The Virgin's Guide to Setting Up House

Just recently I was able to set up a new home; the first home Lizard Boy and I purchased together.  It is 1,098 square feet of Paid Cash, All Ours, and Bought Together.  There are still some walls that I would like to paint, and a hole in the bathroom that confirms the need for some remodeling.  But imperfect though it may be, it is completely ours - and complete.

Before this stage in my life, I would likely have gone overboard on the setting up side of home ownership.  Even now, I can’t help feeling we spent more money here and there than I would have, if here and there had been here and now.  Although we had the cash on hand at the time, I would prefer to have a little more cash in the savings account today.

Setting up your own home is an exciting time.  But it is easy to go overboard, especially when setting up your first home.  Big box stores like Ikea and Walmart cater to the idea that you can have a perfect home right now, without investing in high-end pieces.  But the pieces I have purchased from big box stores have virtually all gone over time, and I’ve come to realize the value of saving up for what I really want, instead of buying what I can “afford” right this second.

Here are some categories where you might be tempted to overspend when setting up house, but trust me: living small until you know what you really want is worth the wait in dollars and space.

Cookware - 14 pieces on sale for just $1,149.00!  While the idea of 10 matching pots and pans may get your juices flowing, the reality is you will find your favorite pot and favorite pan and the rest with gather dust in the cabinets.  Instead of buying the whole cow, look for one good frying pan and a multi-purpose pot that you can use the heck out of.  

Bakeware - I am not a baker.  I love baked goods, but the careful chemistry required to create delectable delicacies is simply not my piece of pie.  If you’re a big-time baker, you might need a few more cake pans than I do.  But if you’re just starting off on your own, opt for just a cookie sheet for now, and pick out the cake and pie pans as birthdays and holidays dictate.

Dinnerware - Consider investing in a few pieces bone china, which is sturdier and more versatile than plastic or ceramic, instead of a huge box setting for 24 people. Lizard Boy and I live with a 6-setting set and it hasn’t let us down in the year-and-a-half that we’ve been married.  However, a matching set of dinnerware does help nail down a sense of home, and also encourages you to eat in more during this financially crucial season.  I love our set from Red Vanilla, which was a wedding gift from our friends.  A great feature to this particular brand (with which I have no affiliation), is that you can purchase replacement items individually.  That way, if you break or lose a piece, you can replace it without having to replace the whole set.

Small Appliances - A good friend of mine is still storing a bread maker, pasta machine, and espresso factory in her guest bedroom.  This isn’t a storage sin, but the small appliances on her wedding registry don’t fit in the kitchen of the 2-bedroom apartment that she thought she was going to move out of almost 2 years ago, and still hasn’t.  Once you know a little more about your own cooking habits, you can invest in pieces you know you will benefit from (yes, I own a mid-quality rice cooker and love that thing).  In the meantime.  Get creative with your cooking pot for rice and a mixing bowl for bread.

Dining Furniture - If you’re like me, dreams of elegant dinner parties where crystal and silver shine from the white tablecloth dot your fantasies like flowers in a field.  I have to admit that ninety percent of the time we eat in front of the TV.  If growing up eating dinner with family around the table is a reality for you, I am not telling you not to continue that tradition.  But if you are like many of us, and don’t have dinner parties on a weekly basis, a small table and a couple of chairs, or even a couple of bar stools for the kitchen counter are the more economical way to free up space - and funds - for the young adult party.

Patio Sets - Like the dining suite, a patio set is only as valuable as the number of times you use it.  A couple of chairs are likely to see use, but unless you have a million-dollar ocean view, try making do without the $4,000 lounge set until your lifestyle requires it for company.  And, of course, until  you can pay cash for it.

Knick-Knacks - I’ve seen it too; the precisely “styled” rooms on DIY and HGTV.  And yes, they’re beautiful.  But consider that each item they add - basket, candle holder, and book - costs something and is placed there literally to look pretty.  Add onto it that each item needs to be dusted, and “styling” a room becomes much less appealing.  Instead of shopping for items to fill a space, let empty spaces breathe awhile and live empty.  As you collect memories and memorabilia, let those reminders of your life fill the spaces.  For now, use those spaces to dream, instead of filling them with a fantasy that may not come true.

Pieces Worth the Investment

There are a few things that I’ve learned are worth going ahead and investing in - if you have the cash on hand, of course.  Though these can be big-ticket items, they will have a bigger impact on your day-to-day living than most of the small pieces you will pick up throughout your adventuresome life:

Art - I can’t count the number of posters and prints I have "donated" to Goodwill in my lifetime.  My love of art mislead me to think pretty pictures mean a pretty home.  Since high school, my home has sported themes from nautical to mid-mod to minimalist.  With each change of theme has come a change of artwork, until I landed on the realization that, like beds and sofas, art does not have to match to look good together.  I now only purchase original art pieces, from oils to etchings, and only the pieces that I like regardless of subject matter make the cut. Yes, this means some of my walls are bare. But it means I get to save my pennies until the perfect piece comes my way.

Bed - I really recommend against purchasing an expensive bed frame at this point in your life.  Until you mature into a specific style, a headboard attached to a basic frame is much less costly and simpler to change as your tastes do. Also, if you are single now and get married, you may find that you have a very different style in mind than your spouse. (Cue entry of Lizardboy and his inexplicable affinity for Rustic Spanish style furniture.)  A quality mattress, however, will make all the difference in your rest and health.  The good news is, you don’t have to purchase a $3,000 mattress to sleep well. Mattresses, like computers, improve across the industry at a similar pace.  Make sure you test out a mattress before buying it, and plan to spend a long time lying in a public place. Or opt for a company that offers a 90 or 100-day trial period.

Sofa / Seating - A big heads up on sofas: while it may seem like a great idea to run out and buy a “cheap” sofa from a big box store “just for now,” cheap sofas really aren’t all that cheap, and the ones that are cheap turn out to be very uncomfortable.  Consider buying a used sofa for a hundred bucks or going without for a couple months to save up and buy one that is a) comfortable for your shape and size, b) sized appropriately for your home, c) a wood-frame quality piece that can be reupholstered as time and stains require.

Am I missing anything?  Let me know in the comments.

30 Days of No Spending

I don’t struggle with a lot of impulse shopping, outside of eating out.  My husband and I spent $1,000 on food in a 30-day period between November and December.  That’s 1/5 of my trip cost to Patagonia.  This isn’t about a long-term spending fast.  It’s about being more aware of how much I spend eating out specifically, and buying things in general.

No, Lizard Boy is not required to participate.

Rules:

1. No restaurants.  No fast food, no slow food, no drive-thru, no gas station food.  No eating out.  Period.
2. Shop for groceries when the pantry is empty.  No shopping for groceries because what I have doesn’t look as yummy as when I decided to buy it.
3. No new “necessities.”  We have enough socks, underwear, shirts, jackets, hats, etc.  We don’t need anything that isn’t consumable in January.
4. Practice gratitude.  Instead of fantasizing what it would be like to own something/go on a trip/give a gift, focus on being grateful for what I have, where I’ve been, and who is in my life.

Life After Debt: Part 1

“I wish I had a million dollars.  Hot dog!”  Adolescent George Bailey’s famous words have quite a different meaning today.  But I have always loved asking people what they would do if they won a million dollars.

The dreams we indulge in when money is no object to our fantasies tells us a lot about ourselves.  Most people talk about having fun, buying cars or mansions, and living it up when their ship sails in.

While daydreaming is a fun pastime, the reality of having all the money you need is surprisingly obtainable.  We are out of debt, including the house, and still have a higher-than-average income.  One of my husband’s bucket list items is setting foot on the continent of Antarctica - a dream I believe we will accomplish within the next five years, despite its $20,000-plus price tag for two.

My lotto list has changed from horses, a house, trips around the world, and houses for all my family members to something a little more modest.  I honestly have everything I need, and the only things I still want will come to me in time.  Today, my “million dollar lotto” list looks more like:

Pay taxes - $300,000

Donate 10% - $100,000

Invest in my and my husband’s retirement funds - $500,000

Move up in house - $100,000

I might add “adopt 20 cats”  and “buy Lizard Boy a gecko” to that list at some point.  The reality is, a million dollars is only useful as far as it can set you up for the future.

My idea of wealth has changed now that I have my needs covered and we no longer owe anyone a portion of our paychecks.  No, I’m not always as magnanimous as I am right now.  Sometimes I wish we had more.  But when I consider where we are versus where we’ve been I can’t help but feel grateful, and believe everything we truly want is within our reach.  Even without winning the lottery.

Minimalist Budget

Disclaimer: The key word here is budget.  “Spend ALL the monies!!!” does not qualify.

When I tried to engage my husband in budgeting in the past, he would get overwhelmed, increasingly more silent, and finally just frown at his hands.  Is it any wonder, when I was presenting him with this:

Yes, that’s a screen cap of my real budget.  It all makes perfect sense to me, but to a man whose idea of budgeting is “don’t drop below $1,000 in the bank account,” this financial bomb was enough to make his brain explode.

Understand that I revisit my budget on average 3-4 times a week.  I often fiddle with it, copying it into a new spreadsheet so I can play “what if” with our incomes, our savings, and even our various bills.  I actually enjoy doing this.  I'm a nerd.

But when it came to talking about money with my husband, all he heard was this:

Peanuts Characters and Comic Strip © Charles Schultz

I have despaired of my husband taking interest in our finances time and time again, but when I heard the idea of budgeting remaining dollars by percentage, something clicked.  Our bills are fairly stable, though they vary somewhat unpredictably between Summer and Winter.  So why not, for the sake of getting a picture my husband can actually understand, just make bills a single category?

The result looks like this:

Even I felt a sense of relief knowing that, suddenly, all I have to do is ask, “Do we want to save or spend more this month, or do you want to keep them each at 50%?”

I can still go into my spreadsheet and finick around all I want.  I can also expand the Bills tab to input the exact amount we’re spending on each item.

But when it comes to those big, monthly conversations, my husband can breathe an enormous sigh of relief and focus on the important part: What are we going to do for fun this month?

Breakdown

So here is the breakdown, and yes, it really is simple.

First: Make a list of  all your bills and their monthly amounts.  I found mine up to the nearest $5 to give myself a little wiggle room.  Your list might look like:

Rent/Mortgate: $1,000
Electricity: $200
Groceries: $250
Gas: $100
Etc.

Yes, I include food, cable, gasoline, pet care...everything that I know I need to spend to keep myself and my dependents alive during any given month.  Write down (or type out) the total of all your bills.

On our budget above, this comes out to $2057.55 because of a weird insurance bill that is static.  Yours might be $1,800, it might be $2,400, or it might be $250, if you're still in high school.  (Oh, how I miss the days when my only bills were car insurance and gasoline!)

Second: Subtract your bills from your total monthly expected income.  If you make $320 a month and  your bills are $250, that leaves you with $70.  If you make $4,000 a month and your bills are $2,500, that leaves you with $1,500.

Third: Assign your remaining funds.  Break them out into the categories of Give, Save, and Spend.  (Yes, you should always be doing all three of these.)  One month your Save might be bigger than  your spend, especially if you're saving up for something.  Another month, you might have more in your Give than in your Save category, if you make a larger than usual contribution to your church or charity.  The fun months are when you get to beef up that Spend category!

Moving Forward

Now that you have your bill total, you can use that number moving forward as your fourth, almost hidden category.  If you move to a new home, change your service provider, or notice a bill go up or down, you will want to recalculate your bills.  But if nothing major changes, you can let go of recalculating those numbers every month.

Essentially you can write your budget every month on 5 lines:

Income: _________

Bills:     _________
Give:     _________
Save:     _________
Spend:   _________

Knowing that your bill category is going to be a pretty consistent number in your budget lets you focus on the more important categories that help you engage in your community, reach goals, and have fun!