It feels like so much happened in June. While writing this and thinking back on all the events, I found myself thinking “that was this month? It seems so long ago…” I guess it doesn’t help that I’m writing this (mostly) half way through July. There’s a lot going on, ok?
Lena
Lena turned two months old, which meant her two month check up, which meant her first round of vaccinations. She got three shots in her legs, and one vaccination orally. She wasn’t overly bothered by the needles when they were poking her, but she was inconsolable later that day. Chelsea said that Lena was screaming for a solid hour no matter how she was comforted, but preferred to be held.
Lena also grew quite a bit to 12 lb 4 oz, and 23 inches. She now smiles regularly, as long as she’s in the right mood. (Usually right after she wakes up. She gets cranky when she’s tired and there’s no way to cheer her up.)
She also tracks people with her eyes very well. At times she sleeps better. Not all the time though. It’s interesting to watch how much she matures in such a short period.
I visited a power plant near St. Louis, which meant my first night away from Chelsea and Lena since her birth. Chelsea’s dad came down to help, which turned out to be quite helpful because Lena would not calm down. He spent time with Lena in the middle of the night while Chelsea rested and showered. This was the first lesson on how important it is to be home.
PE License
While I took the PE exam in early April, I didn’t officially find out the results until June. (I passed.) The best part about getting licensed is that I get a neat stamp.
I’m also quite relieved that I don’t have to take the test again. It took about three months of studying, and I definitely don’t have the time for that anymore.
Garden
The garden is progressing nicely, thanks to an unusually cool and wet summer so far. That also means that the weeds are throwing as well.
Our city supplies free bark mulch from trees that get cut down. I filled nine 27 gallon storage bins with the mulch and spread it on the garden, after doing another round of weeding.
So far it has really helped with moisture retention and it looks pretty good. I have read that it leaches nitrogen from the soil though, so it might not be the best long term solution.
Duplex refinance
When we bought our duplex (our current residence) last year, we used an FHA insured mortgage to finance it for a couple of reasons:
- It allows for the lowest down payment available on the regulated mortgage market at 3.5%.
- We needed to use the cash we saved on the down payment for updates to the house.
- Most importantly, conventional mortgages for multifamily properties typically require 25% down.
The downside is that we have to pay mortgage insurance for the life of the loan, which at $180 per month for 30 years would really add up.
We refinanced this month to a conventional loan to recapture some of the equity we have put into it, and to decrease the mortgage insurance. It’s still there, but lower ($50/month) and will disappear after we reach 20% equity. We are currently at 7% after the refinance.
The whole refinance process required an appraisal, so I spent the weekend before it cleaning and making some finishing touches to some projects I had deferred. Every cent counts, and the appraisal ended up $15,000 higher than we paid for it a year ago. That’s an improvement, but we probably should have paid less for the house to begin with. Oh well.
Even with the ~$3,000 in fees, the refinance will save us $33,638 over the life of the loan due to PMI reduction, so it was worth it. Next time, I would probably just save up more cash and avoid the mortgage insurance all together. Most real estate investment advice says to leverage as much as cash flow allows, but I’m finding that’s not totally my style.
General finances?
In other real estate news, our single family house has gone to shit. It has been plagued with never ending maintenance issues since we bought it last year. Most notably, the finished basement floods whenever it rains heavily. after multiple carpet extractions, we finally got a foundation quote and now have two options. One is for $5,000 and includes an interior installed sump pump, and the other is $10,000 for traditional exterior excavation and sealing.
On top of that, the tenant is not the greatest. She argued the cost of replacing a toilet after the property manager found a block of wood stuck inside it. Then she left the house without giving notice, but her boyfriend is still occupying it. So, we have filed for eviction. Hooray.
We are now seriously considering selling just to get out. We don’t have the cash on hand to pay for the foundation repair, and it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to keep dumping money into it. We would realize a significant loss if we sell now, but I just want to be done with the headache and start fresh.
All the recent expenses have me feeling kind of hopeless on the feasibility of early retirement. I can’t get over the huge waste of money that the single family house has been. That money would have been much more useful just invested in stocks.
Now, with Lena here, our expenses have increased sooner than expected. Chelsea will stop working after this next full school year, so income will decrease.
Colorado trip
Lastly, we took a trip to Colorado in late June and early July. Yes, some of the events in the June 2019 update post took place in July. (I actually spent a decent amount of time thinking about how best to split this, and decided that treating the trip as entirely “June” was the best for continuity. Details…)
The only car rides we had taken with Lena up to this point were the two trips to and from the doctor, and and one trip to Costco. She was quite agreeable each time, so that should translate to an eight out car ride through the Great American Plains, right?
GOOD GOD NO. NO NONONONONONONONO NOOOO.
She hated it. Absolutely hated. We got 10 minutes into the trip and she pooped. But she was calm, so we were ok.
We stopped a McDonald’s/gas station to change her diaper and were in good spirits. Wait, the diaper leaked and there is poop on the car seat? Haha, silly Lena. Babies will be babies, right? We’re at a Micky-D’s so let’s eat! *Lena promptly falls asleep in the carrier while strapped to her mother awww how sweet*
Lena is then removed from the warmth and loving touch of her mother and transferred to the car seat and proceeds to LOSE HER GOD DAMN MIND FOR WHAT SEEMS LIKE AN ETERNITY JESUS CHRIST CHILD PLEASE STOP CRYING.
At least we (ok, Chelsea) had the foresight to anticipate that it might be a difficult drive for a two month old baby, so we reserved a hotel room in beautiful Salina, KS. Lena, Chelsea, and I all slept quite well because we were down right exhausted.
We resumed our slog at 9:00 am the following morning to mixed reviews. Lena cried at first, but eventually fell asleep. I got to finish my This American Life podcast that I had started the day before, but Lean awoke before I could get into another. We stopped at a rest stop to feed and change her, and just give her a break from the car-seat-prison.
It went like this for the rest of the trip. She would freak out and cry herself to sleep. We would get a break, then she would wake up and we would stop. Chelsea fed her on the ground outside an Arby’s (we had Arby’s like 5 times on this trip…and I’m not complaining) at one point because it was the only place we could find in the shade.
Eventually, we arrived in Denver at Val and Jim’s. It was good to see them, Andrea and Zack, and Teresa and Karl. I personally love their house. It is craftsman and in a great neighborhood. I know it’s not exactly Chelsea’s jam, though. We mostly hung out there and caught up, took some walks around Washington Park.
It was there that we discovered that Lena would sleep very well if she was in the bed with us. This kind of scares me because I can’t stop thinking about rolling over and smothering her, but HEY, I also really really like sleeping. Life’s a give and take.
From Denver, we traveled not-too-far to (genuinely) beautiful Sedalia, CO to stay with Roy and Janet. We went to their house throughout college, so it reserves a special, familiar place in my heart. Roy is very much into cooking and smoking meats, and his ribs were the first I had ever had. I could say much more, but I’ll leave it at this: I admire Roy and Janet’s DIY approach to life.
I want us to be to be like them some day.
We enjoyed good food, company, and nature there. We even ventured out to Golden to meet with AJ and his mom (Anna). This was THE THING that we did on the trip to Colorado. To me, that is the biggest difference. In the past we would have spent the whole day in Golden, gone on multiple hikes, and explored some of downtown Denver.
Not this time. Lena makes the calls now, and three hours in Golden was pushing it. It was great to see AJ and Anna and to walk around our old stomping grounds, but by the end, it was stressful and we were ready to head back to Sedalia.
(AJ has a girlfriend who lives in Vail, while he lives in Houston. He was visiting her and happened to be heading back to the airport while we were in the area.)
Chelsea had plenty of homework to do while in CO because she was enrolled in two classes for her master’s at Park University. That added to the complexity of this trip, but didn’t hinder it too much cuz hey we gotta baby and she’s pretty needy anyway.
On the way back to Kansas, we decided to adjust the car seat. Turns out, that makes all the difference in the world. What a happy baby! If only we had thought of that sooner…
I’ll end the post with a few thoughts about the future. Before Lena was an idea, we had toyed with the idea of moving back to Colorado before we had kids. (Yes, Lena, you were an accident.) Colorado is where Chelsea and I met, fell in love, and spent our early relationship. I think we just feel the most united there. We genuinely love Colorado. This trip renewed that love for me, and renewed my desire to live there.
But it’s expensive.
I have felt rather hopeless over our finances recently. The real estate market in the Denver area is HOT, and houses are more than twice as expensive there as they are in KC. Is moving to Colorado now hopeless? Hopefully not. But the alternative isn’t too bad. We like KC.
Time will tell where we end up.