Beating Broke

Personal Finance from the Broke Perspective

The Great Kitchen Remodel

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As I mentioned before, part of what were doing with our tax refund is to remodel our kitchen.  Our kitchen was in a bit of rough shape, as some of it was likely original to when the house was built in 1950.  The linoleum had been added, as had the carpet and the counter-top, but there was little evidence that anything else had been upgraded in 60 years.  I don’t know about you, but that just screams for updating.  We’d put up with it for almost 6 years, and it was one of the “must do” items on our list of things that had to be done in order for us to eventually sell the house and upgrade to something a bit bigger.  When the opportunity came in the form of our tax refund, we felt that it was a justifiable usage of the money. Here, I’ll let the picture speak for me.  That’s all the old stuff.  Built in place.  The doors on the cabinets had been painted so many times (I counted 6 layers of paint) that they wouldn’t close.  The drawers had the same issue, except that they rubbed on their cases and dropped dust from that rubbing onto all of the pans and such that were in the lower cabinets.

Old Kitchen

Could we have lived with that for a couple of more years?  Probably.  But there’s a limit where saving, budgeting, and repaying debt become a true detriment to your happiness.  When you reach that limit, you can become truly miserable.  We could have used the money we spent on the kitchen on debt repayment.  That would have felt good, but not nearly as good as it is to not have that kitchen any more!  So, that just about covers the why of our kitchen remodel.  Let’s move on to the how.

We didn’t (obviously) want to spend a whole lot of money on the kitchen, but just merely update it.  We hit the not-so-local (100 miles) Menard’s and went about ordering the pieces for delivery.  Also, we managed to squeeze in a dishwasher that was on clearance.  It wasn’t really part of the original plan, but it was actually cheaper than the cabinet that would have had to go where it went.

Here’s how the cost on that broke down.

  • Cabinets: ~$1700 (They are the budget models, but have solid Oak facing and doors and look quite nice.)
  • Dishwasher: ~$180 (again, it was on clearance and was the last one they had.)
  • Flooring: ~$450 (laminate that was on sale to replace the chipping linoleum and stained carpet.)
  • Delivery: ~$180 (it’s a long ways, and it wouldn’t fit in our car.)

All told, that first trip cost us a shade over $2300.  I didn’t go out and compare, but I think that’s a pretty good deal.  Once all the parts and pieces were delivered, my dad came out to help out over a long weekend.  He lives about 950 miles away, so it was quite the trek for him.  And I must admit, the remodel would have likely turned into a small disaster had he not came.  He’s a contractor, so he’s done a few of these before. And there were a few unforeseen issues that would have caused me a huge problem without the knowledge and help.

In the end, the four day weekend turned into a 5 day weekend.  It was more like a 5 day workweek, but with far more physical labor than I normally do.  But, it got done.   There’s only a little bit of trim that I’ve got to put up, and it will be 100% finished.  I’m hoping that I can find the parts for that here in town this weekend and get that wrapped up.

And now, for the grand unveiling!  Here, in all it’s splendor, is our new kitchen.

New Kitchen

What do you think?  Quite the change, isn’t it?  After it was all said and done, we added around $600 more to the bill with odds and ends that we needed throughout making the total bill come in at around $2900.  Of course, if we had had to pay for labor, it would have significantly raised the costs.  Yet another reason to at least try DIY.  You’ve got to know your limits of course.  I got lucky and my dad was able to come help, otherwise this would have easily turned into an example of what happens when you don’t know your limits.  But, it didn’t.  We’re extremely happy with the way it turned out and even though the space is still very small, the luxury of the new cabinets and drawers along with the dishwasher makes it all seem just a tad bigger.

Side note: While my dad was here, he was telling us a story about a remodel he recently worked on where the kitchen alone came in at about $100k.  Incredible.  The client put in solid granite counter-tops that cost $20k!  Even if I won the lottery, I don’t think I could bring myself to spend that much money on something like that.

Murphy Strikes Again

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In the midst of spending 5 straight days remodeling our kitchen, our good friend Murphy’s Law decided to show up.  My father came over for the long weekend and helped.  Without him, the remodel would have probably been a disaster.  But, that’s not where Murphy comes into play.  One evening, after we had supper, we made our way to a local park so that the kids could run around and get worn out a bit.

As we were walking back to our car, we noticed a pretty good sized pool of liquid under the car.  Sure enough, it was oil.  It doesn’t take a mechanic to know that a pool of oil under your car is not a good thing.  Not even a little bit.  I got the car home, and parked it until Monday, when I could call the mechanic and have them take a look at it.

Luckily, when they called back with their diagnosis, it wasn’t a hugely serious problem.  A minor seal had broken and needed replacing.  The seal  itself is a $16 part.  The labor to replace it is a bit more.  We had been envisioning a bill in the $1000 range, but instead, got a bill in the $150 range.  Even so, that’s a pretty big unexpected expense for us.  A budget buster on most months.  Luckily again, we have our Murphy thwarting emergency fund and our remaining tax refund, so either case would have been handle-able.

Unfortunately, the extra expense will likely have to come from the remaining tax refund.  It’s good that we still had the money hanging around, but using it for the car repair will mean that we have to wait a few months for the new couch that we had planned on getting.  We do have a fancy new remodeled kitchen though!

Once again, we’ve been reminded how the stress of a Murphy’s Law moment is lessened by having an emergency fund set up.  If the repair on the car had been more expensive, or we had needed a new engine (or a new car), we would have had that $1000 sitting there to help with the costs.  It wouldn’t have covered the whole thing, but would have made a serious dent in the repairs.  Get yourself an emergency fund!  It will pay for itself in peace of mind.

Tax Day: What We’re Doing With Our Refund

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I dislike getting a refund from the government. I don’t like having to look up the my tax refund status.  I don’t have any good reason to give them an interest free loan, but any changes I make to my W4 don’t seem to make any difference.  I keep getting a refund every year.  This year, the numbers were really off, because we added a dependent last march.  After all the numbers were entered, and the forms filed electronically, the IRS sent us a nice deposit of a little over $3000.  Combined with a bit under $500 from the state, and we end up with $3500 in the bank.

Now, before I go on to tell you what it is we are doing with that money, I need to say something.  For the last several years, we have spent nearly every spare dime we have on paying off debt.  We still have debt that needs to be paid off.  However.  Despite my hate for debt, I’ve come to realize that you cannot let other things slide in order to pay off that debt.  With that in mind, here’s how we’re spending our refund.

We’re getting a new kitchen.  The cupboards in our kitchen are original to the house (circa 1950) and have been painted so many times that they no longer close.  The drawers grind against their frame and the resulting paint dust and wood dust falls down from them onto anything in the cupboards below them.  We have to wash our pans before we can use them because of the dust.  The linoleum on the floor is peeling up.  The carpet is ancient, smelly, and stained.  If you took just the kitchen from our house, it would fit right in with many of the run down slum rentals in town.  We want to move up to a newer (read bigger) house soon, so we need to make this house sellable.  In my opinion, with the kitchen in this condition, it would not sell for what it is worth.  So, we went and bought all new cupboards, countertop, and flooring. Oh, and a dishwasher.  That’s a certifiable luxury, but it helps that we bought it all on sale.  All of the supplies came in at about $2300.  There’s still a few odds and ends that we’ll need to purchase, but we should be able to keep it at about $2700 or less.

This weekend, my father is coming to town to help me install it all.  With any luck, come Monday, it will be mostly finished and usable.

If the plan works, we’ll still have about $800 or so left over.  And with that, we’re buying a couch.  And maybe a loveseat.  Depends on the sale I suppose.   This could be classified as a luxury that we don’t need if it weren’t for the hole in the one cushion, the rips in the spring lining that allows everything to fall between the cushions and disappear into the couch, and the stitching that is coming out at all the seams.  The couches that we are replacing are in dire need of it.  We got them free and have used them for several years.  The couches we had before that were hand me downs and garage sale finds.  It’s time for something new.  And, yes, we could go to garage sales and find new used stuff, but we’ve been saying that for at least a year and haven’t done it, so we’re going to splurge a bit.

When we’re done with all of that, we’ll go back to trying to pay everything off.  My wife’s new business is growing well (that’s another post), and her income is leveling off some, so we can more properly budget for debt repayment.  We’re leaps and bounds from where we were when we got married, and with any luck, 2011 will be the last year we spend with any real debt aside from a mortgage.

What are you doing with your refund?