One-Time Expenses

A couple of days ago, my friend and I were talking about many things. One of these things included a comment about one-time expenses and how there seems to be one every month. I decided to analyze my one-time expenses over the past year and see what I can learn about my budget (as informal as it is). So:

• December: Living room TV: ~$800, second 24" monitor: ~$300.
• January: Video games: ~$100. Not too bad...
• February: Ladder to fix the roof: ~200, paying some guy to fix the roof: ~$60.
• March: No big expenses. Go me!
• April: Nothing again!
• May: Fiona died, and I took Apple in to get tests and shots: $130.
• June: Adopted Mac & Cheese: ~$100, initial vet visit for Mac & Cheese: $110
• July: Apple's eye infection: ~$50, Mac & Cheese declawed: ~$260, new tennis racquets: ~$230, video games: ~$100.
• August: I did good again!
• September: Video games: ~$75, miscellaneous family expenses: ~$200.
• October: File server parts & digital camera: ~$400.
• November: Planned car repairs: ~$400

This puts me at just about $300 per month for one-time expenses. I also want to get a new bed at some point, a storm door for the front, a new car eventually, and probably a few other things I have forgotten about while compiling the above list. The storm door will improve the heating/cooling efficiency of the house. The bed, at least, will likely be purchased at Nebraska Furniture Mart (can you believe I used to be anti-NFM at one point?) and therefore be spread out over the following 24-30 months...

I think the video games will also be a less frequent expense for awhile, since a lot of the video game purchases were large packs of games, and should keep me busy for quite a long time, really. There are still at least 10-20 games I haven't even installed/tried. I really hope my pet expenses (one-time, that is - food and litter are frequent purchases) are very low going forward. Regular check-ups only, please! My file server is running much smoother now (see future post), so that will hopefully truly be a one-time expense for the year or more. I remember justifying my living room TV as roommate retention. It's at least getting use. Some car repairs are definitely necessary - I worry about every strange noise I hear when I drive right now, which is not pleasant at all.

...I think what I learned is that even after compiling a list of one-time expenses while expecting a ridiculously high total, I still went into justification-mode after seeing it. I do keep my regular expenses fairly low, and I'm not at all worried about my cash flow. As I discussed previously, I save $200 each month, and that's after maxing out my 401(k) and Roth IRA contributions every year. I save a lot of money each year, and have multiple layers of financial cushions should I ever need to cut back on expenses. However, even if it's not strictly necessary, I think an occasional analysis of spending patterns is helpful.

Update: Speaking of Nebraska Furniture Mart, I forgot about my living room couch. It was purchased on my NFM card, though, and I technically haven't started paying that off yet - I'm still working on my dining room furniture. Or maybe it is my downstairs TV. I love 0% interest! Also, I think it important to mention my new furnace, since it was almost a full year's worth of one-time expenses by itself. Things happen.

One year

I've been in my house for a full year now. I officially bought my house on April 30, 2007. The anniversary went by only vaguely recognized until today. I don't have any deep thoughts regarding homeownership, but I figured I might as well recap what I've learned about it in roughly 366 days (leap year!).

• Maintenance expenses can be higher that you think. There is insurance, lawn care, pest control, utility bills, and property taxes.
• Furnishing a house can be expensive. After a year of payments, even, I'm still ~$5000 in debt to Nebraska Furniture Mart (thankfully at 0% interest).
• When you opt not to escrow your insurance and property tax payments, they can catch you by surprise.
• Living in a house is more fun when someone else is around, too.
• Mowing the lawn sucks, even when it's your own lawn.

I had more, but I forgot about this post until now. Add to it in comments!

Dining room art

I've been shopping for the past week or so for artwork and/or a mirror to go over the dining room buffet/sidebar. Carrie has expressed annoyance at my selection of stuff so far, so hopefully whatever I get will break that trend. Her mom tells her she will bring some of her father's old paintings the next time she visits, too. I'm interested to see what they are like.

But, so far I have found a couple paintings and a mirror that could work. One place has a buy-one-get-one-half-off sale going through the end of January. I'm only really interested in one painting, there, but my brother has found another one or two that he says would have a place in my house no matter what. I do have plenty of basement walls to fill eventually, after all.

It's been an interesting process. I've had to develop my tastes all in the last year, for the most part. It really has been one fairly major decision after the next. Once I bought the house, I had to pick out a refrigerator. Then I had to get a washer/dryer set. Later I had to get a kitchen table. Then I had to pick out a TV. I made sure my house had room for a ping pong table when I bought it, so then I had to pick out a ping pong table. Most recently, I had to pick dining room furniture. I thought I was done for awhile, but I now apparently need artwork.

So, I've been gathering opinions and analyzing my personality. I don't think most people are as intellectual about it as I am. I feel more like a dream interpreter than anything. Where most people would say "I like that," I look at it and make up a symbolism matching my personality. "The frame is simple, which goes along with my practical nature." I do recognize that there are colors, shapes, and overall styles that I don't particularly care for, though, which is a major step for me. Still, there doesn't seem to be anything that represents the side of my personality that largely doesn't care and that can live with pretty much anything, or nothing, on the walls.

Yet to be decided: my new set of clothes for the next few years. The decisions never end.

New Dining Room Furniture

My dining room furniture has arrived, so I thought I'd share a couple pictures for no particular reason.

Table and Sidebar from the front entryway (and Fiona).

China hutch thing from entryway.

As you can see in the second picture, there's not a whole lot of extra room between the end chair and the china hutch thing. I'd like to put the leaf in the table, but in order to have workable room on both ends the table couldn't be centered, and I'm not sure how good that would look on a day to day basis.

Dining Room Set

I went to Nebraska Furniture Mart with my mother and my little brother, Jake. I decided to take advantage of their 30 months of 0% interest financing and fill up my dining room, finally. We walked the floor for about an hour with a sales lady before setting in on 4 sets. They weren't all next to each other, so it was a long process of taking a mental picture of one and then running over to compare it to another. I'm sure that sales lady loved us.

I found pictures of things online!

My table and china hutch thing!
My sidebar/buffet/server! (The chair shown in this picture is like mine - the wooden back.)

It's exciting, most definitely. And surprisingly expensive. I had priced tables before, but I hadn't counted on having to buy two extra chairs for when the leaf is in (always for a lazy bum like myself), a sidebar/buffet/server, and a china hutch thing. I understand that it's necessary to fill the room with something, and that these things probably have an actual purpose, but I hadn't considered them until my style consultant (my mother) said I needed them.

Mortgage payment

I mailed off my first mortgage payment yesterday. Assuming it arrives on time, I will be almost $300 closer to being debt free. Hey, that's more than 0.1% of my debt!

I've really spent a lot of money over the past month. I bought a house, refrigerator, washer, dryer, kitchen table, 6 chairs, a TV stand, a 65" TV, and 4 bar stools. And that's just from Nebraska Furniture Mart! The problem, though, is that I'm slightly cash poor right now. Not severely so, but enough that I feel nervous about investing any more of it right now.

I wish I could remember all the things I've been meaning to write down.