Moving On

Well, the funeral is over and we are slowly trying to move on.  Of course it doesn’t help when you are also trying to get your parent’s house rebuilt from a fire.  Too many items remind me of my dad and the constant communications with all the people that are working on the house and the insurance company seems to take it’s toll a bit.  We are still waiting for bids from contractors to figure out who will do the work.  Two of the contractors specialize in insurance work and fire restoration.  My mom has stated that she wants to use one of them since they are larger companies, but we’ll have to see how the bids come in.

We are all chipping in to cover some of the ongoing costs of the family cabin.  My parents have always covered all of those costs but now that dad is gone, my mom will be on a much tighter budget.  Since we all use the cabin now and then, it’s only right for all of us to help pay those bills.

I ran the numbers for my mom both from a budget perspective and also from a net worth perspective.  The net worth number surprised me.  It was definitely higher than I thought, but she won’t be moving in next door to Donald Trump or anything.  If we play ALL of our cards right, I think we will be able to get her set up in a new, much smaller, house and plan some investments that will help supplement her income.  It’s really been a family effort and I think it’s comforting to know that we can all pull together the way we have.

And, in the middle of all of this, I’m still trying to make progress on our own cabin.  If you recall, we have been building our own house at the lake since last year.  Since it’s just a friend and I doing the work, it is going much slower than if I’d just hired a contractor.  The good news is that I’m earning a lot of sweat equity.  When the place is finished, I should have equity of about 50% of it’s value.  Not too bad.  I’m most pleased to have two different appreciating assets in my portfolio now.

Anyway, that’s enough rambling for now.  I’ll try to be a bit more consistent with the postings now that a lot of the drama has subsided.