February. The ancient Romans called it Februarius and it marked the start of spring for their empire two thousand years ago. Back then of course, Februarius didn’t occur at the same position of the earth’s axis as it does now. The ancient Romans used Februarius as the time to plan for the upcoming good weather and prepare the fields. And so we followed suit in the Happily Disengaged household even though it’s not quite spring.

The warm weather allowed us to get in some yard work before the real spring made things harder to tidy up. I aerated the lawn and gave my bi-annual dousing of lawn food and reprogrammed the sprinklers. It felt great getting outside and laboring under a warm sun.

We’ve decided to allocate some money in the upcoming weeks for a backyard dining table so we can spend more time outside. I definitely grill and smoke a ton back there, we just eat inside. Hopefully the table will change that. We’ll probably buy a fire pit and get some vegetables going for the girls to tend to.

My wife’s birthday is also in February. We celebrated by heading up to Lake Tahoe. She’s inching into her mid-thirties now.

Financially, February was a good month. We’re still saving and investing more than 50% of our income, which is all we can really control on this path to financial independence.

Equity Surprise

A few houses around the neighborhood are going up for sale. I noticed on Zillow my house value has risen significantly. It’s topping $600k…not that it means much to me. I’ve written this before, and I’ll write it again. My philosophy is this: A house you live in is not an investment. Unless I’m renting a part of it out or running a business from it, its much better than an investment; it’s my home.

This means that the equity really doesn’t mean much for us…till I decide to sell or rent it out. I mean, it’s a paper value just like a stock, except I didn’t buy the place with the sole hope it would go up in value. That’s what stocks are for. Homes are much more special than that. Any home equity gained is just a big ‘ol fat cherry on top of having a great place to live out my time on earth with my family.

What we care about when it comes to a home boils down to three things:

1. Location. Being in a decent neighborhood to raise our girls without worrying about crime. Dedicated walking paths. Good schools that we can easily walk to. I’m also within 42 miles of work. In California we measure distance by time, so that’s 1.5-ish hours away on a weekday afternoon. My wife is 30 minutes down the road.
2. Cost. Having an affordable mortgage that allows us to save 50% of our income. Being house poor gets us nowhere fast. Low monthly mortgage is vital to properly save/invest and one day be free from the man.
3. Vibe. The minute I walked into the house for the very first time I felt it. I knew it was the right house. It felt like putting on a pair of brand new socks. Or that solid no vibration satisfaction of connecting with a baseball for a line drive. I could see my life taking place in the home. The direction it faced was right. The layout. The owner and I connected over our military past. It had the right vibe, whatever the hell that means.

So far the plan is to hold onto the house forever. I have no real estate in my portfolio, so when we do hit FI, and if we really do make our dreams reality and start traveling full time, the plan will be to rent it out while we’re gallivanting around the globe. Back of the envelope math tells me I can probably cash flow the home for roughly $800 net a month in today’s rental market. Who knows what it’ll be in 5 years.

Okay, house rant over.

Unplanned Events Continue

ER Visit

The last Sunday of the month we ended up in the emergency room with my 7 year old daughter. My daughters decided it would be fun to go down our stairs in a laundry basket. 13 steps. They made it down to the bottom in one piece, but slammed into our hollow metal entry door.

I was outside cooking up some pizza on our grill, enjoying the great weather, and getting ready for a nice meal when this accident happened. You really never know when something bad will happen. I heard a loud crash mixed with laughing. My wife and I ran over to see our kids giggling hysterically at the bottom of the stairs inside a laundry basket. I scolded my daughters for doing that, especially the older one who was oddly crying and laughing at the same time. I thought she was just scared, till my three year old said, “Look, she’s bleeding!”.

Turned out she slammed her head into the door and required 3 staples in the side of her head above the ear. I knew right away the laceration needed stitches once I found the source of the blood. My mistake was saying aloud, oh shit, she’s gonna need stitches, right in front of her.

So we rushed over to the hospital, trying to calm her down about maybe not needing stitches, and stuffing half burnt pizza into my mouth in case it was gonna be a long night. She was pretty brave about the entire thing. I felt awful about yelling at her once I knew she required going to the ER. Crazy girls…Now it can be a funny story. I went from being mad, to worrying she may have a concussion, to laughing about the matter in three hours.

The visit cost only a $50. I’m thankful for my great insurance. I’ll never forget getting an ear ache one afternoon at the tender age of 22, and deciding to ride it out overnight till a clinic opened in the morning because I had no insurance. Well, I ended up wussin’ out and going to the ER because I couldn’t take the pain anymore at 2am. For a quick look into my ear, two drops, and a prescription; I was handed a bill for $4,000! Still had to go pay for the drops at the pharmacy the next day too.

Just as an anecdote to how fucked up our healthcare system is, in Mexico once, a few years after this obscene $4k bill, I got ocean water in my ear in Cancun. A fun day of drinking and swimming in the Caribbean Sea, turned into another bad ear ache a day later. I dropped in to a hospital I randomly found on the street and received excellent professional service, and the actual prescription drops for $20 bucks out the door.

The Honda

We took our Honda in for a routine oil change and I found out the oil plug snapped off the pan the last time it was changed. The said it was barely hanging in there. Now, I only take my car to get oil changes for convenience and time saving. Turns out I wish I kept doing the changes myself. The new oil pan out of left field cost $700. Another Life Happens moment.

Once you start tracking your spending over a longer period, you really start to see a picture of yourself and the life you’re living that might differ from what you envision in your mind. The numbers don’t lie. And I’m not saying that expenses define a person, I’m just saying it gives you another angle to examine yourself, if you choose to do it. For me, it was thinking that random life expenses were rare. In fact, they happen every month. So for me to count up my regular bills on my excel sheet and say this is what I spend a month, isn’t necessarily true.

February Expenses

I’ve decided to do away with the “Goal” portion of my expense breakdown. As long as I’m saving a minimum 50% of my income and tracking where my money goes, what good does comparing what I spent to what I should spend do, other than rile me up? Nothing. So that part’s gone.

Childcare- I moved this line item down to my fluctuating “soft” bills. I’m now able to work from home on Wednesdays. This will save us a bit of money as the girls hang out with me as I work. My wife trained them pretty well from her time at home. They’re old enough that I can trust them to behave while I work and Zoom my life away from the comfort of home.

YoutubeTV- (**It’s actually $62 a month just caught my mistake above, but not going to redo the image.**) We ended up getting youtube tv after careful consideration of all options. It’s very similar to my long lost Playstation Vue service. Plus I can get my sports fix on it.

PG&E- Yeah, gonna need to replace the windows in my home sooner than later. We’ve been blasting the heater like it’s nobody’s business. Or maybe I might look into solar…or both?

Amazon/Target- We had some birthdays to celebrate this month in the gift giving circle of our family. This is the price for some gifts and the trip to Tahoe.

How was your Februarius? April 1st we’re supposed to be opening things back up and there’s an optimistic buzz everywhere I turn. Hopefully we can turn the corner on this COVID nightmare. Maybe even catch a ballgame this year.

PS. I got my vaccine shot last Friday. CA deemed me an essential worker.