Category Archives: money

Use it up, Wear it out, Make it do or Do Without

1 Reply

The title has been our mantra for years and years.  We have lived by it in order to save money but also to reduce waste.  We generally reuse anything we can and avoid buying new things for as long as possible.   This applies to everything from bedroom slippers to cars and even roofs on houses.

I have repaired our roof many times while I see a lot of neighbors just paying to have new roofs put on.  I spend ~$30 on shingles and a few hours of time.  I just have trouble letting go of the $4k-$5k on a whole new roof.   Plus, my repairs work fine….I do realize at some point however, it will need to be replaced.  I just want to hold out, “If I can replace the roof once, when everyone else did it twice in the same time frame……”.

worn slippers
It’s time for new slippers?

The avoidance of buying new stuff has left us with some pretty ragged wares.  I’ve had old sweatshirts and faded hoodies that have lived long past their time.  I have shoes held together with screws and cars held together with glues.

It has however allowed us to take the money that would have been spent on new items and put it into savings or investments.  We have found that it is much easier to do this when you have a purpose, ours being to move to Puerto Rico, rather than to just do it because.  This purpose also complicates things.  Get a new car before moving?  No way!  Get new slippers?  Will we even need them in PR?

We do eventually replace things, it’s just that we use it up and wear it out.  We try to make it do and we try to do without.   If all else fails, we bite the bullet and get a replacement.  On sale.  With a coupon.

We are planning to get new carpet for our house (it’s 11yr old carpet) but this isn’t for us per se, we are going to turn our house into a rental when we move.  As an investment we can justify the cost.  Weird huh?   We often times will spend money on something we aren’t even going to directly use ourselves!

high mileage Honda
Time for a new car?

 

Even with my car I am thinking about just getting a new motor (make it do).  It leaks oil, the valves make awful sounds and the transmission has a bad 3rd gear (I have to shift into 4th before going into 3rd).  I just don’t want to spend anything on it.  I also want to see it hit 300k.  My mtn bike had 24 gears when I bought it 14 years ago but now only has 2 usable gears…lol.

In my mind I attribute this method of thought to the depression era, or what I think the depression era would have evoked in people’s spending habits.  Hence the saying. I also don’t think we would be this way (or to such a degree) if we didn’t have our Puerto Rico dream. Puerto Rico gives us a purpose and so even when it is a sacrifice, it doesn’t feel like it because it is a goal with a purpose.  I once heard it said and believe it: “Goals without purpose are empty of meaning, while having a purpose can give meaning to any goal.”

I came to the conclusion the other day that I haven’t just been doing this with our stuff.  I have been doing it with my own body and mind.  I have used it and used it and put it to work for hours and hours without sleep and expected it to just do everything I throw at it. I have used it up, worn it out, made do and then lost my memory and so had to do without (for a while, now it’s back thankfully)!

So even with this mantra, we may have worn it out too. Sometimes we have to be willing to try new things as well. It’s all about balance. For me, I needed this time to rest and rejuvenate.  I wish roofs on houses could get fixed with just a little relaxation and rest!

What do you think of this post?
  • WOW (2)
  • Awesome (3)
  • Interesting (0)
  • Useful (0)
  • Bummer (0)
  • Whoa (0)

Taxes: What We’re Working For

3 Replies

In this second installment of “Why we’re still working in Colorado” we come to the conclusion that this month we are working to pay taxes AKA impuestos. No, not property taxes in Puerto Rico that we just paid. Those came in the mail this week and were a whopping $37.97 for the year! That’s awesome for 4 acres of land in Rincón with two structures on it! No, that we could handle quite easily even while we are living in Puerto Rico with limited income.


CRIM statement in the mail- Paid via Internet

In comparison, the property taxes on  just our own residence in Colorado is nearly $800 a year, but that’s divided and escrowed into our mortgage payment, so we don’t have to worry too much about that once the house is rented out here too. And as for our income taxes, for the most part they are being withheld from our paychecks so we don’t have to worry too much about that either (the money’s gone before we even see it).

So, what we’re really working for this month are the taxes on the property we sold at the end of May. We really have no idea how much those will be. We are assuming they will be capital gains taxes on the amount we made over what we paid for it in 2009. So it will be the long-term variety and not the short-term type which I think saves us quite a bit.

But we are bracing for the worst when tax time comes around, and hoping for the best. In either case, this month’s labor  is not as functional or even visible as last month’s intentional working to put on a new roof in Puerto Rico. But, sadly taxes and death are the only guarantees in life, so we might as well acknowledge and plan for them.

What do you think of this post?
  • WOW (0)
  • Awesome (0)
  • Interesting (0)
  • Useful (0)
  • Bummer (0)
  • Whoa (0)

We Sold a House!

2 Replies

Today was our closing on one of our rentals. It was definitely a bittersweet feeling. We have come a long way since we first bought the house with the rainbow cabinets, pink rooms, carpeted bathroom and out of date style. (If you missed it, you really should check out what it looked like before…and after we were through with it.)  Overall, we have had 95%+ occupancy rate with it, and we always said that we would live in the bungalow ourselves. We’ve made good income on it, and our purpose of it was for income when we are living in Puerto Rico.

However, last summer, we also had tenants from hell who only stayed there for about 5 days, but really traumatized us. We just couldn’t ever satisfy them and I think especially Britton tied that feeling probably unfairly  to the house. So when we talked with our real estate agent and she told us we could easily get $30,000 more than we paid for it a couple of years ago, we thought it was a no-brainer to take it.

We figure that this lump sum sale will help us in Puerto Rico just as much if not more than the smalll monthly rent checks could. We can transfer the funds from this property into improvements in Rincon like fixing up the concrete cabana, the wooden house AND build another cabana or pool. With those improvements we should easily make more monthly income there than we would here from the rental house.


One last moment with our first-ever sold house

Still, I was of two minds about it. Britton was ready to let go of the burden. He said he already feels lighter, like letting go of baggage. I am excited about the prospects for Puerto Rico, but still hadn’t quite let go of the house. Today, though, we visited the house one last time and thanked it for all the lessons it had taught us, and all the people it had housed. We blessed it for the next people to live there, and released it. It felt really good.

At the closing today, we met the young couple who bought it. They are super-excited to live there. It is their first home and their energy was contagious. I had a strange feeling of birth and death and rebirth. For us, our chapter of life with that house is closing -dying- but for them it is just beginning! And from that energy transfer, the loss of this property to us will bring forth a new life -our new life in Puerto Rico. Pretty cool.

Anyhow, we decided we should commemorate this day with something that is a reflection of it. We bought a piece of authentic pottery/art. To us, it represents something from Greeley that brings something tropical. And it is usable as well! We loved the colors and glazing technique the artist used.


Our pottery fish platter


Close-up Details

After the closing we also celebrated by going to our favorite restaurant: Bisetti’s in Fort Collins.


Outside Bisetti’s in Fort Collins

After dinner we walked around downtown Fort Collins, went and played at an old school arcade called Pinball Jones, found an outdoor community piano (!?) and had a great time. Things are really coming together for us and it makes us super stoked for the next chapter that is to come.


Man, I’ve forgotten most of my piano lessons!

What do you think of this post?
  • WOW (0)
  • Awesome (0)
  • Interesting (0)
  • Useful (0)
  • Bummer (0)
  • Whoa (0)

Fixing Cars and Saving Money

3 Replies

When you do it yourself, you can definitely save money. But before I take on any project, I try to determine whether it is 1) something I know how to do/fix and 2) whether I really want to do it.

In this case it was  a broken heater core in Cassie’s car (her 1989 Oldsmobile). I knew how to fix it because the exact same thing had happened to my Buick years ago. She was driving around and noticed a huge leak coming from under the car. It was green, so she knew it was an antifreeze leak but not much more than that. At first I thought it was just an overflow issue, but when I saw that it was pretty much completely depleted of coolant I knew it was the heater core.

A heater core is important because it takes hot coolant from the engine and circulates it in the passenger cabin, so your heater has hot air. In the summer this isn’t quite as big of an issue but in Colorado’s extreme winters, life without a heater core would not be pleasant -at all. Also having this leak was draining the engine coolant which could have totally destroyed the engine. So, it was important to get it fixed.


Taking the dash out

I knew how to do it, but it still sucked because I had to completely take the underside of the dash out. With my Buick I had to take the dash out as well, but it’s always a little complicated when you don’t do something very often. Why car makers require you to completely remove the dash in order to get at this core is beyond me. Seems like a better engineering solution could be found. In fact in my 75 Corvette, you can change it from the engine side of the firewall. Much easier.


In the process

At least I had most of the tools necessary and the parts store still carries the part for a 23 year old car in a discontinued brand (Olds).


My tools

After I removed the bottom dash and console, I had to get under the car to install the new heater core. It turned out the old heater core had plastic tubes that had broken and that’s what had spilled the antifreeze. The new heater core I bought had metal tubes that are much less likely to break and spill.


Old core with plastic parts versus the new metal version

The total cost of parts was $40 to fix it. It took me about 4-5 hours to scout for parts, take apart the whole dash, install the new heater core and put all back together.  I called a shop just to see what I had saved and they quoted me at $500. So that made me feel pretty good. My time was worth about $100 an hour! It also made me realize how outrageously high the mechanics charge.

I don’t always try and fix things myself, but sometimes it makes you feel good to know I can and the money in my pocket can pay for a ticket to Puerto Rico and back.


Under the car

What do you think of this post?
  • WOW (0)
  • Awesome (1)
  • Interesting (0)
  • Useful (0)
  • Bummer (0)
  • Whoa (0)