Inspection isn’t a requirement, but in my experience most people get one and make their offer contingent on a satisfactory inspection.
). I've worked out a plan on paper to get rid of all the credit card debt by October. As far as I've come with managing my finances, I still let emotional currents affect my spending sometimes but at least I am aware of it now. It's very frustrating and I'm kicking myself in the butt but thankfully I've stopped and taken stock.
Just keeping swimming HonHi everyone!
I had some missteps and have accrued a decent chunk of credit card debt (in addition to my DVC purchases
Hello everyone! I have been following along but have not posted since January. This year I did a lot of the cleanup and prep work myself at the ”county” house. Feel like I am bleeding money everywhere, but fortunately have been able to cash flow and not accumulate additional debt. While I was in CA for my daughter’s college graduation two weeks ago, on the ride from the airport my daughter’s car started overheating. I guessed it needed a new thermostat, because we had already had to replace that once before. I ended up ended up being right, along with three hoses that needed replacing going into and out of that area. It was incredibly difficult to source the parts for a 10 year old Dodge Dart! So the car went in to the shop and I had to rent a car. I ended up helping source some of the parts— I get the gold star for finding one and only one of the needed thermostats anywhere in the Bay Area and I drove to pick it up! The car is not worth much and I was just hoping it would get her through one more year of grad school (she needs a car this summer to get to her summer job), so in the long run it was better to fix the car than let it go for scrap and have a new car payment, but ouch, it was more pricy than I expected. I am sure some of you have had that internal debate when the car is not worth much and you think you know what is wrong but hate to spend the money on a “fix” only to find out afterward that does not really fix it! Most of my spare time in 2023 has been spent on fixing the “country house” after water damage. After the laundry room/kitchen flood, I had a second water leak in the small bathroom that went out to the hallway later in January and I ended up pulling out all the flooring in the entire house. There were SOOO many carpet nails that I painstaking pulled out of the subflooring to give it a flat surface for the new plank flooring. Some subfloor had warped and had to be replaced. Went ahead and pulled out the vanity cabinet and sink in the small bath because the standing water had made the participle board expand and look bad, plus it was easier to get into the wall the replace some plumbing. Happily the flooring is finally done after I had to tell the first flooring crew to not come back. The second flooring crew are in the house today finishing up baseboard work. I went ahead and painted the walls while the base boards were off. So we have all new flooring throughout the house, replaced some plumbing and insulation, new baseboard or quarter rounds where applicable, new wall paint that looks better with the gray toned flooring, I painted the wall grates to look fresh and new, new bathroom vanity with beautiful matte black fixtures, and a new hot water heater.Well, my 2023 is starting off with unplanned renovations. I made my list of 2023 goals on 1/13/23, and planned to post them here over that weekend. You all may recall that in March 2020, I purchased my deceased grandmother’s little house out in the country on family land, but I am still two and a half years away from retirement so I am holding on the my “city” house for work purposes for now. On 1/14/23 I went to my little “country“ house for the long weekend and was hit with a horrific smell upon entering the house. The water heater had burst and flooded the laundry room and kitchen. I spent the weekend sucking up water with the shop vac and pulling out carpet (hated having carpet in the laundry room and kitchen anyway, so not sad to see those go), and figuring out a plan. Previous posters are right, when you start replacing one thing, it seems to snowball! Some of the floor got warped and will need to have the under flooring replaced as well. I’ve picked out some flooring this week but haven’t pulled the trigger just yet—a new water heater and new floor in the laundry room and kitchen are a must, but I am trying to refigure the budget to go ahead and replace all the flooring in the house, and I am considering painting all the walls, then that makes me want to pull and replace the baseboards if we are painting and getting new floors.
Here are my 2023 goals:
(1) Pay off credit cards to zero every month.
(2) Cash flow daughter‘s college expenses (no student loans!).
(3) Max HSA contribution.
(4) One big vacation and 2-3 small vacations.
(5) Finish organizing all passwords and important documents into one place, so that if I die, my daughter has a very easy roadmap to my affairs.
(6) Personal health enhancement. I committed to weight loss in 2022 and lost over 100 lbs in 2022, which has resulted in changes to body and skin. In 2023, I want to
(a) figure out the physical strength and endurance fitness plan that works best for me,
(b) experiment with skin care routines until I find the right balance, and
(c) consider corrective dental work.Had first appt to take impressions.
(7) Reconnect with friends that I haven’t seen since COVID began. Dinner or coffee/tea or long catchup phone call with a friend two times per month.
(8) Country House project goals:
(a) New flooring
(b) New baseboards
(c) Porch project—power wash and re-stain porch, paint some miscellaneous places under the eaves where boards were replaced when new roof was put on.
(9) City house project goals:
(a) Clean out and remodel home office.
(b) Front yard project—remove current sidewalk to driveway, replace with stepping stones, remove ring and old plants around tree and enlarge plant area, replace grass.
(c) Declutter garage and fix garage door.
(10) Make a Shutterfly photo album of our December 2022 Europe vacation to Rhine River Christmas markets, Amsterdam, Paris and Disneyland Paris.
(11) I had planned to put an extra $1500 toward mortgage each month and beef up my emergency fund in 2023, but I am scaling that back to $600.00 per month extra on the mortgage until I see how much all these house projects cost.
(12) Earn employer’s $300 yearly wellness bonus.
I went to the Women‘s College Basketball Regional Tournament in Seattle from Thursday to Tuesday. It was so much fun. Also, did some touristy things in Seattle like the Space Needle, the Chihuly Gardens and Glass (I could go here over and over—love it!), Pike Market (found some really lovely leather bound journals for my daughter and her friends for college graduation presents), First Starbucks, Skagit Valley daffodil and tulip fields, and met some of my daughter’s college friends as they played in an Ultimate frisbee tournament at University of Washington. I went to the Women’s College Basketball Final Four in Dallas—omg I loved it so much! Went to CA for 6 days for my daughter’s college graduation activities and then helped her move. The first part of the visit was all fun and festivities, the second half not so much fun 
. I have a week long trip to mountain of Colorado coming up the first week of August—will be nice to escape some the extreme heat we are having here in Texas. Had first appt to take impressions. Decided to not go forward at this time. Estimated cost is $40,000, with none covered by insurance. I decided I’d rather be more consistent with wearing my night guard and retire when I planned rather than spend that kid of money. January— Reconnected with four friends. I’ve been doing really great on this one. Have lost track of how many, but have had lunch or brunch with a number of people I hadn’t seen in ages. It has been so lovely to reconnect! Almost done so I will go ahead and check this one off. I’ve been able to maintain $600 extra while cash flowing all the house renovations. 
I did restart WW though and that has been going extremely well. No idea if this has helped the food budget but I am certainly eating out less!
Sending hugs and margaritas
Sorry about this stress.
