out, we were able to catch it in time to prevent damage to the adult tooth.  And apparently it had a small cavity that was starting to affect the tooth next to it.  So I'm just going to tell myself that it saved me some money.  Yep.  That reasoning works for me. NOT!  Anyway...

And of course, there's the joy in my daugther's face when she smiles and shows her missing tooth.  At the rate her teeth are going, that would have happened in another year or so if it happened naturally.

Ouch! That Hurt...

... my heart and my wallet that is.

Well, my daughter got her major filling done a little while ago and she was such a trooper!  Didn't complain once.  Cooperated with the dentist.  Was talking and making them smile and wonder at how well she was handling everything.

Apparently her nerve was more swollen than the dentist was expecting.  To the point where she used multiple treatments to help relieve the swelling.  Luckily, the dentist doesn't think the tooth will need to be pulled any time soon.  It may need to come out before it would fall out on its own but the goal now is to make it till the adult tooth right behind it comes in.  Can I just say how glad I am that we got a cancellation rather than the appointment that is 23 days away still!

So how did my heart survive?  By taking a book to read so I had something else to focus on.  That and hearing the dentist and her assistant keep mentioning that she was the best child patient they'd had with a filling of that depth and location.  She even mentioned that she had adult patients that didn't do as well.  Hearing that, certainly made me feel more at ease.

If only there was something that helped ease the sticker shock on the way out the door.  Ugh!  Having dental work is not cheap.

Penny Pinching

I'm going to appologize for the length of this posting.  I had no intention of it being this long, but I guess I'm more passionate about the topic than I though.
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A couple weeks ago, I discovered that I had spent $900 during the month of November on groceries.  That is CRAZY!  Part of it is that we are still re-buying some staple items such as flour, and part of it is that I did some of my early December shopping in the last couple days of November, but still... that's just NUTS! 

I think the largest part of it, is that the price of things are going up and I just figured that all the increase in my weekly bills was because of that.  What I've recently discovered is that the problem is that I've moved.  This created two problems:  1. I was not aware of the coupon policies of my new stores.   I am now aware though  (FYI Virginian's, there is no store down here that double coupons - UGH!)  and 2.  I have not figured out which stores to buy what items from (For example in VA, I would get canned veggies from Wegman's because they were cheapest).  Some items I'm just willing to pay more for because they are better quality.  For example, I pretty much refuse to buy produce from the Wal-Mart.  What that meant is that I would shop at a more expensive store because I wanted their produce but would not think about how much more expensive their other foods are.

I have been shopping the sales flyers the last couple weeks and it's been saving me some money (I'm back around $100 - $125 a week).  I used to make my menu and then would just shop.  Now I make my menu based on what's on sale. 

After I realized how high our grocery bill was, we had a family meeting in which we talked about how we want to buy a house soon, and the more money we save the better the house.  I've also mentioned that we need money in order to be able to go on trips (like a cruise, Disney, etc).  We then discussed ways to save money and the 3 ways they can help is 1. Turning off lights when they leave a room, 2. Help Mommy save money on groceries by understanding when I say no to something or when I ask them to eat leftovers, and 3. By realizing we will be eating out less.

Talking to the kids and letting them know the situation has helped as well because there is now much less complaining when we have leftovers for dinner on occasion.  Not only does this make my life easier but it means we are not wasting money. 

There is one more thing I'm about to try to institute.  I've always thought that the most expensive part of my grocery bill besides meats was produce.  Therefore I didn't purchase them as snack foods.  I've read that fresh produce can actually cost less in the long run and I think I've finally realized exactly how that's true.  For example, my kids typically have a snack in the AM and in the PM.  What's been happening lately is that they have 2 snacks in the AM and 2 in the PM.  Why?  Because they are made of processed foods and aren't as filling.  SO.... after my kids finish off the granola bars, fruit snacks, etc that are in the house, we're going to switch to fruits and veggies as our snacks.  It's healthier, more filling, and I hope will prove to be less expensive. 

I made a local friend almost right after I moved to Florida and she recently went to a farm and came back and asked if I wanted anything from the massive stash she came back with.  I got a HUGE cabbage, 4 red peppers, and 4 tomatoes for $3.  I made cole slaw and barely scratched the surface of the cabbage.  If I don't even use any more of the cabbage, I spent less than if I'd gotten a bag of cole slaw mix.  But you know what?  I have plans for more of that cabbage.

And I also have plans on joining my friend on a future trip (she likes to go every week).  Maybe the next thing I try is to get my family to eat a vegetarian meal on occasion.  Wish me luck on that one.  :-)