Should I Move: Pros and Cons

Cons

Downtown has a high crime rate

Apartment complex is completely enclosed http://www.apartmentratings.com/rate/OK-Oklahoma-City-Legacy-At-Arts-Quarter-758511.html#userresponses

Making it hard to receive visitors.  I hardly get visitors.  Hardly. Ever.  Almost never!

Longer commute to family.

Monthly expenses will increase due to increased rent/mortgage

Kids couldn’t really go outside by themselves??

 

Pros:

Much shorter commute

Apartment complex is completely enclosed

Close to parks, work, school, LIBRARY, restaurants!!!

Living a dream!

Fitness room

Great for biking

I don’t have to mow the yard

I don’t have to deal with those kids playing in the creek

I don’t have to clean up after family get togethers, because an apartment is too small for get togethers!

 

In addition to monthly obligations there are the upfront costs

Deposit: 350

Application fee: $30

Electricity deposit or maybe just a transfer fee

 

After much thought and consideration, I think I’m gonna stay where I am.  The economy is shaky and I really need to build my efund before I start  living the downtown chic life.   

What I should do in the meantime is forget about renting the house below market level.  If my sister wants to rent then it’ll have to be at market level, unless I’ve built my efund.  But until then I’m gonna work on keeping everything up to date so that if I decided to rent to strangers, everything will already look nice.

Four Year Old and Money

I’m really bad at leaving money lying around.  I’ve been meaning to deposit $100 (five $20 bills) for a while.  I had it on my kitchen cabinet one morning and the  next morning it was gone.  I asked my kids if they’d seen it, and they both said no.  I asked them repeatedly over the next few days and I still got the same answer.   So I was getting my son dressed this morning (I put him on the same jeans he wore Monday), and I searched his pockets because there was a toy sticking out-he’s not supposed to take toys to school- I searched his other pocket to make sure there weren’t any more toys in there and ka-ching this boy had $100 in his pocket (and two more toys).  Lesson learned.  My daughter has never touched my money, so I’ve always felt safe laying money around.  Not any more.  Anthony is a pack rat and if something will fit in his pocket it will go in his pocket.  Now I’m gonna have to give him the “don’t take things that don’t belong to you speech” every day for the next two weeks. 

 

It was really cute when he smiled and said “I was keeping it safe for you.”  I couldn’t even get mad because he was sooo cute when he said it.

Should I move: The Financial Side

I am desperately wanting to rent out my home and move to a certain luxury downtown apartment complex.  Sigh… but we need to crunch the numbers.

1.       Rent $1,300 max.  The actual rent ranges from $1,248-$1,299

2.       My mortgage payment is ~$860/month.  That would be approximately $440 increase.  (I am going to rent it out to my sister and I probably wouldn’t charge more than the mortgage payment)

3.       I currently budget $200/month for gas.  I would save atleast $100/month from shortening my commute. 440-100=$340

4.       My heating bill which averages at $90/month would be gone.  340-90=$250 increase over mortgage payment

5.       but my electricity bill ($80) would increase probably by $50. $250 + 50=$300 increase over mortgage payment

6.       My home insurance should decrease from $1,200 to at least 1,000 year.    $16/month.  300-16= $284 (I have to get a quote)

7.       Water bill would be the same.

So If I get the apartment I’m taking away $284 that could go towards my efund or retirement.  Tsk, tsk.  But we’ll come back to that later.  If I do decide to move

I’m gonna have to cut my discretionary spending:

1.       Cut efund contributions from $500/month to 400/month.   I set my goal at giving $300/month ($3,600/yr).   I over estimate because life happens and  I want to stay on my five year 6 month of expenses efund goal no matter what.   $284-100=$184

2.       Cut fast food from 130 to 100.  $184-$30=$154

3.       Home maintenance fund from $250-$200. $154-$50=$100

4.       Cut car fund from $75-$50. $100-$25=$75 increase over mortgage payment

 

Man, that’s a long list just get an apartment.  I’ll be setting myself back in terms of money.  That is a big no-no in the world of personal finance.  But It’s a dream of mine to live downtown. I was gonna wait until my kids were grown and out of the house.  But with them both going to school downtown I can live that dream much sooner than I thought.  And with a lot of discipline I can use the amount of time that I save on the commute to work on earning money from blogging and writing.  Of course this is all dependent on me passing my PE exam and getting a raise.  I took the test in October and I won’t know until the middle of December if I passed it.  If I passed the test, I’m still not sure if it would be worth it.  ------ Needs more thought and research before I make a decision.  Right now I’m feeling too lazy to move anyway.

Here We Go Again

I’m doing it again.  I’m thinking about all the crap that I have to do and it’s causing me to do nothing at all.  Usually, after I blog about my paralysis, I immediately start working away on what I’m supposed to do.  So here goes. 

In A Lifetime

In Our LifeTime!  In my Lifetime!  In my daughter’s Lifetime! in my mom’s lifetime! In my son’s lifetime!  In MY LIFETIME. 

 

GOD Bless America! 

November 2008 Net Worth

Credit Score	683	673
Assets	October	November	Difference
Cash Accts.	$7,300.00	$6,530.00	-$770.00
Home	$124,500.00	$133,000.00	$8,500.00
Rental	$72,348.00	$72,348.00	$0.00
401k	$3,560.07	$3,170.00	-$390.07
529	$299.00	$262.00	-$37.00
Roth	$1,025.00	$1,056.00	$31.00
Misc (Car, etc)	$7,000.00	$7,000.00	$0.00
Total Assets	$216,032.07	$223,366.00	$7,333.93
Liabilities	October	November	Difference
CC	$824.00	$1,202.00	$378.00
Home	$97,432.36	$97,400.00	-$32.36
Rental	$66,500.00	$66,434.00	-$66.00
HELOC	$9,076.00	$9,024.00	-$52.00
Student Loans	$54,181.02	$53,984.81	-$196.21
Total Liabilities	$228,013.38	$228,044.81	$31.43
Net Worth	-$11,981.31	-$4,678.81	$7,302.50

My net worth increased by $7,302 dollars, putting my total net worth to -$4,678.  I know it’s too early to get excited about since the increase is due to the value of my home, but I’m going to forget that for a moment and be happy.  I was sad whenever my home worth dropped but I still stuck with the numbers Zillow dished out, so I’m going to be happy now that my home value is increasing using Zillow.  Too continue… I started out this year with a -$29,000 net worth.   -$29,000!  And now I’m at -$4,000.  Man, God is good.  And a special shout out to Clever Dude, Single Ma, Dough Roller and Get Rich Slowly for the ed-u-ma-cation.  Thanks for the knowledge… Kinda sappy.  Sorry.  

Cash Accounts:  I’m missing a couple of key deposits, which would account for the price difference from last month to this month.

Credit Cards: I haven’t paid my cc bills yet.  Usually by the time I post my net worth they are already paid. 

Home:  Home value increased by $8,500. Weird, since the US is supposedly in a recession, right?  Well, Oklahoma I guess is still booming.  Plus our home values didn’t sky rocket like California or Las Vegas. 

Roth:  I’ve cut back on my Roth to focus on the more liquid part of my Emergency Fund.

Efund: Is at $2,500. $1,100 left to reach my efund goal.  It’s gonna be close.

Investments: I’m still resisting the urge to buy some bonds and take the Roth out of a money market account.   

401k: my 401K took another big hit as well as the 529 account.  No surprises there.  I’m still investing regularly.  In fact, I got a 5% raise this month and bumped up my contributions from $50 to $170.  I know it’s still pitiful, but something is better than nothing.  I’ll do better once my efund is up and running.

Summary: Last month I was hoping to reach -$9,000 by the end of the year, but now it’s looking like I may actually be able to start 2009, with a flimsy but positive net worth.  GOSH…. That would be cool.

 

Family

My mom is staying with me, as well as my little sis plus her two kids, and my little bros baby moma plus her three kids. Why you ask? because my mom's sorry boyfriend said he was paying the electricity bill and he had not. thus, the bill is $700. Sigh. The old me would have paid the bill in a second just to have my house to my self, but I ain't touching my efund. Hell Na. And I gotta come up with her boyfriend's mortgage payment, but that is only $250. I should be tripping because my stupid ass is already paying $220 of the mortgage since the roommate moved out, but what can I do except grin and bear it. I can foot the extra $250 without touching the efund, so I'll count my blessings, it'll just have to come from my home maintenance fund.