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Apr 23, 2025    |       35 comments

Plan for House Proceeds

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We have now made it past the second contingency period. The inspection has been reviewed and accepted. The appraisal is done. The closing date is just a couple of weeks away. I’m sure you all know that I’ve been playing with the numbers for months now.

But I still don’t know how much I’ll actually take away from the house sale. However, I’ve got a solid plan for where the money will go. Obviously, the house will be paid off. The total for that pay out will be around $127,000.

First, the painter will be paid the remaining $600 I owe him.

Second, I will repay my dad for the loan from January, 2024 for the new furnace.

Third, I will pay off ALL of my credit cards. All except three of them will be closed. Eliminating the temptation. I will be leaving my Apple CC, Sam’s Club CC, and USAA CC open. They are already locked (and maxed out so the lock doesn’t really do anything.)

Between, these three items, $23.850 will be spent.

 

Based on my guestimates, that will then leave me with a nest egg of…

I do not plan to rush to pay off my student loans. At this point, they will be my only debt, and I’m comfortable with just starting to make regular monthly payments.

I have several other things I’d like to do, but I think the best thing would be to:

  1. Put at least $7500 in an EF. That would be essentially 3 months of living expenses should something happen to me/my work.
  2. Pay my car insurance through this 6 month period. My auto insurance is my highest monthly bill. And while there is no interest to make monthly payments, I’d like it to be paid. Then I can “pay myself” monthly so when it renews in September, I can pay it all at once. This is just a peace of mind thing vs a financial thing.
  3. The remainder will be used to jumpstart my Move fund in a high yield savings account.

I’m certainly open to feedback.

Apr 21, 2025    |       18 comments

Post Sale – Budget – Take 2

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I appreciate all the feedback on my post sale budget. I’ve revised it to add more categories.

This covers the time period of May 15-the end of 2025 (eight months). And I thought that tracking whether it was a travel month, stationary month, or mix would make sense when I look back on this as that factor alone will greatly affect some of the categorial spending.

What categories have I missed? I want to get this nailed down before the sale closes so I have a clear plan on how to proceed.annual budget - revision 2

Notes: 

  • I saw several recommendations for revisiting life insurance. I’ve added it to my to do list once I arrive in Texas mid to late May.
  • I’ll have to transfer my car insurance and registration no later than the end of the year, I don’t know how much that will run in Texas so leaving insurance as it is now, and will revisit car registration when it comes time. My current tag expires in December so I have a little while.
  • Obviously the gas, food, allowance categories will fluctuate based on it being a travel or stationary month. When I’m stationary, they will just build up.

Sinking Funds

I need to have savings goals. But I did move them to sinking funds and gave myself either a long term goal or monthly goal. And I will track by month how much I contribute to each category.

I put them in order and set a monthly goal. My thought is this:

When I hit the monthly goal for that category, I will start on the next priority item for that month. For example, let’s say I make enough to contribute $500 to my EF in June, I would then start on the $500 toward the monthly car maintenance goal and so forth. And I start over at number 1 each month UNTIL, I hit the annual/overall goal. So when I get $20K in a EF, then every month I would start on number 2… and so forth.

Does that make sense?

sinking funds

Income

I know you want to see my income. But it fluctuates greatly. With this budget, I have to bring in roughly $2K per month after taxes and overhead to maintain, any more than that goes to the sinking funds. I think that’s easily achievable.

Some months I barely make $2K, but then with one project that jumps up to $8K. So I can’t really predict my monthly income. But I can tell you that I am laser focused on not only day to day work, but I’m working on two different passive income strategies and have been for 6 months now. Work in progress.

I’m also planning to search for a part time, in person job in Texas just to get me out of the house a bit. Maybe 1-2 evenings a week when a sibling can cover my parents. Probably more of a mental health thing, but will provide some income.

What do I need to clarify? What have I missed? (Before you ask, debt numbers are just around the corner.)

 

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