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Archive for November, 2011

I can't believe I've not calculated this before

November 21st, 2011 at 05:43 pm

My daily interest expense (for the month of Novemeber 2011):

Credit cards - $2.73
Credit cards plus van - $3.50
Credit cards plus van plus mortgaqge - $21.63

After the six month introductory 0.0% rate is over on my transferred balance on CC 5, that will increase by aother $0.86.

Effect of Interest Rate Drop

November 17th, 2011 at 01:40 pm

Six months ago, the ineterest rate on one of my CCs dropped from 12.9% to 8.9%. I calculated an estimate of what the current balance would be if the interest rate had not dropped.

Balance in June: $8,775

Avereage monthly payment since June: $204.17

Current balance if $204.17 payments had been made at 12.9% int.: $8,098

Actual current balance: $7,931

Diiference: $167

Monthly difference: $27.83

The $27 per month difference is not life changing. My balance would still be rounded to $8,000 with or without the 4 percentage point drop. But, the rate drop is helping, and I'll take all the help I can get!

Roof Waste

November 16th, 2011 at 02:03 pm

I disposed of my roof waste last Friday. To start the story at the beginning, we called around for dumpster rental quotes, and found out that the minimum that we would have to pay was $250. That was more than we wanted to spend, so we decided to borrow my dad's trailer, and we had the roofers pile the waste onto it.

I hauled the trailer to the land fill, about 12 miles away, and the disposal fee was $19. I made two trips to the salvage yard, about 4 miles away. One trip was the scrap steel, and the second trp was the scrap aluminum. The steel brought $32, and the aluminum brought $20. Probably twenty percent plus or so of the scrap steel was other scrap we had laying around, so we'll say that the scrap steel from the roof was worth $25.

So: Cost for trash disposal - $19
Proceeds from steel - $25
Proceeds from aluminum - $20
Cost for travel (40 miles @ $.50 per mile) - $20

Net for waste disposal - $6.

Sure beats $250 for dumpster rental.

But, if we had rented the dumpster, there is some other trash laying around the place that we would have disposed of. I guess I need to make another $19 trip to the landfill!

Roof Update

November 9th, 2011 at 01:43 pm

It's been a while since I updated this blog. I've been busy with work.

So, our roof project is complete. We hired an Amish crew of four for the job. They began Nov. 1 and finished Nov. 4. It actually took three days of work, but Thursday was rainy. Thankfully, a tear-off wasn't necessary, so the rain was no problem.

The best news is that labor was over-estimated by about $1,500, and materials were over-estimated by almost $500, so the whole project was about $1,500 less expensive than our budget.

The results are great - a new shiny steel roof!