Sandi's 2021 Planned $avings Challenge

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SandiSAHM
Posts: 2260
Joined: Fri Aug 28, 2015 11:46 am
Location: Oklahoma

Re: Sandi's 2021 Planned $avings Challenge

Post by SandiSAHM »

People I love and have not seen in SIX YEARS are coming next week! Insert confetti here!!

Unexpected expense will be incurred but who cares, because one of these people is the closest thing I have on this planet to an actual sister (weren't raised together, didn't even meet 'til I was 26, but when you are sisters, you know it :D ). She is bringing the people she has raised, who are not her biokids though they are loosely related, they are girls my daughters age, we have pics of them all playing together as toddlers and preschoolers. It'll be interesting as DS now towers over all of them, last time we saw them he was still clearly the younger kid. Now he sounds like James Earl Jones and has to lean a bit to put his chin on his sister's head (she doesn't like that one bit).

Time goes to fast but I guess they can't all stay little forever. Talk about something that's good and bad at the same time!

So May will have a slight dink in anticipated savings contributions but who cares!
SandiSAHM
Posts: 2260
Joined: Fri Aug 28, 2015 11:46 am
Location: Oklahoma

Re: Sandi's 2021 Planned $avings Challenge

Post by SandiSAHM »

It never fails: when I'm on the verge of lining out down to the last deposit HOW I will achieve a specific goal by a set date, something comes along and foils my plans.

When we had the house built there was an existing house next door, occupied by its 2nd owner. The first owner had NOT fenced in the entirety of their backyard. A portion of it was left just out there, unfenced; no one was even mowing it, it was "field" (it's sloped and would have been hard to mow on their side, were it fenced). When we built our fence we told the current owner, this is not a land grab, we're just hooking our fence to the existing fencing to save a little $ for the time being - in exchange for that we'll mow the swath. That's when current owner said, "oh, no biggie, when one of us decides to move we can talk about moving the fence or you buying the swath from me." This made us happy, as we really like the yard the way it is. This is where dopey me thought 'that'll be a while.'

NOPE! Current owner wishes to move closer to downtown Tulsa rather than out here, because: job, traffic (which, current highway project, traffic going that way... YIKES - and they're back in the office).

Long story short, I have to buy a swath of land now... OR build a fence at my cost where one should have been put when the house next door was built. WHICH WAS NOT in my accounting and savings goals for the year. And I had *JUST* done the math and finalized the plan to get to goal by late Nov. RATS!!

Things are suspect, too, in that current owner says they want to RENT the house out while owning and living elsewhere. No one in their right mind would do that - this neighborhood is HOT right now, houses are going for $40-80K MORE than they would have at this time in 2019 and who, now, would want to rent out a house given what happened last year? I think this is their way of prepping us so when they come back in a week and say they've decided to sell (since they made the observation that the $ for the swath would go toward the down payment on the next house) because there's a bunch of profit to be made now. They bought low (according to zillow), and could easily get $60K more than was paid, more if it had new paint in & out. The only possible thing that might make renting easier is that they aren't the greatest at maintenance and upkeep and there are some things that would need to be done, in order to sell high, that they probably won't have to do just for the purpose of renting. Which is a drag, because I'd like to see the outside painted no matter who lives there.

And they are QUIET. What are the odds I'm going to get another quiet neighbor? Judging by the other 2 houses that have sold right here on our corner since we've been here, ZERO - the odds are zero. New people seem to enjoy loud junk music.

If I had any brains at all I'd put my house up for sale tomorrow, reap the benefits of the current market, and find a house truly in the sticks. But I can't move again, I'm too tired, and getting DS's first 2 years of college tuition free depends on living in the county for 2 more years. And we JUST built the deck in 2019, it was paid for along the way and adds huge value, but DH likes it and his garden (which we also "just" put in, over the course of 2-1/4 growing seasons). So, I'm stuck; it's either buy land or buy 140 feet of privacy fencing and make the yard smaller. DH does not want the yard smaller.

Venting. Sorry.

:|
SandiSAHM
Posts: 2260
Joined: Fri Aug 28, 2015 11:46 am
Location: Oklahoma

Re: Sandi's 2021 Planned $avings Challenge

Post by SandiSAHM »

So, I may see my not-bio but who cares sister again in 2 months. To what do we owe the honor? She's sick, as it turns out, and they suspect something major (cancer) and she's.... chill. As in, if it IS cancer, may just go the naturopath route and let nature run it's course.

She's not even 70, and we both know someone the same age who kicked that particular cancer in less than a year (not the person who is super sick and fighting by way of alternative therapies, a person who took the more conventional path - but she was a nurse in a conventional medicine setting, so it probably just felt right to her).

I don't get it. Why not fight? She's still raising 19 year olds. Neither is established and able to be independent yet, neither has anything past a hs diploma on which the ink is barely dry. Not so much as a part-time job. They may well end up back with their biological family, and that would be a disaster (drug abuse & 'gaming the system' types).

I think I've hit peak 'worry' load for my life to date, and it is not a good place. More prayer/less worry would be good, I just really bite at NOT worrying no matter how much I pray. Have to work on that!
SandiSAHM
Posts: 2260
Joined: Fri Aug 28, 2015 11:46 am
Location: Oklahoma

Re: Sandi's 2021 Planned $avings Challenge

Post by SandiSAHM »

Oh. And my 90-yr old uncle is going to lose at least a toe, maybe a foot. ALSO because he avoided seeing a doctor when pain and inflammation started.

Why can't people behave more responsibly?
SandiSAHM
Posts: 2260
Joined: Fri Aug 28, 2015 11:46 am
Location: Oklahoma

Re: Sandi's 2021 Planned $avings Challenge

Post by SandiSAHM »

In monetary news, the end of June savings shows progress toward the planned savings challenge. We are at 49.02% of goal. Not great, but all things considered so far this year (including DS's ER visit, x-rays, etc after having really spectacularly clobbered himself on a hill with his bike - he told his Dad, after, "my bike's fine" :shock: Bikes are easier and cheaper to fix than humans, and the ER doesn't mess around when it comes to billing. Met the deductible in one swoop.

So, all in all, MAYBE we'll get to goal this year.

Then I think, if we do that, DH will just pull another arbitrary # out of thin air for next year's goal, and I don't know if I want him to do that :lol:
SandiSAHM
Posts: 2260
Joined: Fri Aug 28, 2015 11:46 am
Location: Oklahoma

Re: Sandi's 2021 Planned $avings Challenge

Post by SandiSAHM »

I give up.

DH and DS hit a deer on the way home tonight. In the smallest of our vehicles. THEY are fine. The poor deer was killed by a larger vehicle. The car... may be able to be fixed. Hope so, it was our gas sipper. With a new driver's side door, quarter panel, hood, bumper, and light assembly it could be okay. The question is whether the driver's door is just jammed shut or if the center pillar was affected. If the pillar is messed up they'll probably total it.

Not sure how DH would handle that, he's pretty mad at himself. You know, for not seeing a fast-moving object coming at him from the side IN THE DARK. He's also grumpy because he believes he killed the deer, having been the first of the two cars with which it made contact. And to think he used to hunt as a kid (he said he just walked in the woods carrying a rifle while his dad hunted).

I guess we'll see what the insurance company says in the morning. Depending on its disposition this may put the kibbosh on the year's savings goal. The $1000 deductible would be okay, but if we have to buy a replacement, post-covid good used cars are scarce.
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