This is just a quick reminder to change your furnace filters this weekend if you haven’t done so in awhile. Your heat and air system will run much more efficiently with clean filters, meaning less energy consumption and lower energy bills.
While my goal is to do this monthly, I typically forget to do it until I here the wind whistling through the clogged filters in our air returns. So…
This reminder is as much for me as it is for you. 
As many of you know, we renovated our house this past fall. The work that we had done included an addition, replacement of our deck, conversion of our old laundry room into a powder room, and the construction of a small outbuilding.
Over this past weekend, our property tax re-assessment showed up in our mailbox. While I was expecting to see an increase, I wasn’t prepared for what I saw when I opened the envelope, especially given current market conditions. [more]
After a weekend spent working around the house, I was reminded of the value of being able to make simple fixes yourself. I’m a reasonably handy guy, and I take a certain amount of pride in being able to fix simple plumbing, electrical, etc. problems myself.
Beyond the satisfaction that comes from maintaining my own house, there are a number of financial rewards associated with doing this. [more]
On the heels of our mortgage refinance, I thought I’d put together a rundown of all the things we did two years ago to get our old house ready for sale. What follows is a rundown of all the ‘major’ stuff that we did just prior to putting our house on the market… [more]
Do you have a home inventory? If you’re anything like us, you don’t. While we used to have a video inventory, it’s woefully out of date — and to be perfectly honest, I’m not even sure where it is. Obviously, this means that it would be pretty difficult for us to put together (and substantiate) an accurate claim if something bad were to happen to our home. [more]
It’s been awhile since I provided an update on our home renovation, so I thought I’d take a minute to fill everyone in with what’s been going on… They actually finished the job late last week, and we’re very happy with the results. In total, we spent a bit under $50k, which covered:
(1) a 320 sq ft addition (enlarged dinette, new laundry room, and new closet for the boys)
(2) installation of a built-in desk in the dinette area for my lovely and talented wife
(3) the conversion of their old closet to a pantry (closed one side, opened the other)
(4) re-carpeting/painting the boys room
(5) replacement our deck with a new, and much larger deck (325 sq ft)
(6) conversion of the old laundry room to a powder room (i.e., small bathroom)
(7) installation of a utility sink in our garage
(8) a 12 x 12 foot standalone workshop (designed to match the house)
(9) painting the entire exterior of our house for a totally “finished” look
All in all, it was a very smooth process that seemed to be helped along by the slow real estate market. Indeed, pretty much every subcontractor was available within a day of contact (at the most). The only real hiccup was that the flooring subcontractor installed the wrong hardwood, which had to be torn out and replaced. As it turns out, the manufacturer had mislabeled the boxes and the work crew apparently didn’t notice the mismatch. The best part is that it’s virtually impossible to tell that it’s an addition (unless, of course, you crawl under the house and look at the foundation).
Needless to say, we’re thrilled to have this behind us, and equally thrilled that we were able to pay for it with cash. Thus, we can enjoy it without a monthly HELOC payment to remind us how much it cost. 
Are you in the market for compact fluorescent lightbulbs?
If so, then check this out…
During a recent trip to Lowe’s, I discovered that they’re running a 2-for-1 deal on 4-packs of 13W compact fluorescent bulbs (Item #146558). This brings the price down to $7.98 for 8 bulbs, or a buck apiece. These bulbs are equivalent to 60W incandescent bulbs in terms of brightness, and this particular make performs quite well — they come on instantly, require minimal warmup to achieve full intensity, and the light quality is pretty darn good. According to the sign, the offer runs through January 1st.
All of this being said… It might be a “your mileage may vary” sort of thing, as the other store in town wasn’t aware of the special (though they honored it when I brought it to their attention). Nonetheless it can’t hurt to check.
For reference, these bulbs come in two different package types… [more]
This past weekend we had to replace our vacuum cleaner. For the past 6+ years we’ve been living with a Hoover than neither my wife nor I really liked, but it did the job so we dealt with it. However, having survived over six years in a house full of little boys, it was on its last legs and we knew that we’d be replacing it sometime soon.
With all of this in mind, I was thinking of picking up a new vacuum cleaner for Christmas (romantic, I know). But that all changed this past Saturday morning when I awoke to the smell of burning rubber. As it turns out, my wife had gotten up earlier than me and was in the process of cleaning up around the house. Unfortunately, the vacuum seized up and burned out, and all we were left with was a non-functional vacuum and low-hanging cloud of smoke. [more]
Quick question to all of you out there that track your finances in Quicken, MS Money, or something similar… Do you keep track of your home’s value in your software package of choice? Or do you track it separate from the rest of your finances?
I’ve always been a big proponent of tracking net investable assets as opposed to actual net worth, but I’ve recently been re-thinking this. The main reason for this change of heart is that we’re currently renovating our house to the tune of roughly $50k. Given that our home’s value will be increasing as a result of these renovations, it seems odd to treat that money as if it simply disappeared.
I see that Quicken has an option for tracking homes and other assets, but I’ve never messed around with it. In short, I’m thinking of going back and creating an account for our first house, and populating it with values ranging from the initial purchase price to the eventual sale price (I’ll basically just interpolate the values in between). For our current house, I’d probably play it somewhat conservative and just track the assessed value, which tends to lag behind market values in our area.
Anyway, I just wanted to get your thoughts on how best to handle this.
Well, the windows finally showed up (two weeks late) and our renovations are proceeding quickly. In the past week:
(1) the exterior got finished (though they still have to paint around the newest windows),
(2) the electrical rough-in got completed,
(3) the heat and air ducts got run,
(4) the county inspector gave us a thumbs up,
(4) the insulation got put in, and
(5) the drywall went up
Ah, the drywall… What a treat. We now have a nice coating of fine white dust everywhere. Everywhere. This despite our best efforts to cordon it off with plastic sheets. And they’re not even done sanding it yet! The upcoming week will see a lot of activity, with the flooring getting installed, the trim work getting done, and the interior getting painted (hopefully).
There will still be some work left at that point — cabinets, new carpeting in the boys room to tie into their new closet, shelving in the new laundry room, pantry, and closet. The new deck also needs to get stained, but… We can now see the light at the end of the tunnel. And we’re very happy with the decisions that we’ve made up to this point.
We’re leaving the conversion of the old laundry room into a powder room for last — after all, we can’t very well keep up on laundry for six if we tear out the old laundry room before the new one is ready.
