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Hunting Trip Stress
Vegans and hippies won’t enjoy this post.
Friday, I went to a cabin in the woods for a weekend hunting trip with my dad, my brother, and a few other people.
My wife didn’t think it’s a good idea. In fact, she was terrified that I’d walk into the woods and come out in a body bag.
Statistically, it’s safe. Out of 12.5 million hunters, there are only around 100 fatal hunting accidents every year. I think I went hunting for the first time when I was 12, and continued to do so until I was 17, then life started interfering.
That doesn’t matter. By definition phobias aren’t rational. She’s worried and stressing hard.
If she’s had such a hard time with it, why did I go?
First, I asked her six months ago if she’d be all right with the trip. I knew she had some phobias, and have–in fact–tried to make the trip before. Six months ago, she said yes. It was a bit late to back out after I’ve committed to a share of the cabin, bought the bright orange gear, and agreed to drive my brother.
The second reason was more important.
This is one of the few things my dad and I both enjoy. I’m a geek, he’s not. I dig horror and sci-fi, he’s into westerns.
But we both enjoy hunting. The first time he treated me like an adult was the first year we went hunting together, 15 years ago.
My dad taught me to be the man I am. Without him, I have no idea who I’d be or what I’d be doing. My integrity, my work ethic, and my moral code can all be traced to the things he taught me.
This is my chance to spend time with him and have a good time with no TV or whiny kids interfering.
Trading this for a few days of stress at home is something I’m willing to do.
Becoming a Landlord
For those of you just tuning in, my mother-in-law died in April.
Since then, we’ve spent nearly every available moment at our inherited house, digging out and cleaning up.
My mother-in-law was a compulsive hoarder. I’m not going to get into the details of her compulsion, but we have–so far–filled a 30 yard dumpster. For perspective, that’s big enough to fit our Ford F150.
Now that the house is approaching the point where we can begin updating and remodeling, I’ve been looking into the requirements to rent it out.
In my city, I need to get a business license that costs $95 per year. This comes with a requirement to allow the city to inspect the property every two years.
Before they will issue the license, I have to take an 8 hour Minnesota Crime Free Multi-Housing Program class that covers tenant screening, lease addendum, evictions, and “etcetera”, followed by a physical audit of the property to ensure minimum security standards.
The lease addendum basically reads “If you are loud, obnoxious, threatening, criminal, intimidating, or doing/dealing drugs, you will be evicted.”
The actual costs to become a landlord are going to be:
- Something under $100 for my wife and I to take the landlord class. The price varies from free to $40, depending on the hosting city.
- $95 per year for the privilege of using our private property to conduct a private transaction with a private individual.
- The remodel. I don’t know what this is going to cost, yet. There’s an unfinished bathroom in the unfinished basement. I’d like to finish both of those, though the basement will never hold a 3rd bedroom, due to code. The entire house need to be painted and have the trim replaced. The dining room and hallway have hardwood floors, hiding under linoleum that was never properly put down. We may need new windows.
If possible, I’d like to keep the project under $20,000. Since we’re not adding a 3rd bedroom, or tearing out the kitchen cabinets, it should be possible.
In the meantime, expect to see a bunch of remodeling and renting related posts coming up.
Expensive Cheese
Saturday morning, I woke up to a room-temperature refrigerator. I dislike drinking milk that’s 40 degrees warmer than I’m used to.
We called the repairman who showed up at 9PM and poked around in the fridge for a bit before announcing that he didn’t have the needed parts in his truck.
The parts came Monday. The next repairman got there Tuesday afternoon. For those of you keeping track at home, that’s nearly 4 days without a refrigerator.
That poor bacon.
Tuesday’s repairman didn’t think highly of Saturday’s. Apparently, the two parts Saturday ordered never go bad at the same time, so he was guessing.
He also didn’t notice the slice of individually wrapped American cheese that had slipped between a shelf and one of the cold-air vents, preventing any air flow at all.
Grr.
I wish I would have noticed that on Saturday. I now own the most expensive cheese in the world. It’s not Pule, which comes in at $616 per pound. This lowly slice of American cheese cost me nearly $200. At one ounce per slice, that’s $3200 per pound. Of course, I’m counting the lost food. My hamburger, eggs, bacon, milk, and mayonnaise are gone, along with every other perishable bit of food we had on hand.
I don’t know how much the repairs cost. Saturday’s visit, minus the parts, was billed at $95. I didn’t see the total for Tuesday’s visit.
We pay for a repair plan through our gas company. For around $15 per month, we get a list of appliances protected. We don’t have to worry about our washer, dryer, water softener, stove, refrigerator, or our sewer main. Assuming Tuesday’s visit was billed the same as Saturday’s, this one repair paid for the plan for an entire year. When you count our sewer main–which backs up with tree roots once a year and costs at least $200 to fix–the repair plan is definitely worth it for us.
When we get tenants in my mother-in-law’s house, we’ll have the repair plan set up there, too.
Do you use any kind of repair plan? How is it working out for you?
More Debt
Even though we just paid off our credit cards in August and have started competing to pay off our mortgage, we opened a new debt account on Monday.
We’ve been shopping for a new(to us) car for a while. Simply put, we’ve outgrown our current vehicles.
As I said last week, these are our needs:
- We have 5 people in our family. My 13-year-old son is bordering on 6 feet tall and shows no sign of not growing.
- Every weekend, we have at least 1 extra kid, sometimes 2.
- We still have a giant(24 foot) boat that we won’t be selling until spring.
- My wife wants to lease a couple of ponies next summer, which will mean a horse trailer to haul them in.
We were looking for a GMC Acadia, which would meet our needs, but after talking to my brother–an Acadia owner–and the dealer, we decided it wouldn’t be the best fit. It would be marginal for towing the horses and the back row of the older models isn’t as roomy as the new one I sat in.
Saturday, we went to test drive an Acadia, which is where we had the conversation with the dealership. We ended up test-driving a Chevy Tahoe instead of the Acadia. With the options and mileage, it bluebooks for $27531, but they were using it as an online price leader and had it priced at $25000. Maybe I missed something, but the thing ran well, handled great, and the engine sounded good. As a way to get people on the lot, it worked.
Our plan was to put $5000 down, and see about trading in our Dodge Caliber and Ford F150. We brought the Caliber with us. Its bluebook value is $9,969. They offered us $5500, so we went home.
Sunday, we decided to sell the car and truck ourselves. We texted the salesman and offered $24,500. He accepted, we got a new truck that will fit our family and our needs.
With taxes, fees, and our down payment, we now have a car loan for $21564. Our plan is to sell the Caliber for $9500 and the F150 for $6800. That will leave $5354. We have a beneficiary IRA that has to be cashed out relatively soon, so we’re planning to do that early in January to push the tax burden to next year, which will end the loan.
Effectively, we’re paying about $300 in interest to give us a chance to move our assets around to take advantage of an SUV meeting our needs for $3000 under blue book. Yes, we could have waited until the assets were ready, but this truck wouldn’t have been there, so we jumped on it.
Charity is Selfish
I try to give 10% of my income to charity. I don’t succeed every year, but I do try.
I don’t give because I’m generous. I give because I’m selfish.
If you give to charity, you are too.
I’m not talking about people who give to charity strictly for the tax deduction, though that is selfish too. I’m referring specifically to the people who give to charity out of the goodness of their hearts.
If I give a thousand dollars worth of clothes to a homeless shelter, I get a warm fuzzy feeling knowing that I helped people stay warm.
If I send $100 to the Red Cross for whatever terrible disaster happened shortly before I made the donation, it makes me feel good to have contributed to saving those lives.
The put-the-inner-city-kids-on-a-horse thing we do? Makes me happy to get those kids into a positive situation.
Donating blood? Yay, me! I’m saving lives!
While it’s nice to help other people, that’s not the ultimate reason I’m doing it. I do it because it makes me feel good about myself to help other people, particularly people who–for whatever reason–can’t help themselves.
That’s the basis of altruism. It’s not about helping others, it’s about feeling good about helping others.
The truly selfish, the evil dogooders, are the ones who want to raise taxes to give it away as “charity”. They get to feel like they are doing something and helping others while not actually contributing themselves and, at the same time, stealing that warm fuzzy feeling from the people who are providing the money to start with.
Evil.
Charity has to be done at a personal, local level or the benefits to the giver are eliminated while the benefits to the receiver are lessened. Bureaucracy doesn’t create efficiency.
For the record, if it’s taken by force, by tax, it isn’t charity. Charity cannot be forced. Forcing charity is, at best, a fraudulent way for petty politicians, bureaucrats, lobbyists, and activists to feel they have power over others.
Again, evil.
