We Bought A Money Pit!
One year ago we bought a money pit, I mean a house in Oklahoma. We were so excited because we were starting our Fully Funded Lifestyle Change, I was quitting my job, and we were moving to the country! Well, we got the country alright. I sit outside and watch the birds at the bird feeder and in the trees around the backyard. I watch a pair of does come wandering thru the yard in the morning and evenings. They’re around so much the dogs have stopped barking and the doe wanders to the fence to check the dogs out. It’s hilarious! They’ve both figured out that even though their base instincts say “enemy!” they both know the fence keeps them safe. I caught a pygmy rattlesnake, and scared up a 5’ ratsnake that lives in a woodpile on the back corner of the property that I haven’t cleared yet. We have a hawk that likes to fly thru our yard in the afternoons and I saw it actually grab a mouse/vole idk, off the ground one day! It was awesome!
But none of that has cost us any money except for birdfood. It’s the “aaahhhhh” benefit of living out here. So what were we expecting with this house? It’s 16 years old, it had a 2 and 4 yr old AC and furnace respectively, 3 yr old roof that seemed to be in good enough shape. The home inspection report (what a scam industry) was pretty clean and didn’t note anything of significance. We had a home warranty for a year to cover anything major. How did we still manage to spend over $50,000 in the past year? With all of the following fixes and updates.
HVAC IS Spendy
Our HVAC started having problems from when we moved in. The units were 2 and 4 yrs old so we didn’t expect we’d have problems with them, but no. Hahahaha, no… First they couldn’t keep the house cooler than 83/84 for most of the day if it got above 93F outside – this sucked. I wrote a whole post about it, so I won’t belabor it, except to say we replaced them both for about $9,000 after also replacing an additional damper, a control unit, and currently we’re replacing another damper ($350) as I type this. I was SO tempted to just do this myself as I can get a newer Honeywell damper/actuator for $139 on Amazon and t’s a swap out, reseal, and rewire the 2 wires. Should be easy peasy right? Mrs SSC didn’t want to gamble that I’d mess it up and we’d still have to call out the repair guy.
While the cheaper AC guy has had his little setbacks like not swapping out the liquid gas nozzles for propane nozzles… I think this directly contributed to cracking the coil, so guess what, we got an even newer furnace with better design since our last one went in, lol. Even burning $500 worth of propane in 3 weeks cost way less than the other vendors though. Shopping around saved us a lot of money for the system we got and its been working well so far.
Carpet, Always with the Carpet
We knew the carpet would need to be replaced but thought we might get another year or so out of it. That approach has worked out well for the bonus room, but not so much downstairs. Mrs. SSC had crazy bad allergies and asthma since we moved in using her inhaler multiple times a day. We had the vents blown out/dusted/cleaned (~$600), I beefed up our HVAC filters, but nothing. We changed the carpet and almost immediately, her lungs got better. Yay! Big win for the health boost, but $5000 cost for the carpet. We also got a better inside air filter that has worked amazingly and clears our living room/dining room/kitchen open air once an hr at least ($600) and a smaller one for the master bedroom ($200).
So Much Land/Brush Clearing
We knew when we got this property it was wild, undeveloped and had been turned into the kind of property you’d find a body hidden on, or inspiration for a new Grimm’s Fairy Tale. I was gifted a brushcutter for my birthday, and it was a godsend! That thing has been amazing. My Echo chainsaw my FIL gave my about 9 years ago finally died… You can read about that here. It got replaced with a Stihl chainsaw with 18” bar ($400) and OMG that thing rocks!! With my old saw, I’ve gone thru 3 blades, 1 tune up kit, sharpener, and some other minor things ($120). I’ve cut down well over 100 trees since moving in. Some were big, >6” diameter, but most are less than 4” diameter and were just crowding each other out. The bigger trees were similar, where I’d take the ones that were crowding the more successful trees that probably grew there first or fastest, lol.
The hauling of the brush has been spendy, but not as bad as I expected. The first round was $1300 for the front yard and some other random stuff I’d gathered. The next was $1280 and then $2560. I’ve had 1 more haul off from my Cinco de Mayo cedar cutdown party, it was really just me cutting down six, 30’ tall cedars and stacking their limbs… That was $1280. I had that guy take out another 15 cedars, some were really big ones, and about 10-15 small overcrowded trees. That ended up at $3200 to get those cut and hauled off. After that, I’m down to maybe an acre or so left to clear. I’ve been able to mow all the spaces I’ve cleared, and yes, it’s mowing “forest” and not grass, but that’s okay. The cedar removal will open up more sunlight and I can put down some grass in the fall, similar to the front. Plus, I can let the native plants grow too and see what does better.
Except for that last round where the guy cut what he hauled away, I’ve done all the rest of the work of clearing myself. To have someone else do it is spendy, spendy, spendy. We’ve paid $8120 so far, just to have brush/trees hauled off. That stuff adds up for sure. Since the burn permits are so infrequent, I wasn’t able to burn as much as I wanted to and go the free route. Oh well.
Landscaping Is Never Cheap
We learned from our LA house that if we’re going to do improvements to the house, we should do them sooner than later. We did this in our Houston house and it worked well and we did the same with this house. The backyard was a red clay, mud pit and the dogs liked to run circles around the bush out there, and then the clay was getting tracked inside… Plus that bush blocked the view and made the backyard seem claustrophobic. With the green wall of doom gone, this should be a nice open view. We relocated the bush and had flagstone installed. It’s a way more inviting environment to slowly sip my coffee, but it was $9000 flat. Yipes!
Energy Efficiency
Last fall, Lowe’s had 30% off on insulation, so I spent $1300 to beef up what was already here. 24 bats worth of R-30 insulation. It only took about 3-4 days of crawling around to install it all, but man, it did a great job and cut out some of the hot and cold spots we dealt with last summer! The Master bedroom is no longer an oven, and the same with our guest room. I was expecting to have to add another attic vent over the Master bedroom to vent the trapped heat, but nope, it just needed insulation to block that heat. Shocking!
When summer hit, the astragal (the faceplate of French doors) on our back door broke. It split the wood core of that door. I repaired them and was making it nice and pretty but Mrs. SSC decided we should just replace them. Mainly because they have very low energy efficiency rating, they faded the wood in front of the door, and you can feel the heat or cold when you get within 2-3 feet of those doors. Since they’re 12 feet wide, that’s a lot of heat and cold coming and going and making us spend more money to combat it. Also, you can see daylight between the doors and under the doors in 3 places, even with me adding new weather stripping and trying my damnedest to plug those leaks up.
I don’t understand people that are FI and won’t spend money making their houses more energy efficient, but that’s not us! We opted for a 3 panel, minimal trim, high UV/energy efficient rating, sliding glass door. Bonus, it has a retractable screen so we can actually keep the door open for the breezes once spring and fall hit! It wasn’t cheap, at a cost of $7200, but paying all at once saved us $73, so yippee?
We also replaced our main 3 windows we know have similar heat/cold issues for $5900. Two of those windows are the largest windows we have in the house, and they have arches, so… yeah. Replacing two 3’x5’ arched windows is spendy! These windows are the bonus room window (2’x4’), the office window which feeds heat to the bonus room (it’s at the bottom of the stairs) and the dining room window, adjacent to the soon to be new sliding glass door. I solar filmed all the windows last summer early on, and it made a big difference, but man… That office window and bonus room window still give off heat like an oven. I’m excited to have it all installed in a couple of weeks.
For the door and windows, we went with Pella for 3 reasons (no affiliate link, lol). They make and install their own products, their warranties are badass, and their energy efficiency is amazing, even for their “low end” products. While it’s maybe not the cheapest route we could have gone for replacement of the door and windows I feel good about it because I know or expect I’ll be getting a good product, a big energy efficiency boost, and a great warranty on all of them.
Septic System and Water Softener
We have a sprinkler aerobic style system and have spent close to $700 over the last year rebuilding the aerator, among other things, and replacing sprinkler heads. All in all not too bad, but it seems like there’s always something with this system. The repair guy introduced himself with, well, a system this age, everything is going to start breaking down… Thanks for justifying your job, septic guy. Eyeroll…
Our water softener guy was a little better. He came out checked everything and said, “Yep, your brine pump is shot, your timer’s broken, and some other smaller things need tweaking. I can rebuild it all and have it running well for $350 or I can “band-aid” it for $75 and call me when it breaks again, your call.” We had him rebuild it and haven’t had any issues with that since last fall, so woohoo!
Electricity, Who Needs It
We had a breaker go out upstairs, but fortunately, it was one of the things covered in our home warranty. It was only $75 but there was no electricity for half of upstairs for a month. Yay, speedy home warranty repair service. Also, we had 3 outside outlets go out and I replaced them myself, easy peasy for only $90. I’ve also swapped out our entry light ($80) as the original was 80’s brass and rectangular glass pieces and was hideous. I did the same with the dining room light, and used an old chandelier from our Houston house. We swapped it out for a fan/light and kept it in the attic and now we use it here. Yeah, free!
More Yard Costs
Last but not least, how could I forget our fenced in yard and early on brush clearing. We paid $6k for a portion of our back yard to be fenced in prior to arrival and to do that, they needed to do some clearing to have room to install the fence. The clearing for the fence and fenced in area was $1500. I still spent ~10 hrs+ clearing it more once we got here, but that was the other big spend on the house before we got here. Grass seed ($200) gets expensive, but I should be done with what I have, at least for this year. Neighbors say you constantly put down grass seed, but it makes me think I need something more sustainable to live here, so we’ll see. We also bought a storage shed to make the garage more usable. It was a used shed we got for $3500, but still counts as spending.
Things NOT Updated
The Kitchen is still the big one. We bought a new fridge for $1800 (I will never buy any Whirlpool anything ever again, they’re dead to me), but the dishwasher is 17 yrs old, the oven, microwave, and cooktop are all same age/vintage, and that sink has got to go. It’s functional, but I miss my single basin non-white sink. The counters are formica, which Mrs. SSC was initially wanting to replace sooner than later, but that’s not happening for a while now. That will be spendy if we replace them all at once. Plus, with no bonuses anymore it may be a while before we decide it’s worth selling assets to replace. Carpet upstairs still needs to be replaced, but since its just the kids and I that use it, that will wait a while. We still want to paint some more of the rooms, but that can happen whenever.
Total Current House Spend:
HVAC: $9,850
Carpet: $6,400
Energy Efficiency: $14,400
Back Patio: $9,000
Electricity: $245
Water Softener: $350
Septic: $700
Woods Clearing: $11,640
Yard: $9,700
House Misc.: $2,800
Total: ~$65,085
Summary
Holy hell, that’s a lot of coin! When I started this post it was at $30k, and then I remembered a few more things and it went to $40k, then to $50k, and after replacing the door and windows we’re now at $65k for spending. Makes me a bit nauseous really when I think about it. Next post will talk about the house decisions and how that figure blew up so quickly. We had money earmarked for renovations, upgrades and whatnot, but we weren’t expecting half of that fund to disappear into HVAC since they were “new”, and/or replacing the back door and some windows. Yipes! Coincidentally, we’re on a no spend month for August! And September! And November, lol.
I hope your house isn’t eating up the cash nearly as quickly as ours. Have you been in a similar situation? Did it ever slow down?
EFI
July 11, 2019Thank you for the perfect read the day after I closed on the our house sale and became a renter. We loved our previous house, but our list was long and expensive too!
The good news is that it did slow down after the first year and getting things exactly to where we wanted them to be. We moved only because the house was too big for us (lifestyle inflation purchase) and had appreciated to the point that it made sense to cash out the equity. The good news is the appreciation covered the money we had poured into it early on.
I hope your house cooperated with your no spend months. Best of luck!
Mr SSC
July 16, 2019Thanks for the well wishes! It should slow down, and while we did account for a good chunk of Reno/updates, the undersized hvac chewed up a good portion of that. 🤷♂️ Could be worse, I could still be in Houston, lol. Congrats on your sale!
Mr.CED
July 11, 2019Wow you have been busy, and the wall of doom is no more! The backyard looks beautiful now.
I know you roughly knew the quantum of work required to fix up the house to the standard you wanted, but there will always be surprises. Since you have gone ahead and put in the hard work & money, those repairs and upgrades hopefully shouldn’t cause any more grief for a good many years to come?
When we bought our not-so-old home, we priced into the offer price the cost of replacing the heating system. That was the only thing that was near the end of its expected life. Even so, when it failed shortly after me moved in, we found out later that the gas boiler installed by the property developer a decade ago was undersized. So we had to go for a more expensive system than we planned for. Later when we upgraded the bathrooms we had some more surprises and additional costs that would have never shown up in a home inspection report. But we are glad we did all that work, because our home is now rented out. The peace of mind that those repairs and upgrades give us when we are halfway across the world alone is worth the cost (even though we have a property manager so we only need to worry about paying for repairs).
Mr SSC
July 16, 2019Thanks, like the Beatles say, it’s getting better all the time. 😁 like your situation, we planned for a chunk of the upgrades but it’s those surprises like undersized major systems that throw a wrench into things. We knew the carpet would need replacing we just hoped it would be later and the brush was expected, we just hoped it would be a bit less and now can slow down since I got the truck. Good luck with your house and here’s hoping it all slows down.
Gwen @ Fiery Millennials
July 11, 2019Oof. Have you seen the movie “Money Pit”? I could never watch it as I was living that experience. In my experience, it never ends. Because even if you aren’t actively spending money on things, you still need to save and have money ready for when things do break. Have I mentioned lately how much I enjoy renting???
Mr SSC
July 16, 2019Yes! I thought about putting a meme or pic from it but… 🤷♂️ Lazy. 🤣 yep, it’s nice knowing what your monthly expense will be, every month.
mrwow
July 11, 2019sounds fun! Blah…
Mr SSC
July 16, 2019The brush clearing has been fun, at least for me. The rest of it… blah…
Arlyn
July 11, 2019Living in a tent sounds better and better.
Mr SSC
July 16, 2019I’ve got a nice clearing you could pitch your tent in. 🤣 It’s looking like it has more and more advantages, that’s for sure.
Adam @ Brewing FIRE
July 12, 2019Ouch! I was actually planning to write about the cost of home maintenance because we’ve had a series of unfortunate events at our home recently. Your issues blow mine out of the water! Hopefully you’ll reach homeostasis soon, and be able to enjoy the place.
Mr SSC
July 16, 2019You should still write your post. Every home and situation is different and I’m sure yours would resonate with people too. I definitely enjoy the place, and hadn’t exactly added up all the expenses unti now. And even then there’s a few hundred or more of stuff for toilets, sinks, gaskets, longer yard hoses, sprinkler, axe, blah, blah, blah… 🤣
Dave @ Accidental FIRE
July 12, 2019That’s a lot of coin, but your place looks pretty sweet man. The view from that patio looks awesome. The older I get the more appealing country living is becoming to me. Right now I’m in a mix between urban and rural, but not classic suburban which I cannot stand. I think I just need to buy a cabin out in the woods to satisfy my hankering
Mr SSC
July 16, 2019Thanks man! It’s gotten way more inviting after working the yard pretty hard last year. “Yard”, lol. It’s sweet because we’re in a neighborhood with 5-6 families with kids same age and everyone is on 2 acre plots so we get perks of neighbors without seeing them from the backyard or even front yard in most cases. Like you, I couldn’t stand suburbs. Sitting in back porch and seeing 8 other backyards…🤮 Its a great mix of solitude and being close to a city.
5am Joel
July 12, 2019Wow dude. A true money pit!
Great looking porch though! I have my coffee outside most mornings and wouldn’t trade that experience for a million bucks. 65k is a bargain if you think about it.
Mr SSC
July 16, 2019I totally agree! It’s nice having coffee outside and watching the birds, the deer, and whatever else is back there.
It’s been a money suck, I still have close to an acre to clear, but personally, I’d buy that house again. I would just have a different attitude and work harder to reduce the costs we can. In the end, it’s just money and using it to have a great place to live and enjoyable experience is what it’s there for right? 😁🤷♂️
The Frug
July 12, 2019Looks like your making amazing progress. At least you’re not in an HCOL area and can save in other ways. Now you can slow down a bit enjoy your home.
Mr SSC
July 16, 2019Thanks! Yep, being in a LCOL area helps out tremendously. I’ve been enjoying it more and more since we moved there, so…. that’s what moneys for right, to make your life more enjoyable?
Revanche @ A Gai Shan Life
July 12, 2019We did a TON of work upfront (through contractors though because neither of us are FI) and I am really glad we did but the numbers were astonishingly high in a really short amount of time. We had to just not do a darn thing for a year after we moved it because we’d spent so much money. We’re slowly starting up again but I am aiming to keep it to under $10k in house stuff per year. If our water heater can please hang in there for a few more years, that would be great because we just paid $14k for all new ducts and a furnace, and I need to not blow our average out of the water immediately. Of course our backyard has become a dangerous jungle again.
Are you planning to leave any trees or are you trying to eventually clear the whole forest?
Mr SSC
July 16, 2019It is crazy how quickly that stuff adds up. Anything I can do I have been, but some things, HVAC, I can’t tackle because I am not that handy or knowledgeable. So… the property was heavily wooded and overgrown so there were a lot of trees growing next to each other, or crowding each other out and end up with 1 tree growing limbs on 1 side only or like a stand of cedars I haven’t gotten to get. They are so thick there are literally dead cedars standing straight up because they didn’t grow quickly enough and died in place.😢 The rest of the trees ive been cutting are the big cedars that are essentially crowding out oaks or other hardwood trees, like I mentioned above.
I don’t want it to lose the woodsy feel and will end up similar to the pic of the front yard. There used to be 4x as many trees there but not in a healthy sense. So I’ve been studying which to take and leave so that they can all stay healthy and not crowd each other. I don’t plan on putting grass everywhere because, it’s not sustainable, I don’t want to water all of it during the summer and the native stuff that comes up stays short, lives well (native) and looks good in my opinion. I’m just putting some rye grass down where the bobcat turned the native stuff to dirt tracks. This stuff eroded quickly, so, erosion control for now, but not grass permanently.
Hopefully that answers your question, but yeah, I don’t want to pave paradise and put up a parking lot of grass, if that’s what you’re asking. There were just SO many trees… and vines, and half fallen trees held up by vines and dead trees held up by other dead trees and…
Kate
July 12, 2019Oh, that is so tough! We bought a beautifully maintained home (even by my husband’s standards, and he is *super* picky) and we’ve still found like $20K worth of ~stuff~ to do to it to bring it to where we want it (new windows! the water heater is too damn small for a family of 4! the list goes on). I’m sorry it’s such a money suck – but having a *home* can be so important. We were renters for a while and it just was not a good fit for us.
Mr SSC
July 16, 2019I agree whole heartedly! Nothing beats a home and it’s hard to feel that while renting. At least for me because they could always sell, raise the rent, whatever.
It’s funny how even the best maintained homes still have issues. Our last house, was maintained well, and we still had some things to do. Fortunately, we didn’t have to replace both water heaters. We were literally like, “make it thru the sale, make it thru the sale, make it thru the sale…” not that they were acting up but they were 16 yrs old, so… We replaced one ac unit and saying the same mantra for the other one. 😁 At least this house has a tankless water heater which so far has been awesome. Sure it burns gas, but I didn’t realize how much I’d enjoy it. Good luck with your house, and getting your windows.😁👍
Frogdancer Jones
July 13, 2019I’m planning on pulling the pin on the job in the next 2 or 3 years so I want to get all of the expensive home renovations out of the way before I leave. I like the idea of cash-flowing these things.
So far this year I’ve spent $8,500 on security screens, $9,000 on a continuous gas HWS when our old one suddenly died (thank you Emergency Fund!!) and I’m getting quotes for a verandah rook over the paved area in the back yard. Looks like that’ll cost around $25,000.
That was after spending $50,000 on landscaping last year.
I still want to remodel my ensuite and get better kitchen appliances, fix my electric gate and maybe get a new front fence… heh heh. Maybe I’ll be retiring when I’m 106 at this rate!!!
Mr SSC
July 16, 2019Whoa! That’s spending some coin, but with income it doesn’t hurt nearly as much. Having my job remote for 3 months helped with the early expenses because we were able to cash flow a chunk of that, Whew… But the HVAC ate up a month of that income and then the carpet, and brush hauling because my Jetta isn’t so good at that.🤣 Add in the back patio and bye bye cash flow. 😢 good luck with your plans and getting your updates done prior to pulling the pin on work. And even more good luck wishes with hitting that point sooner than later. 🤞👍
Kate
July 14, 2019Yikes, that’s a pricey first year in your house! I hate it when stuff that’s supposed to be newer ends up kicking the bucket early, throwing off your plans.
So far (knock on wood), our house is okay. It’s been less than 3 weeks since we moved back, though! Our mantra is “only fix what’s absolutely necessary” for the foreseeable future, what with our work being sort of up in the air. Somebody involved in our carpet replacement last fall was involved in the mysterious disappearance of our washer/dryer, so we’re having to replace those. We found a new dryer at Bargain Hunt for $200, so not too bad there. Still looking for a used or like-new washer on FB marketplace and that type of thing. It’s fun hand-washing clothes like we’re in the 1800s or something:) It sucks because what got stolen was brand-new.
Other than that, Mr. COD did a fix on our patio screens, which somehow had three or four huge holes in them when we came back on spring break. He got some extra screening and put up some wire fencing around the lower half so it’s safer, but also opens up our view to the yard. He just finished that yesterday and it cost maybe $50 for the materials, plus looks way better–yay! Now to cross our fingers that nothing urgent happens with the house for a long time! Kitchen appliances are gross and old, but functional, so we’ll keep those going for as long as possible.
Love the landscaping you’ve done so far; it looks like a beautiful place to be!
Mr SSC
July 16, 2019Thanks, it is beautiful and once I get the logs hauled out of there, for free by our landscaper and neighbors, lol, it will look even better. That sucks about your washer and dryer, I hate when people take advantage of a situation even when it’s just stealing…
I’ve been putting off screen repair, pretty much everyone had holes somewhere and then spiders and bugs try to live between the screen and the window. 🙄😳 Fortunately, ill have 3 new ones in a couple more weeks, lol.And I’m excited for fall to use the screen door on our new back foot which gets installed next week. Like your, replace only what’s absolutely necessary, we’ve hit that same mode. Ok, we’ve been in that mode but I’ve got some hacks for further expenses, so we’ll see how that goes. Good luck in your job situations. Hope they work out well for you guys!
Spontaneous_Planner
July 15, 2019We’d lived for less than a year on our 2 acres when a tornado knocked down dozens of trees & convinced us it was time to splurge for the Stihl chainsaw. Best decision ever.
If you are willing to go to the effort of burning why not haul your own brush to the local compost facility? If you cut it up to their specs it should be free to deposit.
Mr SSC
July 16, 2019Well… initially I had a Jetta, which doesn’t haul anything well, lol. Even after I had the truck the requirements for the compost facility is nothing over 4’, easy enough to do, and less than 4” diameter… womp, womp… Early on when I was gathering brush and cutting trees, I separated it into piles of stuff I could take there and stuff that’s too big. Then I had piles of thorn vines and grape vines that didn’t quite fit into that category. Then, the sheer amount of logs from old blown down trees, half standing trees, and trees covered by vines that were dead standing, id have to figure a way to get the, hauled to the dump or somewhere.
When I was talking to Mrs. SSC about that option, we knew we’d be left with the logs we’d still need to haul somewhere or burn and we decided to just get it hauled off. One of the first big bills, but omg, the immediate change was amazing. Since then, I’ve found out that they aren’t as strict as the website says, this came from someone that cleared 5 acres themselves like I am doing. So moving forward, I have been doing that where I can. Plus I have neighbors that want the logs, so I now have free log disposal, except, I now am shopping Alaskan lumber mills to cut down and use some of those big logs, and have lots of pics of ideas for the small stuff. Basically, if it’s not rotten, I’ve got uses for anything that’s getting cut from here on out. Yay!!
Also, I don’t find burning to be a pain, and way easier than making multiple trips to the compost facility. Since I already stack stuff as I go, I literally just make my pile smaller, clear around it and light it. This last one I ran out of stuff to feed it halfway thru the day because well, everything was already cut and stacked, and I drug out some of the downed trees nearby, but there wasn’t too much of that near that burn pile. I knew I was getting too hot when I sat down to take a break and watch the fire and got chilly and it was in the upper 80’s… that’s the biggest hangup just staying cool and not getting overheated. Slow and steady helps there. 😁👍