Saving log - $0
Spending log - $1.84 coffee, milk + $20 chiropractor + $5 curry lunch

Sister called me at work. The final hurdle for the sale of the second piece of land was that the town council had to approve it. It went through without a hitch. Apparently they approved it in about 2 seconds, sister said.

I expect that the estate will be finalized rapidly now, within a couple of months.

Sister went with her insurance agent, and paid the insurance for the farmette. We are now joint owners of the farmette. We talked a bit about getting a joint account in both sister's and my names, just in case sister got struck by lightening or something, and then we talked about plans.

I had to catch her a bit. She's having the foundation on the house redone for $5000. The site assessment for the solar panels came in at about $400 (a copy is to be sent to me), and they are interested in selling sister two lines of solar panels, each for $30K! Apparently there is a rebate of $4K/line, but I still had to remind her that she has now mentally spent $60K!

I'm not saying bad, I said, I'm saying be aware and slow down. Two big projects - tops - per year, so you can keep an eye on the work. Part of the usefulness of the joint account is that it provides a natural budget line. Put a certain amount in yearly and don't add more upon the pain of death. And I was thinking somewhere around 25K for each of us this year!

I also told her that I thought that the slowing real estate market would work somewhat to our advantage - a contractor with no jobs will start to work lean and pay attention to us. We could get a better deal somehow. We would be small, but we could keep someone eating next year.

I feel like the bean counter/ emotional brake/ killjoy here. I want this to work out. I want my sister to be happy. I don't want to be taken for a ride. And if sister buys me out in 5 years I at least don't want to lose too much money.