Andy Hough

Moved into My New House

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I’ve now been living in my (really my mom’s) new house for a little over a week. The house buying process was not without a few bumps in the road. We’ll be dealing with some of those bumps for a while.

Just three days before the original closing date the mortgage company did my employment verification and since I wasn’t employed with my employer at that time, my name had to be taken off the mortgage and closing was pushed back a week. That was a bummer for me. I ended up being rehired just one day after closing. The timing didn’t quite work out for me there.

We will add my name to the title once the mortgage has been paid off. Alternatively, we’ll add my name to the title if we’re able to refinance and add my name to the mortgage. It seems unlikely that a refinance will make sense though. We have a 3.375% APR. We were told we didn’t qualify for a lower interest rate due to the small ($50k) size of the mortgage. The small mortgage means it probably won’t be worth paying the required fees to refinance the mortgage.

Although my name isn’t on the mortgage I will be paying it. The payments are only $357 a month for 15 years which makes it cheap rent for me. We hope to have the mortgage paid off well before the 15 years are up. My mom will be paying the property taxes and insurance which are a little less than $175 a month. My mom volunteered to also pay the utilities if I match that payment with an extra mortgage payment.

The house looks pretty nice from the front. However, when we moved in the inside was filthy and the backyard was a mess and full of junk. It was in the purchase contract that the seller had to remove the junk in the backyard, but he just didn’t do it. He also refused to make a financial concession for failing to fulfill his contractual duty to clear the back yard. The realtors didn’t want to lose the sale and they hired and paid for a cleaning lady to do a quick clean of the house and for someone to haul off the junk from the back yard. That improved things a lot, but we still had a lot of work to do to get things to what we consider an acceptable level. We’ll have projects for months to get things how we would like them.

For now buying the house gives me a permanent home and cheap rent. Sometime in the future it will provide me with a bit of a financial windfall. Even with the bumps in the road I think buying the house with my mom was a good idea and will benefit both of us.

June Income – $4155.97

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Here is a breakdown of my income for June.

Interest$13.53
Amazon FBA$45.24
Unemployment$3680
AZ Merch$2.21
Brokerage Bonus$281
Dividends$10.69
Dietbet$23.30
Natty Light Promo$100
Total$4155.97

My income for June was very good considering I was unemployed the entire month. .

My Amazon FBA side hustle made a profit for a second month in a row. I’ll try to make that three months in a row.

Dividend income came in at $10.69. If you sign up using my Robinhood referral link we will both get one share of free stock. Thanks to anyone who signs up using my link. Every little bit helps.

I made $2.21 from Amazon Merch. They are allowing new designs to be added again so I might add some more designs. Adding new designs won’t be a priority since this isn’t much of a money maker.

I made $281 for signing up for a new online brokerage. I also made $100 from a promo Natty Light was running a couple of months ago. These are both deals I found from reading Doctor of Credit. It is a great site to read if you like these kind of deals.

Unemployment was the major contributor to my income in June. This will be the last month of the federal weekly $600 unemployment payment. I’m hoping that I’ll be hired back by my employer by then. If not, I’ll still go off unemployment at the end of the month and try self-employment for a while.

Income for this month should be about the same. Income should once again greatly exceed expenses so I can’t complain.

How was your month?

June Expenses – $1576.58

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Here is a breakdown of my expenses for June.

Household$50.86
Rent$255.40
Entertainment$0
Transportation$756.05
Food$138.01
Student Loan$345.00
Phone$28.56
Health$2.70
Total$1576.58

My June expenses were a little high due to one large unexpected expense and another optional expense.

I once again didn’t have any entertainment expense at all. They might open the movie theaters this month and I might attend a show. If not, this category will probably be $0 again

Transportation was the killer expense this month. My car broke down while I was in a city about an hour away from home. I had to have my car towed to a local repair shop where they replaced the alternator, battery, and a belt. If I’d been in town, I think the repair bill would have been about half as much. It was just bad luck that the car broke down while I was out of town. If you own a car, you’re occasionally going to have some bad luck. I also bought one tank of gas and got a $10 refund from my auto insurance company.

I paid $345 towards my student loan. Since my online income is earmarked for paying my student loan and I actually had some income in the last couple of months I went ahead and made a payment on my loan.

My food expense was up a bit. I really didn’t try to keep this expense low since I knew I wouldn’t be spending much overall. This expense is still pretty low compared to my average spending over the last couple of years. This month, I’m going to be a little more disciplined and reduce this expense.

My phone bill was back to normal. It will usually be within a couple dollars of this total.

My health expense was $2.70 for some over the counter medicine. I’m not sure if I’ll have any health expense this month.

Household expense was for random things such as laundry detergent, stamps, and a gift of gas money to my brother.

The rent expense was only $255.40. This consisted of a $50 apartment application fee that was made before we decided to move in with my aunt. And the rest was paying my aunt’s utilities to compensate her for letting us live in her house for the month.

Travel expense was $0. I’m hoping to do some domestic travel this month. If that works out, I’ll have some travel expense this month.

The car repair and student loan payment made up over $1000 of this month’s expenses. Without those it would have been a very low expense month. I expect this month to be a little lower. I will be paying a bill for a repair on the old house and I’ll hopefully have some travel expenses. If those expenses don’t happen or are lower than expected it could be a low expense month once again.

How was your month.

Covid-19 Plan C: Buy a House

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My initial plan for this summer was to spend a week in Japan, followed by a couple of months in Thailand, then coming home in September by way of Hong Kong and London. That would have made an around the world trip. Due to the travel restrictions caused by the global pandemic, all of those plans had to be scrapped.

My plan B was to hike the Appalachian Trail instead. I’ve hiked the AT all the way to the Massachusetts/Vermont border. Both MA and VT are currently requiring out of state visitors to quarantine for 14 days. That requirement makes hiking the AT a no go for me. Perhaps those restrictions will be lifted later this year, but for now continuing my section hike of the AT isn’t an option.

This left me with plan C, which is buying a house with my mom. We were going to look into buying a house together when I returned from my overseas trip. Since that trip didn’t happen we went ahead with the house buying plan.

We should be closing on the new home this Thursday. My mom’s house already sold a couple of weeks ago leaving us homeless until we close on the new house. We’ve been staying at my aunt’s house since it didn’t make sense to rent a place for such a short term and we didn’t want to actually be homeless. Hopefully, everything will go smoothly and we can finish moving on Friday. It will be nice to be in a permanent home again.

The house is a small upgrade from my mom’s previous house. She sold her old house for $135,000 and we’re buying the new house for $170,000. Where I live $170k can buy a pretty nice house. The new house is also in a much nicer neighborhood so it should appreciate faster than the old house.

The proceeds from the sale of the old house are being used as a down payment on the new house and we’re taking out a $50,000 mortgage for the rest. I’ll be responsible for paying the mortgage, which will be about $350 a month since we got a 15-year mortgage and won’t have escrow. That’s a good deal since it is cheaper than rent. I’ll also be getting 50% equity in the new house. I’m basically getting my inheritance early. The equity in the new house minus the mortgage liability will result in about a $35,000 increase in my net worth. That isn’t money I can spend today, but someday it will be a nice nest egg.

My mom is wanting to pay off the mortgage quickly. I’m thinking we should be able to pay it off in 7 or 8 years, if not sooner. By the time mortgage is paid, I’ll hopefully be ready to retire. Not having a house payment would make it much easier to retire. A lot can change in 7 or 8 years so we will see what happens.

I’ll write another post once the house purchase and move-in has been completed.

May Income – $5300.25

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Here is a breakdown of my income for May.

Interest$16.20
Amazon FBA$25.97
Unemployment$3248.00
Cashback$25.82
Online $228.71
Dividends$13.11
Job$1742.44
Total$5300.25

My income for May was surprisingly up quite a bit compared to the previous month. Considering my expenses were only $1346 for the month, my income to expense ratio was great.

My Amazon FBA side hustle made a profit for the first time in a few months. . Amazon finally allowed non -essential items to be sent in and I sold a few items.

Dividend income was down a bit. This was expected since I sold some of my dividend stocks in April and May is an off month for dividend payments. If you sign up using my Robinhood referral link we will both get one share of free stock. Thanks to anyone who signs up using my link. Every little bit helps.

I made $228.71 in online income from renewing some ads. I haven’t had any new ads placed in quite a while, but luckily I do still have one business that keeps renewing their ads. I probably won’t make any more income from the blog the rest of the year unless I start promoting some affiliate items.

Job income was down quite a bit since I only worked two weeks out of the month. I’ve been laid off three times since the office was shut down due to the virus. I’m currently laid off and not sure when they will have work for me again.

Unemployment was the major contributor to my income in May. It is pretty crazy that I currently make more from unemployment than I do working as an attorney. I was paid four weeks of unemployment in May since my two weeks of unemployment in April wasn’t paid until May.

Income for this month will be lower since I won’t have a back payment of unemployment to boost the total. Income should still greatly exceed expenses so I can’t complain.

How was your month?