@cmonkey what are your thoughts on the recent turmoil with Lending Club? I think most people tend to run when they hear the word "fraud" but since you are lender and not an investor will it even effect your strategy?
Are the notes getting to very cheap on Lending Club? I a heard a rumor that people are trying sell and get out, do you think you will do the opposite and double down?
cmonkey's journal
Re: cmonkey's journal
@giskard,
I think it is unfortunate what happened with Lending Club, but ultimately I'm not going to stop investing with them. I won't be investing this month, but that is is due to a lack of funds.
Maybe it's good I wait a few months anyway. I did change my filter recently to only lend to folks making 72K annually, but it wasn't because of recent events.
My reasoning for staying is that they have a solid business model that is strong and functioning well and the fraud that occurred has almost no bearing on that business model outside of scaring away a few investors. I think it actually shows that they have good internal auditing and they were not afraid to take action, even to the point of ousting Laplanche.
Having said that I will also say I am glad I am diversified into dividend stocks and will have full income from both when going into FIRE!!
I think it is unfortunate what happened with Lending Club, but ultimately I'm not going to stop investing with them. I won't be investing this month, but that is is due to a lack of funds.
Maybe it's good I wait a few months anyway. I did change my filter recently to only lend to folks making 72K annually, but it wasn't because of recent events.My reasoning for staying is that they have a solid business model that is strong and functioning well and the fraud that occurred has almost no bearing on that business model outside of scaring away a few investors. I think it actually shows that they have good internal auditing and they were not afraid to take action, even to the point of ousting Laplanche.
Having said that I will also say I am glad I am diversified into dividend stocks and will have full income from both when going into FIRE!!
Re: cmonkey's journal
It was a pretty productive couple of weeks off of work. Last week, my father in law and I spent 3 days putting up 500+ feet of 7.5 foot deer fence around our garden/orchard and nearly the same amount of welded wire fencing along the bottom of the fence. Time will tell if we are now deer free, but we have been getting really sick of the deer nipping all of our fruit trees to shreds. The final straw was the near 100% destruction of our Rainier Cherry tree which was finally starting to do well. I think it will recover but its been set back by a couple years at least. We should have just fenced it all in to begin with...
Major items accomplished since my last update include getting the toilet drain installed along with my new plumbing vent stack. Our plumbing wasn't vented at all when we moved in. I haven't noticed any difference in drain quality but it's good to have it there.
The entire ceiling is insulated with plastic vapor barrier up. All the lights are installed and hooked up along with all the outlets. All the drywall is up on the ceiling. You can see the plumbing vent in the back corner. This will be hidden behind the washer and dryer.
I also have the door installed and nearly all the framing is done. I just need to frame off the shower and the washer/dryer closet.
I have the entire subfloor installed.
I also have our shower exhaust fan up and functional.
We also have our bathroom window on the way and I also ordered all the replacement siding I will need to redo all the windows this summer on the rest of the house. Steel siding is really expensive and constituted about 20% of our expenses for the month. We also picked out our vanity and have nearly come to decisions on our tiling and paint.
Some major stuff I have coming up in the next couple weeks - finishing the rest of the plumbing work, taking out that window and putting in the new one and building the base for the shower pan.
Major items accomplished since my last update include getting the toilet drain installed along with my new plumbing vent stack. Our plumbing wasn't vented at all when we moved in. I haven't noticed any difference in drain quality but it's good to have it there.
The entire ceiling is insulated with plastic vapor barrier up. All the lights are installed and hooked up along with all the outlets. All the drywall is up on the ceiling. You can see the plumbing vent in the back corner. This will be hidden behind the washer and dryer.
I also have the door installed and nearly all the framing is done. I just need to frame off the shower and the washer/dryer closet.
I have the entire subfloor installed.
I also have our shower exhaust fan up and functional.
We also have our bathroom window on the way and I also ordered all the replacement siding I will need to redo all the windows this summer on the rest of the house. Steel siding is really expensive and constituted about 20% of our expenses for the month. We also picked out our vanity and have nearly come to decisions on our tiling and paint.
Some major stuff I have coming up in the next couple weeks - finishing the rest of the plumbing work, taking out that window and putting in the new one and building the base for the shower pan.
Re: cmonkey's journal
All this house work and pretty soon you're going to be asking the "House of Theseus" question!
(reference)
(reference)
Re: cmonkey's journal
Haha....it's true.
The only 'original' bits will be the skeleton framing (floor boards, joists, rafters...). Even some of that is changing.
Now that we are half way from January 1 to October 31 (the day I have in mind that I need to have all external wall work done), I can say I am very happy with where I am at and feel very confident I'll reach my goal of having all necessary work completed before the weather turns cold. This work being mainly new windows and insulation throughout the house. If I am putting in the last window and bit of insulation on Halloween, I'll consider my goal completed successfully as I can spend winter finishing up the drywall and the rest of the basement.
If the rest of the work goes similar to previous work, I expect I'll have the new main bath completed by July 15, the two bedrooms done by September 15 and then I have 1.5 months to simply do windows and insulation in the last room. Pretty aggressive, but that's how I roll. Once I am done with this bathroom, it's all downhill in my mind because I have no more complex framing, tiling or plumbing work to do! Electrical/drywall/insulation goes pretty quickly and now that I've been doing this for 6+ months, its getting really easy.
The only 'original' bits will be the skeleton framing (floor boards, joists, rafters...). Even some of that is changing.
Now that we are half way from January 1 to October 31 (the day I have in mind that I need to have all external wall work done), I can say I am very happy with where I am at and feel very confident I'll reach my goal of having all necessary work completed before the weather turns cold. This work being mainly new windows and insulation throughout the house. If I am putting in the last window and bit of insulation on Halloween, I'll consider my goal completed successfully as I can spend winter finishing up the drywall and the rest of the basement.
If the rest of the work goes similar to previous work, I expect I'll have the new main bath completed by July 15, the two bedrooms done by September 15 and then I have 1.5 months to simply do windows and insulation in the last room. Pretty aggressive, but that's how I roll. Once I am done with this bathroom, it's all downhill in my mind because I have no more complex framing, tiling or plumbing work to do! Electrical/drywall/insulation goes pretty quickly and now that I've been doing this for 6+ months, its getting really easy.
Re: cmonkey's journal
cmonkey, how are you managing to fit down time into this, you work full time don't you? 
Re: cmonkey's journal
Hehe. Office time is sort of downtime for me as the work I do doesn't take tremendous effort and there isn't much 'meeting/people' time . I manage to filter out the stress pretty well. Its a different type of work from what I do at home. I also have quite a bit of time to think through renovation plans and the next few steps I need to take.
My vacation time resets next week as well and I'm planning to take Mondays off of work for the next couple months.
And I do actually take an hour or two before bed and relax. I usually work on the house from when I get home until dinner, then for an hour or two afterwards. I think the thing that helps is that I don't watch hours and hours of TV.
My vacation time resets next week as well and I'm planning to take Mondays off of work for the next couple months.
And I do actually take an hour or two before bed and relax. I usually work on the house from when I get home until dinner, then for an hour or two afterwards. I think the thing that helps is that I don't watch hours and hours of TV.
Re: cmonkey's journal
Monthly Update, May 2016
Expenses/Savings
I don't have much to report for savings this month as the only savings we had were 401K contributions. For the first time since I started working full time in 2010, I managed to spend basically every penny of my income.
This was due to the bathroom work we are doing + buying steel siding so I can board up all our old windows and move/replace them + 600+ feet of deer fencing installed around our homestead.
This month's renovation expenses include all the siding we need (800 bucks
), our bathroom casement window (not cheap), all the plumbing and electrical supplies we need to complete the bathroom, insulation for the ceiling (not cheap!), some lumber, drywall and also material to build the shower base. Also various miscellaneous items. We still having tiling and our vanity, cement board and paint to get for June and July so expenses will still be a bit up. I don't think I'll get this high again but who knows. 
The great news is that we are able to do all this work, yet still have 20% savings and not incur any debt. I have been managing it very well. Aside from buying carpet later this year (which I'm saving for currently) this is easily the most expensive portion of what we are doing and so I'm glad to be pushing through it fully intact.
Normal expenses were up in general and I think it's due to the in-laws coming for a week. Not them directly but we tend to spend more in general when they are in town.... I'm not sure why but this is an area to focus on improving.
Normal Spend - $1784.14
Remodel Spend - $2764.47
Total Spend - $4548.61
Total Savings - $1162.54 ; 20%
Account Details
We had a higher amount of charge offs this month, but nothing catastrophic. This is how it tends to go from what I've seen - some really good months, some really bad months. As long as the really bad months don't outweigh!
Coupled with the news about LaPlanche leaving/the fraud that occured and higher charge offs I have been simply biding my time and actually not fretting about not having anything invest in Lending Club. I haven't turned off the auto investing and things seem to be funding just fine, with no lack of investors showing.
I think once the media settles its feathers a bit, Lending Club will come out stronger than it was before with more visibility as well.
Our XIRR return dropped to 10.43% on an age of 8.1 months. I'm actually right at the cusp of where yield drops a couple points so this is to be expected.
Dividends were receiving from T, CAT, PBCT, PG and SBRA in May. No change in FAI.
Normal 401K increase, which accounted for essentially all of our FAI increase this month.
Total FAI - $3925.39 (+73.00)
Time to Bills Only - 6 Months (0)
Time to Bills & Food - 17 Months (-1)
Time to TTM Expenses - 31 Months (+1)
Time to 3% LC - 53 Months (+3)
TTM Expenses - $14691.40 (+405.25)
Our TTM expenses increased a bit again, but we are definitely settling into the 14K-15K range now that I have 11 months of data I am average across. I think we will get this below 14K before I am done working in a few years.
Renovation
One month ago I was still a week away from finishing our new staircase. It has held up well, it is still as solid as the day I finished it so I don't think we'll experience any issue with the OSB. Our basement is now in it's "muggy" season but despite this humidity is still only 50-60% with one dehumidifier running and its very comfortable down there. It used to be 80-90% all summer with two dehumidifiers running. Once I get the other half finished I think it will get even dryer. Once we turn on our geo system this will help too.
A month ago I also had not ripped out anything for our main floor bath. I started this mid-May on the 18th I believe and ripped out our old bathroom, the old basement stairs and our attic stairs.
I am now perhaps 50% done with building the new bathroom. I have 80% of the framing done, all the electric is done (except dryer outlet), my subfloor is installed, the entire ceiling is insulated and drywalled. I also have the door installed.
This week I have been working on plumbing and I have all the drain lines hooked up and I am now installing our shower apparatus.
I am still waiting for our window to come in so I can do that work. At that point I can instulate my exterior wall and drywall everything. I can also then finish the framing around the shower and then build the base. I have the drain installed already so that's done and ready.
I hope to be nearly complete with the main bath and also doing tearout of the bedrooms when I do my next monthly finance update. We have moved into the basement bedroom now that the in-laws have gone home so we are clearing out our main floor as well.
Birthday & Overall Mood
Oh and I turned 30 years old this month....
... 
DW threw me a surprise party and friends, family, neighbors and garden club members show up for a few hours. It was really humbling since I am really not a social person and don't really consider that I have many friends/people that care about me.
I have noticed that my overall mood has really entered into an even flow of sorts, with lower highs and higher lows than I used to experience. The overall trend is higher, I'd give myself a 7/10 for average mood, as I feel pretty happy and content most of the time. One day just sort of flows into the next and I really enjoy each and every day. I also get this sense of experiencing "different speeds of time". I'm not sure how to explain it, but time feels like its passing very quickly...yet very slowly at the same time. Almost as if I can control it if I concentrate.
I guess this song sums up my feeling lately, really since about the time I started accumulating last July. I think that song is religious is some sense, but I apply it to the ERE lifestyle when I listen to it. That I had been searching for this lifestyle and a community that partakes in it.
Now that I've found you all, even breathing feels alright.
Expenses/Savings
I don't have much to report for savings this month as the only savings we had were 401K contributions. For the first time since I started working full time in 2010, I managed to spend basically every penny of my income.
This was due to the bathroom work we are doing + buying steel siding so I can board up all our old windows and move/replace them + 600+ feet of deer fencing installed around our homestead.This month's renovation expenses include all the siding we need (800 bucks
), our bathroom casement window (not cheap), all the plumbing and electrical supplies we need to complete the bathroom, insulation for the ceiling (not cheap!), some lumber, drywall and also material to build the shower base. Also various miscellaneous items. We still having tiling and our vanity, cement board and paint to get for June and July so expenses will still be a bit up. I don't think I'll get this high again but who knows. The great news is that we are able to do all this work, yet still have 20% savings and not incur any debt. I have been managing it very well. Aside from buying carpet later this year (which I'm saving for currently) this is easily the most expensive portion of what we are doing and so I'm glad to be pushing through it fully intact.
Normal expenses were up in general and I think it's due to the in-laws coming for a week. Not them directly but we tend to spend more in general when they are in town.... I'm not sure why but this is an area to focus on improving.
Normal Spend - $1784.14
Remodel Spend - $2764.47
Total Spend - $4548.61
Total Savings - $1162.54 ; 20%
Account Details
We had a higher amount of charge offs this month, but nothing catastrophic. This is how it tends to go from what I've seen - some really good months, some really bad months. As long as the really bad months don't outweigh!
Coupled with the news about LaPlanche leaving/the fraud that occured and higher charge offs I have been simply biding my time and actually not fretting about not having anything invest in Lending Club. I haven't turned off the auto investing and things seem to be funding just fine, with no lack of investors showing.
I think once the media settles its feathers a bit, Lending Club will come out stronger than it was before with more visibility as well.
Our XIRR return dropped to 10.43% on an age of 8.1 months. I'm actually right at the cusp of where yield drops a couple points so this is to be expected.
Dividends were receiving from T, CAT, PBCT, PG and SBRA in May. No change in FAI.
Normal 401K increase, which accounted for essentially all of our FAI increase this month.
Total FAI - $3925.39 (+73.00)
Time to Bills Only - 6 Months (0)
Time to Bills & Food - 17 Months (-1)
Time to TTM Expenses - 31 Months (+1)
Time to 3% LC - 53 Months (+3)
TTM Expenses - $14691.40 (+405.25)
Our TTM expenses increased a bit again, but we are definitely settling into the 14K-15K range now that I have 11 months of data I am average across. I think we will get this below 14K before I am done working in a few years.
Renovation
One month ago I was still a week away from finishing our new staircase. It has held up well, it is still as solid as the day I finished it so I don't think we'll experience any issue with the OSB. Our basement is now in it's "muggy" season but despite this humidity is still only 50-60% with one dehumidifier running and its very comfortable down there. It used to be 80-90% all summer with two dehumidifiers running. Once I get the other half finished I think it will get even dryer. Once we turn on our geo system this will help too.
A month ago I also had not ripped out anything for our main floor bath. I started this mid-May on the 18th I believe and ripped out our old bathroom, the old basement stairs and our attic stairs.
I am now perhaps 50% done with building the new bathroom. I have 80% of the framing done, all the electric is done (except dryer outlet), my subfloor is installed, the entire ceiling is insulated and drywalled. I also have the door installed.
This week I have been working on plumbing and I have all the drain lines hooked up and I am now installing our shower apparatus.
I am still waiting for our window to come in so I can do that work. At that point I can instulate my exterior wall and drywall everything. I can also then finish the framing around the shower and then build the base. I have the drain installed already so that's done and ready.
I hope to be nearly complete with the main bath and also doing tearout of the bedrooms when I do my next monthly finance update. We have moved into the basement bedroom now that the in-laws have gone home so we are clearing out our main floor as well.
Birthday & Overall Mood
Oh and I turned 30 years old this month....
... DW threw me a surprise party and friends, family, neighbors and garden club members show up for a few hours. It was really humbling since I am really not a social person and don't really consider that I have many friends/people that care about me.I have noticed that my overall mood has really entered into an even flow of sorts, with lower highs and higher lows than I used to experience. The overall trend is higher, I'd give myself a 7/10 for average mood, as I feel pretty happy and content most of the time. One day just sort of flows into the next and I really enjoy each and every day. I also get this sense of experiencing "different speeds of time". I'm not sure how to explain it, but time feels like its passing very quickly...yet very slowly at the same time. Almost as if I can control it if I concentrate.
I guess this song sums up my feeling lately, really since about the time I started accumulating last July. I think that song is religious is some sense, but I apply it to the ERE lifestyle when I listen to it. That I had been searching for this lifestyle and a community that partakes in it.
Now that I've found you all, even breathing feels alright.
Re: cmonkey's journal
I ripped out the old window on Saturday and today I installed our new casement window. It is 3' x 4' and I am really excited about it.
I am choosing not to have sloped sills on the outside simply because I think its unnecessary with the new flashing tape you can buy. Installing from the bottom up and overlapping your tape gives a completely waterproof seal. Plus you have less wood sticking out to catch water, and the installation is much simpler and less error prone. Plus I hate the look of flashing anyway.
I also used treated lumber for my sill. We had ants living in the old one despite it being sloped with flashing on it.
Next up is insulating, which I might do tonight. Then I can finish my shower framing and build my shower curb and base this coming week.
I am choosing not to have sloped sills on the outside simply because I think its unnecessary with the new flashing tape you can buy. Installing from the bottom up and overlapping your tape gives a completely waterproof seal. Plus you have less wood sticking out to catch water, and the installation is much simpler and less error prone. Plus I hate the look of flashing anyway.
I also used treated lumber for my sill. We had ants living in the old one despite it being sloped with flashing on it.
Next up is insulating, which I might do tonight. Then I can finish my shower framing and build my shower curb and base this coming week.
Re: cmonkey's journal
I'm really impressed with all of the remodeling work you guys have done, very impressive!
What are you going to do with all of your time when the remodeling is done?
What are you going to do with all of your time when the remodeling is done?
Re: cmonkey's journal
@Dave, thank you!
Wow that's a crazy thought....'when we are done'..... Seems I'll never be done!
I have a few other projects in mind but nothing on this scale. I want to build a greenhouse next year in 2017 and beyond that I have a shed to fix up and my chicken coop needs some painting and boards replaced.
I will mostly be taking it easy and enjoying the fruits of my labor when I'm done with this project....one renovation per lifetime is enough for me. I have a lot of books on my to-read list and I have spent much too little time in my garden this year.
I have actually been pondering this 'being done' feeling and I sort of view it as similar to how I'll feel when I finish the big 'FI' project. They are both large projects (longer than 1 year to complete) and I feel like the wind down might feel similar.
For a small update, this week I have gotten all the insulation in and vapor barrier is up on the exterior wall. I also have half of the drywall up. I have been going over how I'm laying out the shower and am about ready to start working on the base. We also FINALLY found the tile we want to get yesterday after about a month or so of searching....and let me tell you we are excited. We are getting from a locally owned business that has been in the QC for over 100 years and the owner is amazing.
Once I get to the point where I have all the drywall and cement board up I won't be doing any updates until we are 100% done, like before. Don't wanna give away our design.
Wow that's a crazy thought....'when we are done'....
. Seems I'll never be done!I have a few other projects in mind but nothing on this scale. I want to build a greenhouse next year in 2017 and beyond that I have a shed to fix up and my chicken coop needs some painting and boards replaced.
I will mostly be taking it easy and enjoying the fruits of my labor when I'm done with this project....one renovation per lifetime is enough for me. I have a lot of books on my to-read list and I have spent much too little time in my garden this year.
I have actually been pondering this 'being done' feeling and I sort of view it as similar to how I'll feel when I finish the big 'FI' project. They are both large projects (longer than 1 year to complete) and I feel like the wind down might feel similar.
For a small update, this week I have gotten all the insulation in and vapor barrier is up on the exterior wall. I also have half of the drywall up. I have been going over how I'm laying out the shower and am about ready to start working on the base. We also FINALLY found the tile we want to get yesterday after about a month or so of searching....and let me tell you we are excited.
We are getting from a locally owned business that has been in the QC for over 100 years and the owner is amazing.Once I get to the point where I have all the drywall and cement board up I won't be doing any updates until we are 100% done, like before. Don't wanna give away our design.
Re: cmonkey's journal
My first 3-day weekend of the summer was pretty productive. I managed to get the most difficult part of the shower build done, and in the end it only took about an hour of work to get the mortar bed in and tapered (you can't tell from the photo but there is a slight slope).
Not shown in photos, I also have all the cement board up, all my water lines and drains are installed including the shower valve body and shower head. Our vanity was also delivered yesterday so I could position the water lines for that.
Tonight I'm going to get all the drywall up in the rest of the room. I hope to get everything mudded this week/weekend and next week we'll be painting.
Our tiling is coming next week and then I can tile the shower and the bathroom floor once we are fully painted.
We also started ripping apart our old bedroom on Saturday and finished on Sunday. It is now down to bare framing, all the plaster/drywall/insulation has been removed. It feels great getting a jumpstart on the next phase of our project. DW helped out a lot....she enjoys destroying the plaster and taking out some frustration.
We also found an old newspaper clip tucked behind the closet rod in our old closet. It dated to 1964!
I am generally taking my time with each step of this bathroom build and everything is going very well, but I am also pushing through it at a steady pace simply due to the amount of work that needs doing. Once I am done with the bathroom (in about a month or less), it's all downhill as far as workload and also expenses.
Not shown in photos, I also have all the cement board up, all my water lines and drains are installed including the shower valve body and shower head. Our vanity was also delivered yesterday so I could position the water lines for that.
Tonight I'm going to get all the drywall up in the rest of the room. I hope to get everything mudded this week/weekend and next week we'll be painting.
Our tiling is coming next week and then I can tile the shower and the bathroom floor once we are fully painted.
We also started ripping apart our old bedroom on Saturday and finished on Sunday. It is now down to bare framing, all the plaster/drywall/insulation has been removed. It feels great getting a jumpstart on the next phase of our project. DW helped out a lot....she enjoys destroying the plaster and taking out some frustration.
We also found an old newspaper clip tucked behind the closet rod in our old closet. It dated to 1964!
I am generally taking my time with each step of this bathroom build and everything is going very well, but I am also pushing through it at a steady pace simply due to the amount of work that needs doing. Once I am done with the bathroom (in about a month or less), it's all downhill as far as workload and also expenses.
Re: cmonkey's journal
My last bathroom update until we are totally done. We have all the drywall up (started mid-week last week), I started mudding last Friday and finished yesterday. Quality is similar/better than downstairs indicating my skill level has drastically improved! DW primed last night and is doing second coat today. First paint coat tonight!
I also have the shower prepped for tiling. I mortar buttered all the seams to create a solid base and then Red Guarded the entirety of the shower walls/base. It dries into a thick rubber and is completely water proof. We could technically take a shower now!
At this point I have nothing to do in the bathroom beside putting the floor cement board down which will take all of 30 minutes to do. We are waiting for our tile to come in. At that point we are literally 3-5 days away from having a functional bathroom because I just need to install the vanity and toilet once the floor tile is in. The shower tiling should go well as it is not nearly as complex as the tub was.
The final thing I'll need to do is build the wall to separate the washer/dryer. I am waiting to build it until I have the floor down as I don't want to cut all the tiling to fit around it.
If our tiling comes in this week, we'll definitely have a functional bathroom by July 1 with probably a week after that to get all the little things finished (trim, etc...). If it comes in next week, then July 7. Either way I am way ahead of where I wanna be which is awesome. We do still need to figure out what we are doing for a shower door. We might not have one right away.
So now I am working on finishing the tear out of our old bedroom. I still have the interior wall to take out. First I needed to rip out our old 2'x2'x15' brick chimney, which I spent 3 hours last night doing while DW primed the bathroom. I would estimate over 1 ton of brick was removed along with a gallon of sweat. Hot attic! I am planning to use it all for pavers/paths around the garden.
Tonight I'll start removing the rest of the wall and then can start framing the room off and doing window work.
I also have the shower prepped for tiling. I mortar buttered all the seams to create a solid base and then Red Guarded the entirety of the shower walls/base. It dries into a thick rubber and is completely water proof. We could technically take a shower now!
At this point I have nothing to do in the bathroom beside putting the floor cement board down which will take all of 30 minutes to do. We are waiting for our tile to come in. At that point we are literally 3-5 days away from having a functional bathroom because I just need to install the vanity and toilet once the floor tile is in. The shower tiling should go well as it is not nearly as complex as the tub was.
The final thing I'll need to do is build the wall to separate the washer/dryer. I am waiting to build it until I have the floor down as I don't want to cut all the tiling to fit around it.
If our tiling comes in this week, we'll definitely have a functional bathroom by July 1 with probably a week after that to get all the little things finished (trim, etc...). If it comes in next week, then July 7. Either way I am way ahead of where I wanna be which is awesome. We do still need to figure out what we are doing for a shower door. We might not have one right away.
So now I am working on finishing the tear out of our old bedroom. I still have the interior wall to take out. First I needed to rip out our old 2'x2'x15' brick chimney, which I spent 3 hours last night doing while DW primed the bathroom. I would estimate over 1 ton of brick was removed along with a gallon of sweat. Hot attic! I am planning to use it all for pavers/paths around the garden.
Tonight I'll start removing the rest of the wall and then can start framing the room off and doing window work.
One Year Later
One year ago today the last payment on our truck (debt) was cashed and we finally began paying ourselves. In that time we have increased our investments by 56K and our investment income by 4K.
Interesting fact - we have spent ~ 15K on the renovation up to this point and so our investments would have increased by 71K if we hadn't been doing this. Next year.
A snip of our brokerage accounts. This doesn't include Lending Club.
Here's looking forward to year two!
Interesting fact - we have spent ~ 15K on the renovation up to this point and so our investments would have increased by 71K if we hadn't been doing this. Next year.
A snip of our brokerage accounts. This doesn't include Lending Club.
Here's looking forward to year two!
Re: cmonkey's journal
Wheels in Motion Again
I wanted to make a note in my journal that the wheels in my head are in motion again after discovering a pretty tremendous thing. Reading C40's last update, it looked as if he cashed out his work pension and so I started wondering if I could do the same thing. I've never talked about it, but I do have a nice work pension. The current vested cash payout amount is just under 37K. I haven't really included it in any calculations because I always assumed it was untouchable until I turned 55 and so it was just one of those 'someday maybe' things like social security.
My company doesn't advertise at all (for good reason I'm sure) that you can in fact cash it out when you leave the company. This information is in a tiny section buried in a 200 page benefits package document. In fact, I can even receive a monthly annuity if I want when I leave, although I could achieve much higher returns on my own.
By the time I am ready to be done working, my vested balance will be in the ~50k-60k range and this has the potential to completely change everything in my plan! Taking the monthly annuity is probably not the best idea so I need to figure out how to take the lump sum while not incurring any tax hits. Perhaps my last day would be Dec 1 and I take the payout in January. Then I delay the Roth conversion start by a year. Hrm..
Ultimately, we could just use the money to live on for 5+ years after we reach the big date, since that is 5 years of expenses. We wouldn't need to worry about living off of investments until after they had grown some more and it would cover all the time during our Roth ladder conversion. Sort of a 5 year dry run.
This also brings up the entire 401K thing again. If we used the money for a 5 year coast, it doesn't really matter how much income I have outside of the 401K (how much I invest outside it now, IOW). Once the money dries up, the 401k would start to become available.
I wanted to make a note in my journal that the wheels in my head are in motion again after discovering a pretty tremendous thing. Reading C40's last update, it looked as if he cashed out his work pension and so I started wondering if I could do the same thing. I've never talked about it, but I do have a nice work pension. The current vested cash payout amount is just under 37K. I haven't really included it in any calculations because I always assumed it was untouchable until I turned 55 and so it was just one of those 'someday maybe' things like social security.
My company doesn't advertise at all (for good reason I'm sure) that you can in fact cash it out when you leave the company. This information is in a tiny section buried in a 200 page benefits package document. In fact, I can even receive a monthly annuity if I want when I leave, although I could achieve much higher returns on my own.
By the time I am ready to be done working, my vested balance will be in the ~50k-60k range and this has the potential to completely change everything in my plan! Taking the monthly annuity is probably not the best idea so I need to figure out how to take the lump sum while not incurring any tax hits. Perhaps my last day would be Dec 1 and I take the payout in January. Then I delay the Roth conversion start by a year. Hrm..
Ultimately, we could just use the money to live on for 5+ years after we reach the big date, since that is 5 years of expenses. We wouldn't need to worry about living off of investments until after they had grown some more and it would cover all the time during our Roth ladder conversion. Sort of a 5 year dry run.
This also brings up the entire 401K thing again. If we used the money for a 5 year coast, it doesn't really matter how much income I have outside of the 401K (how much I invest outside it now, IOW). Once the money dries up, the 401k would start to become available.
Re: cmonkey's journal
Time for another update. We still haven't received our tiling...there was a mix up and a subsequent delay. They expect it in this week now, so next weekend I'll be doing tiling if it comes in. We have the bathroom fully painted, the mirror and vanity light are up and all the ceiling is 100% done (paint, lights, fan).
In the mean time I am going full steam ahead on the spare bedroom. Last weekend/week I finished ripping everything out. Ripping stuff out is such a NASTY process. Old plaster is bad enough but then you combine it with 20+ year old loose fiberglass insulation. The only way to remove it from the ceiling is to pull it down and let it fall EVERYWHERE. I spent 2 days just cleaning. I also had to rip up the carpet, a layer of nasty old tiling, a ruined hardwood floor (smother in glue) and an old layer of tar paper. This got me to the floor boards. I then screw them all down to the joists. The floor is really solid.
Late in the week I worked on getting the subfloor down and some minor framing. This weekend I boarded up the north window and installed the hall window and the large 4x4 bedroom window.
The framing that I have done divides the closet/bedroom and the bedroom/hallway.
Some before and after shots. The before shots were from about 2.5 weeks ago.
First though, I mentioned that I needed to rip out our old brick chimney. Here are the remnants stored behind my chicken coop.
I also had to rebuild the wall that separates the bedrooms (like the other wall in the bathroom it was tilted beyond an acceptable level.
Finally, we also discovered that in the room that we are going to build our own bedroom there is an original hardwood floor that is nearly perfect! We don't have the heart to tear this up and so rather than putting the hardwood floor in our dining room, we are going to leave this one in place and fix it up.
Doing this lessens the amount of work I have to do and also eliminates a room that we need to have carpeted, thus saving some money. It also give us a place to store stuff while the carpeters are in later in the year.
Before I start tiling this weekend in the bathroom, I'll finish my framing and probably get the electrical done as well. At this rate, I think I'll be drywalled and painting somewhere around July 18-20 or so.
In the mean time I am going full steam ahead on the spare bedroom. Last weekend/week I finished ripping everything out. Ripping stuff out is such a NASTY process. Old plaster is bad enough but then you combine it with 20+ year old loose fiberglass insulation. The only way to remove it from the ceiling is to pull it down and let it fall EVERYWHERE. I spent 2 days just cleaning. I also had to rip up the carpet, a layer of nasty old tiling, a ruined hardwood floor (smother in glue) and an old layer of tar paper. This got me to the floor boards. I then screw them all down to the joists. The floor is really solid.
Late in the week I worked on getting the subfloor down and some minor framing. This weekend I boarded up the north window and installed the hall window and the large 4x4 bedroom window.
The framing that I have done divides the closet/bedroom and the bedroom/hallway.
Some before and after shots. The before shots were from about 2.5 weeks ago.
First though, I mentioned that I needed to rip out our old brick chimney. Here are the remnants stored behind my chicken coop.
I also had to rebuild the wall that separates the bedrooms (like the other wall in the bathroom it was tilted beyond an acceptable level.
Finally, we also discovered that in the room that we are going to build our own bedroom there is an original hardwood floor that is nearly perfect! We don't have the heart to tear this up and so rather than putting the hardwood floor in our dining room, we are going to leave this one in place and fix it up.
Doing this lessens the amount of work I have to do and also eliminates a room that we need to have carpeted, thus saving some money. It also give us a place to store stuff while the carpeters are in later in the year.
Before I start tiling this weekend in the bathroom, I'll finish my framing and probably get the electrical done as well. At this rate, I think I'll be drywalled and painting somewhere around July 18-20 or so.
Re: cmonkey's journal
Monthly Update, June 2016
Expenses/Savings
I thought of not even doing a monthly update this month as there isn't much to report other than we spent all our money again. I decided to write it up anyway though as I'd like to be complete. There's no sense glossing over the months where not much progress happened. This month will be a bit shorter as there wasn't much saving at all. We did save 1% more than in May.
Our normal expenses were in line with previous months. We had a property tax payment of $517 so outside that we spent $872. Everything else was renovation expenses.
Much of our renovation expenses were bathroom expenses. A good chunk of expenses this month were rolled over from May actually.
July update won't be a whole lot better since we are plowing through the work a bit quicker than I anticipated. This means we'll start saving again sooner than I planned as well, mostly like in August/September time frame. Large costs coming up are mostly insulation and windows. We are also paying for our tiling on July's budget.
Normal Spend - $1390.38
Remodel Spend - $3003.28
Total Spend - $4393.66
Total Savings - $1194.01 ; 21%
Account Details
Total FAI - $3947.22 (+57.01)
Time to Bills Only - 6 Months (0)
Time to Bills & Food - 16 Months (-1)
Time to TTM Expenses - 30 Months (-1)
Time to 3% LC - 53 Months (0)
TTM Expenses - $14524.16 (-167.24)
We are so darn close to 4K for the past couple months, its irritating me that we haven't crossed yet.
Even though these past 2 months are a small time to not be saving, it is starting to make me very uncomfortable. I don't think I could take much more than another month of this. How do people go their whole lives like this?
Renovation
In terms of the renovation we are a bit farther than I had planned to be at this point. Our bathroom is as complete as we can get, we are just waiting for our tiling, which is no fault of our own. If our tiling had come as planned, we'd be done with the bathroom...but not as far on the rest of the house. It balances out.
One month ago, I was doing plumbing work in our bathroom. I still didn't have our new window and hadn't done any drywall except for the ceiling. We also had not started any tear out on the bedrooms.
As of today that is all done and we are very far on the next bedroom. In terms of tear out volume, this was the most we had to do, and probably the most we'll do all in one go.
All exterior wall work is done and about 50% of the framing is done. I'll be finishing the framing this week and can then do electrical lines/lights. After that we insulate and drywall. Once we paint we'll move on to the next room which will be late in July. The floor will be carpeted later in the year.
The next bedroom (which will be our bedroom) is going to go much quicker because 1. I don't have nasty loose insulation to take out, and no plaster! It is all drywall and old R11 bats of insulation everywhere. 2. I don't have any floor work to do as we are simply taking up the carpet and revealing the hardwood floor. 3. No major framing, just 1 window and 2 doors. No new walls.
So in conclusion, I'm pretty confident in saying we will be moving on to the livingroom by the 3rd or 4th weekend in August. It all depends on how well the tiling work and the rest of the bathroom work goes. We are also considering just carpeting our dining area as well, which would simply that room a great deal. That room will be last, however, and could be completed even in cold weather.
I also have another motivation to get done by mid-October. We have a family member staying with us for a couple months while she does some student teaching. It would be nice to have a put-together house by the time she arrives on October 16.
A Note on Motivation/Energy
Folks might be wondering how I manage to stay motivated to keep at this and how I have the energy for it. The truth is I do get tired and unmotivated! The energy problem is easily solved by coffee and truthfully the most difficult part of it is simply getting off my butt after eating dinner each evening. Once I'm up I just go.
The motivation is a bit different but I've noticed that I tend to go in cycles. I will be highly motivated for a few weeks and then lose interest for a week or two. I am entering an unmotivated time right now and the way I stay motivated during this time is to envision the final product and keep that in mind, rather than focusing on enjoying the work itself. I also focus on the path I've already taken and all the work I don't have to do again as opposed to the mountain I still have to climb. Adding items to that list helps get me back to 'motivated' state. It's all about changing your perspective on it.
Expenses/Savings
I thought of not even doing a monthly update this month as there isn't much to report other than we spent all our money again. I decided to write it up anyway though as I'd like to be complete. There's no sense glossing over the months where not much progress happened. This month will be a bit shorter as there wasn't much saving at all. We did save 1% more than in May.
Our normal expenses were in line with previous months. We had a property tax payment of $517 so outside that we spent $872. Everything else was renovation expenses.
Much of our renovation expenses were bathroom expenses. A good chunk of expenses this month were rolled over from May actually.
July update won't be a whole lot better since we are plowing through the work a bit quicker than I anticipated. This means we'll start saving again sooner than I planned as well, mostly like in August/September time frame. Large costs coming up are mostly insulation and windows. We are also paying for our tiling on July's budget.
Normal Spend - $1390.38
Remodel Spend - $3003.28
Total Spend - $4393.66
Total Savings - $1194.01 ; 21%
Account Details
Total FAI - $3947.22 (+57.01)
Time to Bills Only - 6 Months (0)
Time to Bills & Food - 16 Months (-1)
Time to TTM Expenses - 30 Months (-1)
Time to 3% LC - 53 Months (0)
TTM Expenses - $14524.16 (-167.24)
We are so darn close to 4K for the past couple months, its irritating me that we haven't crossed yet.
Even though these past 2 months are a small time to not be saving, it is starting to make me very uncomfortable. I don't think I could take much more than another month of this. How do people go their whole lives like this?
Renovation
In terms of the renovation we are a bit farther than I had planned to be at this point. Our bathroom is as complete as we can get, we are just waiting for our tiling, which is no fault of our own. If our tiling had come as planned, we'd be done with the bathroom...but not as far on the rest of the house. It balances out.
One month ago, I was doing plumbing work in our bathroom. I still didn't have our new window and hadn't done any drywall except for the ceiling. We also had not started any tear out on the bedrooms.
As of today that is all done and we are very far on the next bedroom. In terms of tear out volume, this was the most we had to do, and probably the most we'll do all in one go.
All exterior wall work is done and about 50% of the framing is done. I'll be finishing the framing this week and can then do electrical lines/lights. After that we insulate and drywall. Once we paint we'll move on to the next room which will be late in July. The floor will be carpeted later in the year.
The next bedroom (which will be our bedroom) is going to go much quicker because 1. I don't have nasty loose insulation to take out, and no plaster! It is all drywall and old R11 bats of insulation everywhere. 2. I don't have any floor work to do as we are simply taking up the carpet and revealing the hardwood floor. 3. No major framing, just 1 window and 2 doors. No new walls.
So in conclusion, I'm pretty confident in saying we will be moving on to the livingroom by the 3rd or 4th weekend in August. It all depends on how well the tiling work and the rest of the bathroom work goes. We are also considering just carpeting our dining area as well, which would simply that room a great deal. That room will be last, however, and could be completed even in cold weather.
I also have another motivation to get done by mid-October. We have a family member staying with us for a couple months while she does some student teaching. It would be nice to have a put-together house by the time she arrives on October 16.
A Note on Motivation/Energy
Folks might be wondering how I manage to stay motivated to keep at this and how I have the energy for it. The truth is I do get tired and unmotivated! The energy problem is easily solved by coffee and truthfully the most difficult part of it is simply getting off my butt after eating dinner each evening. Once I'm up I just go.
The motivation is a bit different but I've noticed that I tend to go in cycles. I will be highly motivated for a few weeks and then lose interest for a week or two. I am entering an unmotivated time right now and the way I stay motivated during this time is to envision the final product and keep that in mind, rather than focusing on enjoying the work itself. I also focus on the path I've already taken and all the work I don't have to do again as opposed to the mountain I still have to climb. Adding items to that list helps get me back to 'motivated' state. It's all about changing your perspective on it.
Re: cmonkey's journal
Delays, Delays, Delays...Emotional Exhaustion
It's been a couple of weeks since my last renovation update so time for another update. I don't have any photos to share as most of the work hasn't changed the look of the bedroom and a lot has been done in the bathroom but we aren't quite ready to share yet.
Bathroom
We are less than a week away from being able to take a shower!! We haven't been able to take a shower since the beginning of March. Being confined to taking baths is not very fun long term. Taking a bath is a nice weekly activity.....nightly not so much.
Our bathroom project has been delayed a lot mostly by shipping delays with our tile but also an order mistake. Originally it was supposed to take about a week for everything to come in. It ended up taking 3 weeks for our main tile order to come in because the tile company shipped the wrong tile.
Next, our glass tile was back ordered 3 weeks. Then it turned out that the tile store ordered the WRONG tile. So it took another 3-4 days to get the right stuff. We got our glass tile last Friday a full MONTH after we placed the order. I started tiling Sunday afternoon and finished yesterday afternoon. Everything turned out wonderfully and I am fully exhausted. I don't know what it is about tiling, but it wears on me like nothing else!
We also have the entire floor down in the bathroom. We had a HUGE problem with the grout. We bought unsanded grout and apparently you have to be VERY particular with water usage with unsanded grout, otherwise you'll have efflorescence issues. So we had to figure out how to get our original color back again. We found that the company that made the grout also make a colorant you can use to dye your grout after its dried. So DW spent the past week meticulously repainting all of our grout lines. In the end it turned out beautifully.
Our vanity also came without sink clamps. So I contacted the company and am waiting on them to come in the mail.
I also have about half of the trim installed, behind the vanity and toilet.
Bedrooms
All of these delays have meant getting work done on the bedrooms interspersed with work on the bathroom.
I did have one issue with the hallway window. The window itself didn't leak, but when I took out the old window, it revealed a leak at the top of the exterior wall. Somehow water is getting under the shingles, but staying on top of the tar paper and is making its way down to the wall. It was running down the wall and going behind the building wrap.
I have that fixed, but I need to fix the original problem. I suspect it is coming from the old bathroom vent, which I need to remove yet. This problem was there all along, I just found it now.
Bedroom one is completely framed, the door is installed, all electrical is in and 75% of insulation is in, I just need to do the ceiling. Then we can drywall. I also have electrical installed in the hallway.
We are trying to work out a time with one of our friends to have him help with putting up drywall on the ceilings (at least). He is going to be gone for most of August, so we are going to try to get the other bedroom ready to drywall before that time. At minimal, I just need to take down the ceiling, put up lights/wire, reinsulate and we are ready to put up drywall. This would take 3-4 days I think.
July is going to be another horrible month for expenses simply because we are able to work on this so quickly. I doubt we'll save anything this month, as we paid for our tiling and have done so much work on the bedroom that there won't be much left in the end.
Emotionally Exhausted
One thing that DW and I never really realized is that having a torn apart house really wears on you emotionally. The past couple weeks have been pretty long, mostly because we haven't seen any 'quality of living' improvements in the work we are doing (at least until this past weekend), plus with all these little delays and problems it just feels like we'll never get done. Looking at bare studs day in day out really sucks. Thankfully we are now looking at a beautifully tiled and painted bathroom and it is lifting our spirits a bit.
I have also been under quite a lot of pressure at work the past couple weeks, which hasn't helped at all. Being in the spotlight on a high visibility project means you get put in the vice. Thankfully I have passed the project off and am back to my normal routine...for now.
DW also got a jury summons in the mail last month. She (and I) really hate stuff like this and she has been stressed about it. This was the week she was supposed to go in, but apparently now she doesn't need to. She called last night and she is in the jury number group that now doesn't need to do anything. So she was pretty relieved about that. All that stress for nothing.
Last but certainly not least, we had a death in the family this past week. DW's cousin got really sick back in June and it eventually progressed into what was probably spinal meningitis. Doctor's still don't know what happened. She went to the hospital, went comatose and was brain dead all within about 2-3 days.
She was taken off of life support last weekend. Today is her funeral. What makes it most difficult is that she was only 27 years old. I didn't know her at all, but it has still affected me quite a bit.
Needless to say, July has been a hard month.
It's been a couple of weeks since my last renovation update so time for another update. I don't have any photos to share as most of the work hasn't changed the look of the bedroom and a lot has been done in the bathroom but we aren't quite ready to share yet.
Bathroom
We are less than a week away from being able to take a shower!! We haven't been able to take a shower since the beginning of March. Being confined to taking baths is not very fun long term. Taking a bath is a nice weekly activity.....nightly not so much.
Our bathroom project has been delayed a lot mostly by shipping delays with our tile but also an order mistake. Originally it was supposed to take about a week for everything to come in. It ended up taking 3 weeks for our main tile order to come in because the tile company shipped the wrong tile.
Next, our glass tile was back ordered 3 weeks. Then it turned out that the tile store ordered the WRONG tile. So it took another 3-4 days to get the right stuff. We got our glass tile last Friday a full MONTH after we placed the order. I started tiling Sunday afternoon and finished yesterday afternoon. Everything turned out wonderfully and I am fully exhausted. I don't know what it is about tiling, but it wears on me like nothing else!
We also have the entire floor down in the bathroom. We had a HUGE problem with the grout. We bought unsanded grout and apparently you have to be VERY particular with water usage with unsanded grout, otherwise you'll have efflorescence issues. So we had to figure out how to get our original color back again. We found that the company that made the grout also make a colorant you can use to dye your grout after its dried. So DW spent the past week meticulously repainting all of our grout lines. In the end it turned out beautifully.
Our vanity also came without sink clamps. So I contacted the company and am waiting on them to come in the mail.
I also have about half of the trim installed, behind the vanity and toilet.
Bedrooms
All of these delays have meant getting work done on the bedrooms interspersed with work on the bathroom.
I did have one issue with the hallway window. The window itself didn't leak, but when I took out the old window, it revealed a leak at the top of the exterior wall. Somehow water is getting under the shingles, but staying on top of the tar paper and is making its way down to the wall. It was running down the wall and going behind the building wrap.
I have that fixed, but I need to fix the original problem. I suspect it is coming from the old bathroom vent, which I need to remove yet. This problem was there all along, I just found it now.
Bedroom one is completely framed, the door is installed, all electrical is in and 75% of insulation is in, I just need to do the ceiling. Then we can drywall. I also have electrical installed in the hallway.
We are trying to work out a time with one of our friends to have him help with putting up drywall on the ceilings (at least). He is going to be gone for most of August, so we are going to try to get the other bedroom ready to drywall before that time. At minimal, I just need to take down the ceiling, put up lights/wire, reinsulate and we are ready to put up drywall. This would take 3-4 days I think.
July is going to be another horrible month for expenses simply because we are able to work on this so quickly. I doubt we'll save anything this month, as we paid for our tiling and have done so much work on the bedroom that there won't be much left in the end.
Emotionally Exhausted
One thing that DW and I never really realized is that having a torn apart house really wears on you emotionally. The past couple weeks have been pretty long, mostly because we haven't seen any 'quality of living' improvements in the work we are doing (at least until this past weekend), plus with all these little delays and problems it just feels like we'll never get done. Looking at bare studs day in day out really sucks. Thankfully we are now looking at a beautifully tiled and painted bathroom and it is lifting our spirits a bit.
I have also been under quite a lot of pressure at work the past couple weeks, which hasn't helped at all. Being in the spotlight on a high visibility project means you get put in the vice. Thankfully I have passed the project off and am back to my normal routine...for now.
DW also got a jury summons in the mail last month. She (and I) really hate stuff like this and she has been stressed about it. This was the week she was supposed to go in, but apparently now she doesn't need to. She called last night and she is in the jury number group that now doesn't need to do anything. So she was pretty relieved about that. All that stress for nothing.
Last but certainly not least, we had a death in the family this past week. DW's cousin got really sick back in June and it eventually progressed into what was probably spinal meningitis. Doctor's still don't know what happened. She went to the hospital, went comatose and was brain dead all within about 2-3 days.
She was taken off of life support last weekend. Today is her funeral. What makes it most difficult is that she was only 27 years old. I didn't know her at all, but it has still affected me quite a bit.
Needless to say, July has been a hard month.
Re: cmonkey's journal
It's tough doing big projects where most of the payoff doesn't come until you're all the way done. It was like that with building my van and getting my house ready to sell. Don't forget how thankful your future self will be for all the work you're doing.
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Kriegsspiel
- Posts: 952
- Joined: Fri Aug 03, 2012 9:05 pm
Re: cmonkey's journal
I gutted a house recently and I think I had all the same emotions as cmonkey did. Especially the feeling that you've done a ton of shit, but it still looks like you haven't done anything. Just seeing his pictures gives me shudders. But then the drywall, trim, and floor go in and it looks nice. Although in my case, it was the counter top that came in about 2.5 months past due. It turned out alright in the end though, since they called it even at my 50% deposit.