The farm and farmhouse

Sadness.

The design company I have worked for over the last  8 years is dissolving and my clients and I have been transferred to a new owner. I'm pretty sad about it. I think I will continue getting my tiny monthly maintenance payments (like $125) but I doubt I will receive any new clients. I am also losing a lot of the free subscriptions I have been using all these years such as Photoshop, my email, etc. If I were to purchase all the things on my own it would cost well over $100 a month, therefore cancelling any income. But not having the subscriptions will affect my personal clients, and also my own projects. Sigh. 

Thankfully I didn't depend on that income and have just used it for debt pay down. I am mostly sad about now being responsible for paying for all my programs, and because my boss was awesome and I will miss him. I usually fly to his house once a year and visit with his family. Hopefully we can stay in touch.


Now I have to decide if I want to try to branch out and go back to freelancing, look for a new employer, or if I am going to take a bit of a hiatus because of Covid and my new baby.

The other design partner I have worked with has been giving me a little work lately. So I have that to keep my busy for now. 

Debts
Mortgage -$122,540.51 (-$230.02)
Medical Loan #2 -$5,200 (-$300)

Savings
Roth IRAs +$16,112 932 (-$820)
401K +$29,582 (-$1,298)
Emergency Fund +$8,072 7,767 (+$305)
Animal Fund +$938 (-$179)
Truck Fund +$2,025 (+$20)
HSA +$2,274 (+$251)

Overall: +$1,190.98

Still waiting on insurance reimbursement for baby's surgery. Claim was processed wrong and had to be resubmitted. Lost net worth this month because of the bad market. Hoping next month is better as far as savings and debt payments.

Debts
Mortgage -$122,770.53 (-$229.47)
Medical Loan #2 -$5,500 (-$300)

Savings
Roth IRAs +$16,932 (+$820)
401K +$30,880 (+$1,603)
Emergency Fund +$7,767 (-$253)
Animal Fund +$1,117 (-$300)
Truck Fund +$2,005 (-$10)
HSA +$2,023 (+$250)

Overall: +$2,639.47

Waiting on insurance reimbursement for baby's surgery. Also had a stupid random out of network bill show for a couple thousand from her stay in the NICU over 6 months ago. They are telling me it is going to collections soon if I don't pay. Which is retarded since this is the first bill I've received. Apparently insurance denied it and then never informed me or the agency... Gr. I've been fighting it and I strongly hope it will get removed since I've paid so much already and I feel this bill is unfair since I've met my OOP and the other bills in the same hospital were all in network. The health care system is such a scam!

Debts
Mortgage -$123,000.00 (+$11,059.35)
Medical Loan #1 -$0 (-$1,000)
Medical Loan #2 -$5,800 (-$300)

Savings
Roth IRAs +$16,112 (+$1,023)
401K +$29,277 (+$2,155)
Emergency Fund +$8,020 (+$3,932)
Animal Fund +$1,417 (+$1,001)
Truck Fund +$2,015 (-$60)
HSA +$1,773 (-$155)

Overall: -$1,863.35

Not bad after adding $11k to our mortgage. Of course the numbers are a bit skewed because we will be pulling $5,000 out for a home project eventually.

Paid off the small medical loan. This month I also finished saving for vacation, bought a fridge, and had to pay for travel for our baby's surgery. With husband's lack on overtime I'm surprised we completed as much as we did. August is probably not going to be as successful but I am happy to be down to just one goal for the year!

My car insurance was up for renewal in a couple months and I noticed the price was going up again. So I called my company and asked them to shop around for a cheaper rate. Within a couple days they called me back to let me know they found me a better deal.

My car insurance is dropping from close to $1,500 a year to $925 for the exact same coverage! That is almost half the cost. Just a reminder to everyone to shop around every once in a while, it is an easy way to save money!

I decided to go ahead and top off our vacation fund with part of the loan proceeds. Another goal done! Only one left which has $5,800 left to pay off.

Baby girl is not growing properly. Took her to a specialist who says she has a hidden tongue tie. Frustrating since I've had her checked at least 3 times by others and it was never caught. They referred me to another specialist who will hopefully get back to me today. If they deem it necessary we will have to take her about 5 hours away for surgery. We are really struggling right now with getting weight on her and keeping my milk supply up, so I would appreciate your thoughts and prayers. Poor little baby.

We closed on our appraisal and got a total of $7,005 cash out. $5,000 will be saved back to finish our dirt work project. $1,770 will be used to pay for the water heater, and the rest will be put towards the new fridge we had to buy since ours went out this week... Ugh.

At least every appliance is new now.

We also effectively gained the $2,000 I had set back for our taxes and insurance since the new loan has escrow included now. It will just remain in our savings account for our EF.

Our payment went from $603 to $510 (Plus $175 for escrow) with an additional $11,000 added to the loan. Our interest rate dropped from 4.75% to 2.875%. We are going to pay $525 a month and save the other $75 difference in our EF.

With the money saved from this month's mortgage payment I went ahead and paid off the first medical loan!! So now we are down to just one 0% loan. This crosses goal #3 off our list. Goal #4 is soooo close.

Debts
Mortgage -$111,940.65 (-$159.27)
Medical Loan #1 -$1,000 (-$400)
Medical Loan #2 -$6,100 (-$300)

Savings
Roth IRAs +$15,089 (+$171)
401K +$27,122 (+$438)
Emergency Fund +$4,088 (+$301)
Animal Fund +$416 (+$0)
Truck Fund +$2,075 (+$30)
HSA +$1,928 (+$250)

Overall: +$2,049.27

Steady progress. Husband got a bonus so with my extra web income we have $900 to put towards our vacation (not included in the above figures). Only $600 more to go to our goal of have a PIF vacation.

I am selling 4 goats next week, just in time because my hay is ready to start getting picked up.

I getting at least one month where I don't have to pay our mortgage while it's changing hands. Since I already have that saved I am going to apply the old $600 payment towards the medical debt. One loan will only have $400 left on it. Hoping I can pay if off in August, July would be awesome but a bit of a stretch. Then we will be down to just one loan again!

Our appraisal came back! Last year our house appraised for $150k and we needed that much again to refinance and get out $5k extra to do the dirt work.

Unexpectedly our appraisal came back at $184k! I'm not sure why it went up so much. We did finish some random little projects but nothing major. I can't believe it. They offered to let us have more money out and we decided to go ahead and add $2k more to cover part of the cost of the water heater. That way I don't have to open another 0% CC. I will still have to cash flow the installation cost, which I am not sure about yet but guessing around $1k or less hopefully.

We could have gotten more which would have been nice to finish some other projects but I really didn't want to add a bunch more debt even if it low interest.

By rolling it into our mortgage I am hoping to still be debt free except the mortgage by the end of the year. We will probably pay some extra on the mortgage as well just to offset the $2k we added.

What a relief and now we can finish projects on our own timeline and save cash for a while. I would still really like AC some day...

I did work some extra web design last month and will have some money to put towards our vacation. We still need to come up with about $1,500 in the next couple months. So may have to shift from debt repayment to savings for a bit.

Debts
Mortgage -$112,099.92 (-$158.64)
Medical Loan #1 -$1,400 (-$100)
Medical Loan #2 -$6,400 (-$320)

Savings
Roth IRAs +$14,918 (+$794)
401K +$26,684 (+$1,644)
Emergency Fund +$3,787 (+$376)
Animal Fund +$416 (-$90)
Truck Fund +$2,045 (+$10)
HSA +$1,678 (+$250)

Overall: +$3,562.64

Markets recovering. Only paid minimums on debt and our automatic savings this month. Hanging onto money with the refinance and Covid-19.

Already have the minimums saved for next month so hoping to make an extra payment in June.

Waiting on the appraisal report to come in so we can close on the refinance. Last pup sold and goat kids are being born.

Our water heater is going out after only 8 years and we had planned to replace with a tankless when it died. Looks like it will be around $2,000+-. Will probably get a 0% payment for this just to keep the cash on hand for now. It is always something...

Still here, still moseying along. I am getting quite adjusted to this more laid back life. I've always been a busy bee who rushes to multiple things every single day. I won't lie. It's been nice not having to set an alarm (the baby wakes me by 7 anyway, lol) not have to rush to get ready to work, visit a bunch of people, etc. I work from home, enjoy my baby, piddle around the house and clean, watch some tv finally, spend time with my animals, etc.

After essentially maternity leave since January it is going to be really hard to go back to work soon. Part of me is excited to get back out of the house again, the other part is thinking this is the lowest stressed I have been in a while.

It is not only work. Going to church multiple times a week, visiting family every week, seeing friends, going shopping, on and on. Some stuff I enjoyed and miss of course, but at the same time I realize that I was running around nearly every single day.

After my original maternity leave was up I was ready to go back to the office, now I think I am used to staying home. I hope I can adjust back okay. I still don't have a return date yet, but their original plan was to pay me until June. So I'll have to wait and see what they decide.

Debt repayment has been slower because after husband worked 6 or 7 days a week nearly every week for a year and a half he has had a couple months of weekends off. His overtime typically doubled his salary and we could put it all towards debt or savings. Without it only minimums. It has been so nice having him home, and although I miss the money I'm not ready for him to work so much again and for me to be at home alone with the baby every day.

Our house is getting appraised for the refinance sooner than expected. They wanted to do it today already but only gave me heads up yesterday. I talked them into Tuesday so I would have the weekend with husband to clean and maybe do some small projects before they come.

Also my current bank finally called me back after 3 weeks and I told them I was switching lenders. They offered me a lower rate to stay, but I am going to continue on with the new bank. My current bank has not been very reliable at all, and often breaks their word.

I had hoped/planned on paying off the first medical debt in June. There is no way. So far this month I have made only minimum payments. I have another $150 set aside but I feel like I need to hang onto that until I make sure I have enough for next month's minimum payment.

With husband working no overtime and my hours minimal at my second job we have no extra to go around.

Hopefully Covid will get better and the overtime will pick back up in time for us to save for vacation and pay off our debts by the end of the year. Thankfully the debts don't have to be paid by then, but it would certainly be nice.

I have submitted all the documents to refinance our house. Currently we are quoted a rate of 2.875% but it could go up or down a bit before we are locked in. With our current rate being 4.75% this is a significant savings and should drop our payment by about $100. We will probably continue paying the same on the loan to knock some years off once we are debt free.

We are also going to try to get about $5,000 extra out to regrade the yard. Everything is still messed up from our new basement/addition and we need to bury our gutter lines to run the water away from the house. There are some trees about to fall that need cut out as well. After that is done we can reseed the yard, plant new trees, and put in some landscaping finally. Right now we have lots of standing water (we have cattails growing in our yard it is that wet! lol) and a several dirt piles. This is a project that is long overdue but we had to complete and pay off the waterproofing first.


The final puppy I need to get rid of has a leg problem that we can't figure out and I don't feel right selling him until he gets better. Spent about $300 yesterday at the vet and he is on 6 pills a day currently for 6 weeks, trying a little bit of everything to see if it helps.

Also have 3 cats and a dog due for their 3 year shots. Ew. That will be several hundred dollars.


Baby goats are due any day which is good and I have a few of the adults sold next month so I will save that money back for winter feed.

I did save up and do some significant renovations on the barn the last couple weeks. It was a project I've been wanting to do for several years, so having it finally complete is nice. Still have several other outdoor projects on the list. But they will have to wait until I get more money put back.

Debts
Mortgage -$112,258.56 (-$158.02)
Helitech Loan -$0 (-$2,550)
Medical Loan #1 -$1,500 (-$100)
Medical Loan #2 -$6,720 (+$6,720)

Savings
Roth IRAs +$14,124 (+$922)
401K +$25,040 (+$1,901)
Emergency Fund +$3,411 (+$401)
Animal Fund +$506 (+$0)
Truck Fund +$2,035 (+$90)
HSA +$1,428 (+$250)

Overall: -$347.98

Markets recovered a bit. Savings also went up and we paid off a large chunk of debt but unfortunately we also took on almost $7k of new debt for the rest of the baby bills. Overall not as bad was expected. We should be back in the green next month.

The stimulus check hit my account this morning! Allowing me pay off the full balance of my construction loan! 6 months before the 0% interest expires!


The small medical loan is up next. Hopefully by June it will be gone and we will be down to just one debt.

In other news I bought a new dryer. Ours was given to us well used when we got married 8 years ago. It has been on it's last leg for two+ months now. The bearing is going out and it makes a horrible screeching, so loud you have to cover your ears while in the same room. Every time I use it I cross my fingers that it will work. Also recently clothes keep getting stuck in it and tearing them up. With a new baby and our laundry needs going up I figured it was time.

Our old washer went out a year or two ago and I purchased a new one. So I have been watching the matching dryer price for about a month. It has been on sale this week for 40% off and last night was the last day. With our stimulus coming in, I went ahead and purchased it. They said it could take up to a couple weeks to arrive with free delivery. I didn't want to chance mine going out and being stuck without for weeks. That uses up the last $500 of the stimulus, which I was hoping to save for animal money but oh well.

We are not getting the $500 for our 2020 baby since they are basing it off our 2019 taxes. From what I understand that $500 will probably get added our tax return next year.

I also ordered a new crockpot. Mine has been broken for a while and I was given money at Christmas to purchase a new one but I couldn't decide which one. I've been holding onto the money this whole time because I am sooo picky. I always read reviews and check out all options before purchasing pretty much anything. Well I finally bit the bullet and picked one out. Super excited to use my new appliances soon.

My job has decided to pay me a minimum of my average hours. Which is great! They even back dated it to the stay at home order. I think I will use these unexpected checks to save money for my animals.

Unfortunately with the pregnancy and everything I did not breed my goats last fall. Which means little to no kids now, which means no goat income this year. If I hurry I could still breed for fall kids, but I will need money over the summer to purchase hay for the winter. So I need to start putting back money to pay for it ASAP. This is the first year I haven't had spring kids. Major bummer, but I needed a break with my busy life. It actually probably worked out okay, since the quarantine would make animal sales harder I imagine.

I am getting so close to paying off the construction loan! I was able to scrape together $650 so far this month so I only owe $1,900 now. Once the stimulus gets here I will be able to pay it off!

In addition to the stimulus check, I have heard that my secretary job is most likely going to to pay me my average hours for April and May!

That would be great, especially since husband's overtime is drying up and without it we can't really make extra payments on anything.

I look forward to the day when our debt is gone and we can live comfortably without overtime or 3 jobs.

If the stimulus and my check from work pan out I am hoping I will be able to pay off the construction loan this month. Then we will be down to just medical debt which is interest free and smallish payments. Of course we will continue to pay it down with vigor but at least if an emergency comes up will have more wiggle room.

The smallest medical loan will only take another two months to pay, but the big one will take all year, even we can even finish it by then. Fingers crossed!

Debts
Mortgage -$112,416.58 (-$157.39)
Helitech Loan -$2,550 (-$600)
Medical Loan -$1,600 (-$100)

Savings
Roth IRAs +$13,202 (-$2,366)
401K +$23,139 (-$2,509)
Emergency Fund +$3,010 (-$396)
Animal Fund +$506 (+$1)
Truck Fund +$1,945 (+$100)
HSA +$1,178 (+$250)

Overall: -$4,062.61

Ouch! Markets really crashed this month. In addition I paid my 6 month car insurance. Medical bills are still sorting out but I will add them to my net worth next month, so there will be another $7k+ decline in April.

We also saved and spent $600 towards vacation this month.

If you live in the US, when/if we actually get checks from the government, what will you spend it on?

It sounds like they are basing it off our 2018/2019 taxes so I'm not sure if my new baby will count or not...

But I will probably save $500 for animal expenses, and the rest I will use to pay down debt. If we get the amount I've heard then it would be enough to pay my construction loan completely and we will be down to just medical debt.

I am out of work right now, except some minimal web design. I have to say it is pretty nice to stay home and do what I want all day. Although I am beginning to get a little stir crazy. It's hard to do much outside with the baby with no one else to watch her. Husband is still working 7 days a week.

So much craziness going on. It is ridiculous how many people aren't taking this seriously. But who can blame them if the states aren't testing and people don't believe it is in their area.

I live in a small town and my mom is in the medical profession. She says there have been many people that have all the symptoms but the DRs refuse to test. First they were short on tests, now they have some but they still won't. They will only test if you have been out of the country in the last two weeks or in contact with someone who has, which is silly. Also the Dr has to agree, then they have to call and get permission from the health department, which has to call and get permission from the state. It's all a big pain, so they just aren't testing... This sucks because in her hospital's case (and probably others) these sick patients are with the general population, and the nurses are not wearing proper protective gear or treating them like a quarantine case. Also our hospital is already almost at full capacity and running out of supplies. This pandemic has barely even started in the US.

Just because they aren't testing and so there are no "official cases" does NOT mean they aren't in your town. A friend of mine was soo sick I thought she was dying from an "upper respiratory problem". She was tested for like 15 things and they all came back negative, but they wouldn't test her for Corona. They told her it was just bronchitis or something. Now her husband is sick, and her elderly father. This person has been out in the community since she has been sick!

I am high risk due to lung disease so I am going out as little as possible. I had a Dr appointment yesterday (at a hospital with verified cases) and today I have to go pick up my medicines. I hope they haven't run out of the daily inhaler I take! Also my husband works in food manufacturing so he is continuing to work, and I am also still working but I work alone so not much risk. I'm doing my best to stay safe, but we aren't completely isolated unfortunately.

Since my mom knew how bad this was before the general public she gave us some warning and thankfully we stocked up a couple weeks of supplies ahead of time. It's a mad house here, shelves are bare. Any staples are usually sold out within hours of stocking. Since I have to go to Walmart and pick up my prescriptions I will see if they have any food left and get some more to replenish what we have eaten while I am there.

Stay safe guys! And take this seriously! It's way way worse than it appears because they are testing only a very small percentage of the people that are actually sick. Just assume it's in your town, and stay home!