May’s Numbers

As of June 2, 2015, we are $303,906.25 in debt with a mortgage.  We currently have $878,311.15 in assets.  Our investment accounts are at $473,403.15. Our Net Worth is $574,404.90, down from $577,265.80, last month (0.50% decrease).

The cash has been flowing out paying for new items – we discovered how much we depended on the built-in storage in our old house. We ended up buying several IKEA bookcases and Kallax storage units along with industrial shelving from Costco for the basement. We are, however, almost done unpacking the two main floors of the house. We still have the guest bedroom to completely unpack, and a lot of pictures sitting around waiting for us to decide what wall to put them on. We’re missing a few things, but since I counted all of the boxes coming off the truck, it’s got to be in the house/basement/garage somewhere.

The builder’s subcontractor for media didn’t wire the HDMI connections to the TV mounting place properly, and I haven’t been able to get a hold of them (via phone or e-mail) to work with them to resolve the issue, so I’ve reported them to the BBB and Angie’s List, and may get some traction. They also didn’t wire one of our networking runs properly – it should have been in conduit, so not so easy for us to remedy. I’m going to fix the TV run – it’s nominally in conduit, but we can’t get an electrician’s fisher wire down through it, so there’s no way to get an HDMI cable back through it – I have to destroy drywall in our brand new house. I’m not concerned, I can do it with about a 2″ square hole – but Dad is not happy about me having to do it. I don’t want to have to do it either – but I want my TV off the floor more than I want to wait to fight it out with the subcontractor. At least all of our networking runs are working, even if they’re either not in conduit, or might as well not be in conduit because we can’t pull the blanks through. Next step is considering small claims court – we’re talking $1800 for the entire job, which they sort of did.

We’ve gotten our first electric and gas bills. We pay $16.78 for the privilege of having gas service to the house, whether we use it or not. They didn’t charge us a connection fee. Since the only things in our house that use gas are our fireplace and furnace, I’m wondering if it makes sense to just shut our gas off for the summer months and save at least $50 (June, July, August). I need to call and see if they charge a disconnection fee to determine if it makes sense. Our electric bill was about $45, *much* nicer than the minimum $150 we had at our old house in VA. Granted, it was pretty cool this month, so we didn’t run the A/C as much as we might have, so I want to wait and see what this summer’s bills are. We’re considering a solar system, but I need to know what our electric bills and usage are to determine what the ROI will be and if it makes sense – our roof has almost perfect solar exposure all day long, with no shade (but Pittsburgh has a lot of overcast days).

We’re making progress on the car loan, we might have to buy a new car to replace Dad’s, so we think we’re going to continue paying the $500/mth on the (0%) loan and save up for a hefty down payment (or possibly a full payment) on a new car – inspection is due by the end of July, and we’ve got an SRS light on that we need to get looked at, otherwise, it’s not going to pass inspection. The car we’re looking at is advertising a 0% loan incentive, and if the fix for Dad’s car is more than $1500, we’re likely going to apply that towards a down payment instead. We borrowed an OBDII reader from a friend, but we haven’t plugged it in yet to see what the problem is.

Debt (in the order we’re paying it down):

• Car loan (0%): $11,000 (-500.00)
• Mortgage (3.875%): $292,906.25 (-477.75)

Total paid off in May:  $977.75