Archive for January, 2008

January 28th, 2008 - Water heater update

The first quote on the heater was $1800, which we weren’t expecting. That was to get a direct vent one (so the chimney was no longer used) and move it and the pipes. The heater itself was over $900.

We’re going with a replacement in the same place venting to the chimney. Cost including installation should be about $800. And will probably be done when I get home from work.

Oh, and they won’t install insulation a water heater jacket. The plumber said that they void warranties now so almost no pros will install them. (Given our issues doing the current heater, we thought we might have them do it while they were at it.) So I guess we won’t do it, either. This also means I can’t update y’all on how much we saved due to insulation.

Oh, yeah, we’re getting a 40-gallon tank. Our current one was 66 gallons! I checked … well, can’t find it back. But the page indicated a 40-gal tank for under 1500 sq ft house and a 60+ for something like 3000 sq and 3-4 full baths with multiple showers at once. (I didn’t use US Dept of Energy’s more specific calculator which has you go through actual types of usage in your house.) That alone should decrease our costs. Plus, of course, the greater efficiency of a new one versus one that’s 8 years old.

Update: I used Direct Energy’s PDF about choosing the right size water heater but I don’t know if the link will work as it comes from my search engine. I can’t find the file via the site’s search.

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January 28th, 2008 - Heat

A quick note that last week, we turned the heat down to 65 during the day. Eric had been doing it manually a bit the week before, decided he could live with it, and asked me to program it in.

The really weird thing about this? It’s too cold for me!!!!! I think it’s because I spend the day in a 70+ degree office (relatively cool this winter; usually, it’s so hot I take off my sweater; they’ve fixed it somehow and that’s only true in our computer lab this year). So 65 feels really cold after 8 hours of warmer temps. On Saturday, I turned it up to 67, but on Sunday I managed to keep it at 65.

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January 28th, 2008 - Biohazard Symbol History

This is simply interesting: Biohazard Symbol History. (Thanks to Eric for sending it to me.)

Guess it’s not something an industry would co-opt, like the recycling symbol co-opted by the plastics folks. (You know–the three arrows in a triangle representing reduce, reuse, recycle, which they use with the number indicating the type of plastic. It doesn’t mean the plastic can actually be recycled. But they use it to imply that to great effect. And oh so many people toss all their plastics into recycling bins having no idea that the presence of that symbol has nothing to do with whether recycling facilities exist at all, much less in their community.)

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January 28th, 2008 - In-home water features

The best way to introduce today’s topic of conversation: Two Lumps Friday Jan 25 comic. Go on, take a moment to read it. (And yes, Michael, the title of this post is just for you!)

Saturday, the same thing happened to us, except I found it while getting apples from the basement fridge. (By the way 3 bushels of apples was NOT enough to last. I’ve barely eaten any this month and I probably have 40 apples left. Might last 2 more months.) The only good thing is that I procrastinated getting more apples all month due to not feeling well. Saturday afternoon, however, in the middle of a snack, I told myself to just go and do it. It would only take a couple minutes. Which stretch to 10 as I found the leak, mopped it up, got a flashlight, and figured out it was a fairly slow leak. [OK, in case the comic is gone or you didn’t look at it, our water heater is leaking.]

Since it was a Saturday afternoon, we chose to turn things off and not call a plumber. It’s not like the basement was flooded or anything. In fact, since it was so slow and not much more came out overnight, we turned everything back on yesterday afternoon. Unfortunately, not soon enough as the water wasn’t actually hot when Eric took a shower. ooops. (In my defense, warm water did come out of the tap. I wasn’t going to waste more water waiting for the hot water to show up.)

I had hoped that when we had to redo the water heating, we could get a tankless or on-demand system. Unfortunately, those are more expensive to purchase and install–upwards of $2000.

Which, amazingly enough, is the amount of money that on Friday I confirmed we had. (This was going to be my post until the water issue.) We had saved about $4000 towards taxes, as I knew we’d owe a significant amount this year. In my estimated taxes, it was actually over $4000 and I was feeling bad about it. But then my W2 came in Thursday and the amount owed dropped in half! This is because I estimate based on my gross income while the W2 removes the pre-tax money like health insurance and retirement savings. What a pleasant surprise!

I was going to write about how we were going to be able to pay off the HEL another 2 months early, ie in April or May. But now we have to put the money to the plumber instead. But we won’t go for the more expensive route. I had been figuring 10 years down the line anyway–and as Eric says, when this new water heater goes in 10 years, then we can do it. I had no idea water heaters lasted 10 years or less or I would have planned better. Ours is 8 years old and we have really hard water so it’s no surprise really. Except that we were surprised. We may spend a bit extra to move the water heater. We did that once before–it was installed wrong and when the new furnance went int, they had to move it. Which means we have more than 10 feet of additional pipes in the basement. It takes a while for hot water to get upstairs. If we get a direct vent heater, perhaps it can be placed back closer to the sinks, laundry, toilets, and shower (which are all within a 6×6 area, I’d guess.

This marks the second time we have fortuitously gone to the basement within hours of a potentially major problem. We go to the basement about once a week so this is very
lucky! The other time was when the sewer backed up. We went down even less often back then as it was the first year and almost nothing was stored down there (thank goodness since anything on the floor was thrown out. Which amounted to a couple rugs.)

I have to go figure out what size water heater we should have. We are fairly low users (2 showers/week, 3-5 dishwashers/week, and one laundry/month) so we could use a small heater, I think. But we have to look to the future as well–we’ll have teens some day. On the other hand, only Maggie will be a teenager in 10 years!

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January 25th, 2008 - How will you spend your tax rebate?

Economic Sustainablog recommends something other than typical spending (invest in local and sustainable products so that you actually are stimulating the US economy instead of other countries). Us? We’ll probably give a little bit to ourselves for personal spending (as we typically do with extra money) and the majority will go towards paying off the HEL early or straight to the adoption fund (depending on when it arrives).

Sorry for being so quiet. While I’m nearly all better, I’m still struggling to catch up at work after being sick. I have a lot to prepare for the new semester (starts Feb 4) including the podcast initiative, my hybrid seminar about teaching hybrid and online courses, and my fully online course. Not to mention my regular ongoing work duties!

Posted in Money, Adoption | 1 Comment »

January 16th, 2008 - Changing those financial goals, or We’re having a baby!

Contrary to all expectations otherwise*, we have decided to have another baby! (*I detested maternity leave. Despite decades of desire to have 5+ children and settling for 2, I switched to being happy with just one because I absolutely did not want another infant. I have continued to feel the same except for short periods of time when I thought it might not be so bad. I was so convinced that we gave away our infant car seat and most infant clothing. Subsequently, we’ve saved clothes for foster care, but I have less than one box of baby clothes. Guess I have an excuse for garage-saling this summer now!) We started talking about it and decided we both actually want to have more kids, now!

The plan is to start the homestudy in April-ish. Oh, yeah, for those who don’t know which is most of you except family, we adopt. We plan to use the same agency, Community Adoption Center out of Manitowoc. Our social worker still works there (according to the website) and we can’t imagine working with anyone else. We really loved her. Just hoping their fees haven’t risen dramatically in the last 3 years. If it goes like last time, it will take about 2 months to complete the homestudy then we enter the pool of waiting families. Then, it can any amount of time at all to be chosen and anywhere from no time at all (baby already born) to 4 months or so (if the birthmother is only 5 months pregnant, the earliest they tend to match families). Generally speaking, most people have a baby within a year but it can take 2 years or more.

Changing financial plans:

Domestic infant adoption costs around $15,000-$25,000. That includes things like agency fees, homestudy fee, paperwork (things like copies of birth and marriage certificates), travel (Manitowoc is 90 miles away and we have to go there at least 3 times, plus the birth family is unlikely to be from Oshkosh), resume fee (our agency calls your materials a resume, others call it the birthparent letter or have a book or portfolio or such. Our agency charges a yearly fee to be in their files to discourage people from putting there materials in at dozens of different agencies I suppose.), birthfamily expenses (you can choose to pay some or all expenses such as rent, medical, transportation, etc. In WI, there are limits on one of them–I think it’s $1500 for living expenses or is it medical?), counseling, and all sorts of other stuff.

We still intend to pay off the HEL this year, but the timeline will be accelerated, with payoff in July or sooner. We’ve already decided that we just aren’t ever going to get to doing the electrical work so are putting that $3000 towards the loan, which pushes us 3 months closer to paying it off.

We will NOT (unless something dire happens) decrease our retirement or charitable giving, as we are very proud of the amounts we are able to put towards those this year. We are not, however, going to go above 16% to retirement, although I had initially been hoping for that. We are going to decrease travel savings (essentially, we’re going on the 2-week vacation for the wedding in April then nothing else. We’d thought we might do another 4-day trip to NJ in the fall.) and Fund for the House (the same place the electric money comes out of). We will still pay off the car loan on time but do not intend to use that money towards the adoption as our car could still have a major necessarily repair and we need to save for it.

Instead of putting the money that’s been going to the HEL in other areas (primarily, paying off the 1st mortgage) we will instead pay for/save for the adoption. Depending on how things go, we may end up with a third second mortgage. (We keep paying it off and getting a new one within a year.) BUT, we know that we can pay it off within 2 years giving the current amount we pay on the HEL. In addition, we expect that I will continue to teach at least one course a year plus there may be other income additions (and hopefully a couple raises during that time). And hey, the IRS gives us a $1000 tax credit for each kid each year!

The federal government also has an adoption tax credit that we will be able to take advantage of. It goes up each year and is currently just over $11000. That means that over a number of years, we will get a tax credit–not a deduction but an actual credit–of about half of the money we will spend on the adoption. However, you can’t count on it paying the money because you can only take it after you’ve spent the money. You do not get paid any more money than the amount of the tax you had due, so it can take many years to get the full credit. With Maggie, we took the credit over 3-4 years.

You often hear that adoption is no more expensive than giving birth. That’s only true if you have no health insurance and pay completely out of pocket. And have complications. If I gave birth, almost 100% of my medical costs would be covered. Adoption is a huge financial commitment. There are ways to reduce the costs. For instance, adopting from foster care costs nearly nothing, But in our case, we do with to adopt an infant and they are generally not available via foster care (in our neck of the woods) and there are a host of other issues I won’t go into. We have also ended up with a for-profit agency. We didn’t realize this when we chose them, but there aren’t many in our area. We had tried two others first and left them for various reasons. One other turned us down (one did only a few adoptions a year and we didn’t fit their primary profile and another was Evangelical Christian and would have if we had contacted them). But we are happy with the way our agency worked and don’t care to find something cheaper. Our costs would also be less if we had chosen to adopt again immediately, as just updates would have been done to many of our original materials.

I do not plan to make this into an adoption blog, but certainly aspects will be relevant and for heaven’s sake, this is about my life and that will be a big part of it. As with our prior adoption, I am happy to talk about the stuff we do but I will not tell my child’s story. Once we go into the pool, I won’t give any updates. Everyone will find out we have a new kid when we have a new kid. (This is also because having to tell people you don’t have a child after telling everyone you were having a child is heartbreaking. We did that once. It sucked 6 months later when people asked about our daughter. And we didn’t have one.) If any of you readers wonder about domestic infant adoption and open adoption, I’m happy to answer questions and tell you what the various options and types of openness are and how the process works. But I do not reveal details of our specific situation(s). When she’s older, you can ask Maggie and she’ll tell you if she wants to! :) (Even our parents and siblings don’t know, so don’t feel bad.)

Some people think of this as announcing they are pregnant. I feel that will be more like when we enter the pool of waiting families. Either way, we are excited and delighted to expand our family and hope you are, too!

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January 10th, 2008 - Putting Christmas in the basement

First, a quick note that I’ve been really sick again. Came down with either another cold or an extension of the holiday one on Sunday. Have already taken off 2.5 days and it’s looking like another half day today.

Yesterday, we took down the Christmas tree. It had always been a bit on the dry side and Eric noticed that when he touched a branch the night before, needles showered down. So I took off the ornaments (all 5 of them) and the lights and he took the tree out to the curb. I also took down the two window figures (snowflake and Santa) and took them and the lights to the basement. Maggie’s insightful comment on the process, “MomMom put Christmas in the basement!”

We had intended to leave the tree up as long as possible; this was earlier than we’d hoped.

I also thought we’d throw the tree in the garden to decompose a bit, but had no desire to deal with it right now. So we put it on the curb–our city picks them up for composting so I’m okay with that. Maybe another year, with Maggie’s help, I’ll make ornaments for the birds and squirrels (like popcorn strings and peanut butter & seeds) and we’ll have fun watching it in the garden.

Oh! A tip for Christmas lights: Instead of coiling them up in a box or trying to put them back on the little plastic things they came on, I wrap them around a large piece of cardboard. Mine is about 20″ square, probably because I had that size handy when I thought this up a couple years ago. Two strands fit perfectly on it. I tape down one end of the strand, then simply wrap the rest of it round and round. The size is a bit large for easy holding but I managed to wrap up the lights as I took them off walking around the tree. It works better with two people, especially when putting up the lights (I held and unwrapped while Eric put up the lights last month). The lights have enough space that we could test them before putting them up to see if all worked.

And, in case you are interested, the mathematics of why lights get knotted in boxes. (The researcher actually put a piece of string in a box and tumbled it around then looked at what knots had formed.)

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January 10th, 2008 - ENN: 21 Things You Didn’t Know You Can Recycle

Thanks to Eric for helping me learn that Tyvek envelopes are recyclable! For more details read ENN: 21 Things You Didn’t Know You Can Recycle.

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January 5th, 2008 - What to do with the kids

Although I strongly resisted watching it in the first place, I ended up really liking the movie Shrek. One of these days, I’ll watch the second one. Meanwhile, I’m going to try to win the third one. Home Ec 101 is running a quick contest to win the DVD!

The question is: What do you do to keep the kids busy when you need to get things done?

* First and foremost, my best solution is to involve Maggie in what I’m doing. Easier said than done, of course. But I’ve talked a lot about teaching children to help with chores, even at quite young ages (Maggie’s been helping with the laundry since she could walk. Maybe even before.)
* But sometimes, you’re too busy or harried or it’s dangerous, so the second option is: Get Eric to do something with her. Really, having your husband or wife or an older child keep the child busy is a great idea and an oft-overlooked one.
* Maybe this should have been the first one: Teach the child to keep herself occupied. Maggie is only just 3 and she doesn’t need 100% supervision. From the beginning, we’ve played a lot with her AND taught her to play by herself. We strongly encourage self-sufficiency. Lately, she’s been doing a lot of “I can’t!” on things she quite obviously could figure out in another 30 seconds. Instead of doing it for her, we tell her to take care of it herself. Sure, when she wrapped the sticker around her finger last night and couldn’t get it off, it would have taken me only 10 seconds to remove it. Instead, I put up with 2 minutes of her standing there, asking me to help, my telling her to take care of it herself, her trying, taking it mostly off, putting it back on, asking me again, repeating myself, her taking it mostly off and tearing it, my helping her by holding on to the bits and pieces and she slowly but surely got it all off. Yes, it took longer, but in the end, I’m helping her understand that she is a competent kid who can do things by herself.
* No bonus points: Maggie is never babysat by the TV. She rarely even watches it with us. I want the movie for myself! LOL

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January 4th, 2008 - Insulating the water heater

A VERY common frugal tip is to insulate your water heater. I never followed this tip because when we bought this house, our inspector told us the heater was internally insulated and it would be a bad idea to put a jacket on the outside.

I’ve never seen this advice subsequently, so this summer, I bought water heater insulation. I’d SWEAR I measured the heater first, since I had no idea what size it was. Perhaps I only checked how many gallons it holds–60. Bought the less expensive insulation, which was 2″ of fiberglass with a metallic outer shell (it was during the summer, but I think it was $25). We finally put it up a couple weeks ago. Apparently, we have an odd-sized heater, because the insulation that fits “Most 60 gallon heaters” is far too short lengthwise. Which we didn’t realize until after we’d cut it to fit top-bottom. the heater is also really close to the chimney and it was impossible to tuck it back in there. We’d figured we could patch together the pieces at the side and cover most of it. Instead, it’s oddly taped so that only the backside next to the chimney isn’t covered. Looks horrendous (also had to hack off an area in the front for the controls–not easy to do when it’s attached already), but at least it’s insulated!

We might buy another one, and freecycle these pieces. Not sure. At the same time, I also bought pipe insulation. That I actually put up in the summer, covering most of the hot water pipes in the basement. The pipes have strange angles which made it a difficult and time consuming task. I intended to also do the cold water pipes, but in most places they are too close together to fit two pieces of insulation.

One more thing in the basement: We have two basement vents (heating/cooling) which are completely unnecessary since we’re never down there. (Except when doing things like the above LOL.) The one pointing towards where the previous owner had a worktable (he must have been really short) was closed off (shut and a piece of cardboard placed in it) years ago. This past year, however, I noticed the second one, which is right on top of the furnace! It probably has the warmest air in the house coming out of it! It was also rusted open. And, since it was so close to the furnace, I wondered if it might be necessary in some way. So I remembered to ask the gentleman who cleaned and inspected the furnace about it. He said it would be fine to close it off. Eric took care of it before the water heater.

It’s not perfect and we didn’t use cardboard, but the difference was immediately noticeable. I’ve also noticed a temperature drop during the few times I’ve popped down there for stuff lately. Admittedly, it’s been super cold out for weeks, which is part of it, but not having an open vent has to make some difference, too!

The things you never notice…. (also includes another light in the basement. 7 years in the house and I saw it for the first time this fall. Need to put a compact fluorescent in it so we can use it. I can’t believe how many lights are in the basement, however. And there isn’t one where I need it the most!)

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January 4th, 2008 - Pumpkin Pete

The other night, while cuddling as a family before Maggie went to bed, Maggie poked Daddy in the eye. It appeared intentional and she got a reprimand. Whimpering, she said, “I say Pumpkin Pete.” Huh? Huh? After she said it two more times, I said, “Okay, Maggie, say Pumpkin Pete.” She reached over, tapped my nose, said “Beep!” then squeezed it and said “Honk!”

Heaven’s sakes! It wasn’t Pumpkin Pete! It was “Honk and beep!” We’ve played this with her before, but it didn’t have a name. And while she says honk and beep pretty clearly on their own, together, it really does sound like Pumpkin Pete. (And the poke in the eye *was* accidental. She was trying to honk/beep Daddy.)

I tend to avoid writing about cute things Maggie does as I try to focus on simple living. But while a lot of that has to do with saving money, I really do need to focus on the SIMPLE part of it. Spending 20 minutes hanging out with Maggie and Eric each evening is certainly a nice, simple, family activity. We’re able to do it because we don’t have a bunch of activities every night. And it can really help keep things calm: last night, I was all frustrated about TurboTax Online and didn’t even want to come up. But I did. After chatting with Maggie for 15 minutes, I wasn’t at all stressed out and was able to put the problem aside!

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January 3rd, 2008 - Savor yourself in winter

“There is a privacy about it which no other season gives you… In spring, summer and fall, people sort of have an open season on each other; only in winter can you hve longer, quiet stretches when you can savor belonging to yourself.”
Ruth Stout

From Meg Cox’s monthly newsletter about family traditions and rituals. To subscribe, send a blank e-mail to Subscribers-Join@megcox.com. Your address will never be shared or sold. Meg’s the author of The Book of New Family Traditions (and others). I LOVE her stuff.

I fit this quote a lot. I was just thinking about it last night, too. I started a new book over lunch and all I wanted to do when I got home was read. I said as much to Eric, but also indicated that it probably wasn’t a good idea (Maggie and all). And he encouraged me to go ahead and do so! He and Maggie went out on a couple errands, I curled up with the book and dinner. I read until MJ’s bedtime, then until mine, then after mine. And I’m not quite done with the book! The great thing about winter is that I feel so free to do this. I don’t have the garden or yard or food processing to work on instead. While I don’t get the desire completely out of my system in winter, it certainly helps when I feel overworked in the summer to know I can look forward to it.

I love the seasons. I wonder if folks in warmer climes have times off or not so much?

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January 2nd, 2008 - Privilege mem

Yondalla did this and I think it’s powerful. Items in bold are true for me:

1. Father went to college
2. Father finished college
3. Mother went to college
4. Mother finished college
5. Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor I have grandparents, aunts, and uncles fitting these. My parents are qualified to be professors (Master’s Degrees) and Dad did teach but he was a librarian. Not sure if he was a tenured librarian, but likely.
6. Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers.
7. Had more than 50 books in your childhood home.
8. Had more than 500 books in your childhood home. Not certain of this, as we checked most of our books out of the library. But probably.
10. Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18 Piano
11. Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18 I don’t think anything else was offered in my little town! Or does band count? If so, this would be a yes.
12. The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively.
13. Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18. I was about to say not until I went to college at 18 years 6 weeks, but I think I got it before going to France earlier that summer. Not that my parents paid for anything I put on it!
14. Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs.
15. Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs
16. Went to a private high school
17. Went to summer camp But I paid for it all by myself (gift money, allowance, work, etc.).
18. Had a private tutor before you turned 18.
19. Family vacations involved staying at hotels (I’m saying no because hotel stays were only in between family/friend stops or for vacations for parental conferences. Maybe that’s a yes?)
20. Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18 (Many, but lots of hand me downs.)
21. Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them.
22. There was original art in your house when you were a child. My parents and other relatives are artists plus put great store in other artists’ work.
23. You and your family lived in a single-family house
24. Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home
25. You had your own room as a child
26. You had a phone in your room before you turned 18.
27. Participated in a SAT/ACT prep course.
28. Had your own TV in your room in high school.
29. Owned a mutual fund or IRA in high school or college.
30. Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16 (I was 14.)
31. Went on a cruise with your family.
32. Went on more than one cruise with your family.
33. Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up.
34. You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family. Unaware of the amounts, but certainly aware of the costs. We built a passive-solar house and kept the thermostat down in winter and up in summer.

A couple of years ago Yondalla’s son went to a diversity seminar. There were three kids there who were biokids of foster parents, the rest were foster kids. They lined them all up in the middle of a large room and then had them take steps backwards or forwards depending upon the answers to questions like these. Then they had to run to get a seat in one of two chairs. It made quite an impression on her son. He got one of the chairs, and he didn’t have to run. He was only a step away. That would be me, too. (Most of this paragraph taken from her post.)

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My Adventures in Simple Living

Archive for January, 2008

January 28th, 2008 - Water heater update

January 28th, 2008 - Heat

January 28th, 2008 - Biohazard Symbol History

January 28th, 2008 - In-home water features

January 25th, 2008 - How will you spend your tax rebate?

January 16th, 2008 - Changing those financial goals, or We’re having a baby!

January 10th, 2008 - Putting Christmas in the basement

January 10th, 2008 - ENN: 21 Things You Didn’t Know You Can Recycle

January 5th, 2008 - What to do with the kids

January 4th, 2008 - Insulating the water heater

January 4th, 2008 - Pumpkin Pete

January 3rd, 2008 - Savor yourself in winter

January 2nd, 2008 - Privilege mem

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