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This is a partial update because I haven't updated my monthly spreadsheet. But I looked at my personal net worth sheet and Networth IQ and realized a bit of a discrepancy. When we bought the house we got a no interest bridge loan from mom at the last minute. The loan program we'd chosen originally had an 8% deposit requirement. We could handle 8% and worked everything out. Due to all of the loan craziness happening in the mortgage industry it moved to 10% 1.5 weeks before we signed papers. So the bank of mom transferred me some money so that we could pay the downpayment and not decimate our savings just beforem moving.
Since then we've tried to repay some of the money with little success. I transfered her some of the money (love joint accounts on ING) and she transfered it back saying to use it on student loans*. She does not want to be paid back until we've paid off my car and figured out what we're going to be doing about Gameboy's car. Really she wants us to prioritize money we owe to folks who are charging interest.
The other part of that is our appliances. There were none when we moved into the house. So we did a bit of shopping. Usually I'm not a big fan of store cards, but since we were spending around $5K we decided to do a 1 year 0% offer. If we needed to we could pay it off today (savings for the card, efund, other savings) but we'd rather have the money working (albeit slooowly) for us than for Lowes. I may get a sidebar going for that in the near future.
I can't remember why I didn't add them to the tally back in July but they're they're now and reflecting a much more accurate picture of my finances.
*She feels like as a parent this is her responsibility and tries to help out when she can.
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3 comments:
Have you considered being a little more patient and getting the appliances free on freecycle? If you really decide you want new ones later, you can. But I would think 3 or 4 times about spending 2-$3000 on what you can get for nothing when you don't even have the cash on hand saved up to buy it.
You could also buy used ones advertised in the local paper classifieds or on Craigslist. Of course for this you need cash up front but really....adding to the debt is not going to make things easier for you.
The only one I personally would be looking to buy new as opposed to used would be a fridge, because they use the such a large amount of electricity that I would hesitate to pay cash for a non-EnergyStar model. However, you could very well pick up a free or used EnergyStar fridge as well. Total up the energy costs of a newer vs an older fridge and see if it's worth it to just shell out the cash for a newer one, if you can't find one used.
Think about it. Fridge. Stove. Maybe dishwasher. That's pretty much all you need.
Oh. Clothes Washer. Also easy to find used, usually perfectly fine and just discarded because someone wanted to do a remodel.
All of these things I have seen for free in the past 2 months and I'm not even looking.
And in the meantime you can use a hotplate and other appliances for cooking.
Thanks for the comment Steve.
We bought the appliances this summer when we bought the house. We considered going with CL, but one major issue was transportation. We have little cars and the combination of renting a truck + flaky CL people + stress of buying our first house + FIL moving in with us from across the country- we decided to go with the somewhat easier route. We talked about it a lot before hand and understood our decision.
Since we did buy new everything that can have an Energy Star rating (they don't rate dryers and ranges) has one. For the things without Energy Star we bought high ratings from Consumer Reports.
Though we're saving up for that bill at the moment we have the cash in other funds. So technically we could pay it off tomorrow. But again there is the 0% interest on the card vs 2.75 from ING.
I really enjoyed reading through your blog. It's very inspiring to read how disciplined you are with this project. Your future will thank you. =)
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