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Archive for January, 2013

one fat snowflake

January 21st, 2013 at 06:32 pm

I'm not playing the snowflake challenge particularly, but a big fat one came to me this last Saturday. One of the other condo tenants approached me about renting my interior garage parking space. Since I don't have a car and for the moment am willing to go carless, well yay, the parking space now is an asset. Asking around - the going rate seems to be about 100$/month.

The only issue I see is I have talked to a contractor about renovating my 1980s condo kitchen, and we talked about the parking space as a launch pad for materials - it would be much easier, safer, better for the materials in question if they were semi-inside on my parking space where the sub contractors can pull them when needed. Of course, I'd need to approach both the condo board and my possible parking space rentor about it.

There was a hitch in the sectional - just like amino acids, they have an asymetric handedness (left hand vs right hand). And just like amino acids, the left handed version is common, while the right hand is either toxic (as in amino acids) or has to be special ordered (as in my right-handed sectional). So I've bought the chairs first, then I disperse them to their corners when the sectional comes. None of these chairs are going to get heavy duty use for long periods of time, so I've cheaped out on them.

Discovered as I checked my Drp stocks that two of my stocks migrated from one transfer agent to another. Hadn't run across that before. All to the good frankly - the fewer transfer agents, the fewer passwords I'd have to remember.

Big purchases

January 12th, 2013 at 09:00 pm

...but near the end of them.

I was hoping to skate by for another month using my airbed mattress on the queen bedframe, so I could put a mattress purchase on the next month's credit card. Alas, my luck ran out, and I also thought, eh screw it - why spread the pain over several months when I could get the big stuff all purchased and be done with it?

So I bought a mattress Sunday afternoon and had it delivered on Tuesday so I could double up on a coffee table purchase from Overstock.com. While I loved that sleep number mattress, I decided on a regular one. I didn't love that when you have an adjustable mattress, well that eats air pumps for lunch. And a weak air pump means that in the back of your mind, you might wake up in a mattress crater. My sleep number has remained consistent and I'm just not into adjustable mattresses that can change position but can adjust down and I have a cat with claws. I went for simple and with the expectation that the mattress will be consistently firm.

Got it ($1150) and the coffee table ($150) on Tuesday.

Monday I went to Best Buy, which seemed to have the best prices even with the 5% off on Target, and got a the 32 inch TV, burly TV stand, digital thru the air antenna ($550). Set it up last night. The other nice aspect of top floor living is that the $25 digital antenna worked great. Ready for the Super Bowl party.

Right now the only big purchase left is a couch and possibly a chair, or perhaps for flexibility a sectional. After that, with smaller chairs, end tables, vacuum I'll see what discounters will do for me. And if I have to, rent a car for a weekend and do some runs. Lawyer friend (his last day as a co worker was yesterday) offered his dining room table. I'll measure my dining room space (think it might be a little small for the table) but I'm actually a little meh about it. I'm really liking the wide open space ... I find it relaxing.

Pictures next.

Net worth December 2012

January 12th, 2013 at 08:35 pm

A little late with this Big Grin

Well, as I wrote before I took the bull by the horns and bought a 2bd, 1.75bth Lake City condo in late October. I've included it and the mortgage in my calculations. To keep myself consistent, I'm still not including the farmette in (also because I don't have a good idea on its worth). The 20% down dropped my taxable cash position a bit, and I expect that it will drop a bit more because I do plan to bite the bullet and refresh the kitchen. However, the 401K/Roth IRA/403B accounts are doing well. According to my notes, I've been contributing the 16K/17K max in my 403B for 4 years, and have put 5K into a Roth for 6 years.

Starting in Jan 2013, I've decided to ease up on making the 403B contributions a bit - still will contribute 10K to it, but with mortgage, fees, property taxes, and other etceras I wanted to boost my paycheck a bit to compensate. (For the curious - from my credit union, I got a 15 yr fixed mortgage at 3%, for 126K. My CU appears not to be selling it to Fannie or Freddie). I've also cashed in my 1yr CD to consolidate accounts, and frankly, to get a slightly better interest rate in ING.

$305,846 IRA/403B
$162,373 Vanguard taxable
$42,488 stock
$14,061 I-bonds
0$ CDs
$68,023 ING
$3,235 immediate cash

$157,500 condo
-$124,888 mortgage

$628,818 total

December 2012 ($628,818 total, $290,180 in taxable cash accounts)
June 2012 ($617,902 total, $362,619 in taxable accounts)
December 2011 ($592,163 total, $356,567 in taxable accounts)
June 2011 ($596,791 total, $376,359)
December 2010 ($575,346 total, $356,542)
June 2010 ($553,023 total, $369,589)
December 2009 ($551,300 total, $385,771)
June 2009 ($512,054 total, $379,475)
Dec 2008 ($498,148 total, $386,021)
June 2008 ($524,261 total, $387,481)
Dec 2007 ($328,688 total, $192,747)
June 2007 ($176,422 total, $48,205)
Dec 2006 ($132,062 total, $40,329)
June 2006 ($120,261 total, $65,148)
Dec 2005 ($67,778 total, $23,740)
June 2005 ($46,115 total, $11,293)
Dec 2004 ($38,338 total, $7,558)
June 2004 ($29,050 total, $4,533)

getting back to routine

January 5th, 2013 at 11:52 pm

Happy Holidays, and best of success in all your fiscal endeavors for 2013.

As for me, I'm getting back into the swing of routine. A different routine - I now can depend on me waking up at 7:45, and getting out the door at about 8:15 - 8:20, to catch any of the three downtown express buses. One (the 522) got me downtown on the 26th in 15 minutes. Man that was nice.

Done with carpet tile, just finished with the major wall painting (painting trim I'm sure is a forever project). I moved 2 full car loads of my stuff at the old place to the new condo, with the last full car load (books) perhaps will happen in the next week or two.

The next 'goal' is get set up enough to host the super Bowl party... first Sunday of February. For that, I'll break down and buy that TV, and get some seating. After that, the fridge and stove work like champs.

I have been doing lots of mini goals with the condo - got all the lighting to work, put post-its on the rooms to remind me what I need to do in them, arranged a charging station to hem in all the electronic crap in one area, am making a pile of stuff to donate/recycle (sometimes its just easier to move it, then donate it), arranged the entry way, monitored when the garbage gets picked up so I can slip a contractors bag of nasty carpet or dried paint waste when the dumpster is empty. Lawyer friend came by with his half full truck and took 15 bags - hard to tell if he will swing around again. He soon will not be a co worker - he's heading for another job at another non-profit. Hopefully we can still keep in touch...if nothing else, he's another dead pool player.

Received a box of organic produce from sister, and I've sent her a Christmas fish in return. Also sent her before and after condo pics.

Our own Spondilucks won the 2012 Dead Pool pool, so I mailed the proceeds to her. She hosted a New Year's Eve soiree which was a whole lot of fun. We had a great time comparing methodologies! Right now the 2013 pool has again 13 players - I might have 2 more and am willing to wait a day or two longer, but after that it becomes not fair to others who got their list in...especially if you are planning on playing Hugo Chavez. Smile

Still holding out on not having Internet at home - what I might do is write posts when I can then publish them one after the other. My net worth took a dip because I put down 20%, but it is still around 600K. The 403B really perked up at the very end - it alone is at 181K.