It's all over...
We moved at the end of August and got everything out of the house in time for our closing.
Although the closing was delayed twice. The main reason for the delays was the buried oil tank that we had to get rid of.
Nowadays, a buried oil tank is just trouble no matter how you look at it. In our area, all of them will have to be removed or replaced in the near future so as a condition of the sale we had to have that done.
Buried oil tanks are a potential environmental nightmare. All of them eventually corrode and leak so our state is very strict on how they are dealt with. The must be handled as hazardous waste, the soil around them must be tested and if contaminated are also handled as hazardous waste.
Basically, the sidewalk in front of my house (I live in an urban town
outside of NYC) was dug up from the front of my house to the street and almost from one side of the property to the other. The hole, when all the digging was done, was 9 feet deep (down to bedrock!) and about 10 feet wide and 12 feet long. About 49,000 pounds of dirt was excavated and the resulting hole was filled by the same about of gravel.
The excavation, removal of the tank and dirt, fill and new concrete cost me $20k and took about two days.
The first delay in the closing was due to having this work done, the second delay was in waiting for the soil tests to return so that the remaining dirt surrounding the hole could be certified as non-contaminated.
All that took a week in time but once it was done we closed and got a nice fat check from the profit. I actually went out this weekend and spent a small piece of it buying a couple of toys for us (a Nintendo
DS for the boy, new video camera for me and a Blackberry Pearl cell phone for the wife). We worked hard over the last three months to get to this point and we
deserved it.
So, it's all done now and the bills are paid off and I feel good.
Labels: bills, boxes, brother, buyer, closing, debt, house, money, oil tank, selling the house
Karma
Apparently, the people that made the offer on the house
didn’t like our counter offer and are attempting to come up with a counter to our counter.
Hmph! Maybe my mistake was having the money counted and spent before we had an agreement. I guess it’s sort of Karma and Karma’s a bitch.
Our laptop seems to be faltering on us. Well, not really the laptop but the plug and socket that it gets power with seem to be the issue. Evidently, over time, its connection loosens and you have to jiggle it to make it work. The more you jiggle it, the looser it gets. This has happened to us once before and we had to take it in for repairs. I guess we’ll take it in this weekend.
Maybe I’ll have to buy a new laptop when we sell the house. There I go again – spending the money before I even have it… See what I mean?
Labels: cord, house, karma, laptop, money, offer, power, sell
Future Boy
My son has been amazing me lately. He’s becoming very interested in designing, building and inventing things. Basically, he’s my little engineer! He actually sketched out his concept of a manned mission to Mars. What he did was draw the basic flight plan in his notebook with some key milestones on the trip – launch, refueling points, landing and the return trip. My little 10 year old actually said to me, “all I have to do now is figure out how much fuel the ship will need.” It almost brought tears to my eyes.
His teacher said to him that he should be a scientist or engineer since he’s so interested in things like that. His grades in math and science are pretty good.
I guess I’m somewhat responsible for this as I watch a lot of Discovery Channel, Science Channel and documentaries with subjects of science and engineering things which he watches with me. I’m also very interested in the space program (manned and unmanned) and he’s interested in it, too, almost by osmosis. When you think about it, most of this television can be very entertaining if you are into those sorts of things and compared to most of the crap that’s on TV lately he could do a lot worse watching most other shows.
This is one of the reasons I really want him to attend this local Catholic high school that is very good but very expensive (currently $8,000 a year). So that’s why I have to put a substantial amount of money from the sale of our house away to pay for it. I certainly won’t be able to pay for college (I’m praying for academic and athletic scholarships plus student loans to take care of that) but I sure as shit will do my best to put him in a great position to get into a good college by getting him into the best high school I can afford.
The high school we are aiming for is one that is highly regarded, has many notable alumni, and has a great athletic program. In fact, the hockey team and football teams are all ranked as one of the top 3 in the state. Also, many of its alumni have gone on to high level executive positions in business, entertainment, industry and government. My brother went there and it sure did well by him.
I want my son to at least have a better start than I did (not that mine
wasn’t a good start but it was the best my parents could do) and I see this as a great way to point him in the right direction. Now, over the next 4 years, I must make sure he gets the grades to be accepted to the school and I must have the money saved to pay for it.
Labels: boy, engineer, high school, math, money, prep, school, science, son
Today's News
The big news for me now is that we have decided to sell our house. We just can’t afford to keep it anymore. Taxes, water, oil, upkeep are just more than our income can handle and still live reasonably comfortable anymore.
We’
ve been living there for 10 years. My aunt (Dad’s sister) owned the house for many years. As she got older and Alzheimer’s began to take its toll, Dad asked us to move in to the second floor apartment to help take care of her. She passed away in December of 1999, 11 days before my Dad succumbed to cancer. He was her sole heir so my Mom inherited the house in Dad’s stead. We bought the house from Mom in the summer of 2000. Taxes were about $1,000 a year less than they are now. Oil and water were both about half of what we now pay.
Over that time, I’
ve been out of work 3 different times and it’s been a struggle to keep up with paying the bills and still live comfortably. We are actually about 6 months behind on the mortgage payments, oil bill and water bill. Selling the house is our best option to get out of this hole.
Thank God that our mortgage is through a very friendly local bank and they are working with us to allow us to sell. That way, at least we’ll get something out of the investment we made. If we sell for market rates (anywhere between $250k and $325k) we’ll make out pretty well even after paying off the mortgage and the bills. My best guess is that we’ll have somewhere between $45k and $90k left (even after putting some money away for the boy’s schooling). I want to invest about $10k to $20k of what’s left for future consideration and keep the rest for liquidity.
I told my Mom that we had to sell and she was cool with it. She told my brother and he called to tell us that he wants us to move in with him. He and my Mom had bought a very nice 2 family house last year that is two blocks from where we live now. It has an attic space that can fairly easily be converted to a loft apartment with the addition of some heat, a bathroom and a kitchenette. So he decided to offer us his apartment, he’ll move up to the attic space and we’ll have the 7 room second floor.
I’m very grateful to my brother as his offer solved a ton of problems for us: We won’t have to look for an apartment (with our credit issues that could be very tough). We won’t have to move out of town to find something we could afford. We won’t have to switch my son to another school since we’ll still be in the same district. I know my brother will be reasonable on the rent. We’ll be there to keep an eye on Mom (she’s 75 and not that mobile).
A few immediate concerns are that first, we have to keep paying the bank something towards the mortgage (not that hard and we are doing that now). Second, we have to pay the oil bill so that we at least get an oil delivery to get us through the summer (we use oil to heat hot water). Third, we missed one home insurance payment and the company canceled our policy so we have to get a new one. These are the most pressing issues and the one I am most concerned about is the insurance.
Other than that, life is not too bad. I think the temp job I’m currently holding may turn into a permanent gig. I like it there. My boss is cool, the office is great and the commute is pretty easy. The job is almost a no
brainer, too.
The boy’s hockey has settled down for now. We had no option but to have him tryout in other programs since the program he played in for the last two years is collapsing. He made a B team at the program we wanted most but it’s is a fair distance for us to go. He’ll do well there but it’s gonna cost us about $700 more a year in tuition. The new program is better managed, larger and dare I say a better class of people involved as well. The best part is that we are going back to Lake Placid again next season! We had so much fun there this past year and we are excited to go back. I definitely have a number of things I want us to do there this year and number one on the list is the bobsled ride!
My health has settled down. My blood pressure is good and I have had no chest pains at all. Besides having to remember to take 4 different pills at different times each day my recovery has been good. I have been going to my exercise program almost religiously but I have had trouble staying on my diet. That’s the hardest part but I am resolving here and now to get better at that.
My relationship with the wife is a bit odd lately… She’s been bothered by some of her own health problems and it’s caused her to be testy and short with both the boy and me. We’
ve argued a few times and they’
ve been serious enough that I stopped talking to her twice. She gets so worked up sometimes and then she just lashes out at us for little things. What I really don’t like is that she curses and calls us names. I never, ever do that to her or the boy and I really don’t want her to do that to us. She makes me angry when she does that and when she acts like the martyr in a situation or an argument.
Labels: bills, boy, brother, dad, debt, heart, hockey, house, mom, money, move, recovery, sale
