Monday, December 11, 2006

DIY and Decor Spending

I'm back from my trip, and the first thing I did relates to one of my rules, DIY vs PAY. One of my mottoes in life is "If at first someone else doesn't succeed, try and f*** it up yourself." After actually living in my new home for a few days, I was noticing more and more uneven spots in the paint job in my living room. I suppose I could have made a stink about it and had them come back to fix it, but it didn't seem worthwhile. I like painting and I know I can do a good job of it, and I had my doubts about the skills of the previous painters. One thing I didn't want to do was to have to pay for more paint, but that wasn't an issue, as the contractors still have a lot of supplies in the building, and I noticed that they had bought a lot of extra cans in my requested color. They were actually supposed to give me extra paint but had never actually done it, so I just snagged what I needed. I did spend a little money to buy some extra tarps, brushes and rollers, etc, but those are things I would have bought anyway.
So Sunday, I spent most of the day painting and now my living room walls look much better. And with the money I saved by not having to buy extra paint or hire my own painters, maybe I'll get another massage! I woke up today with every muscle in my body aching!

Home improvement spending so far: -$3,925. Yes, that is a negative! The credit I got at closing has more than covered the floor refinishing and all the miscellaneous hardware and houseware supplies I've had to buy so far. I think I've decided on the living room furniture I want to buy, which will come to around $2,200 including tax and delivery. That will leave me $1,725 or so to buy a bed and a few other things I could use. Actually, since I originally budgeted $5,000 for decorating, I guess I technically have $6,725 to spend, but there's no way I'm going to use all that. That $5,000 can become my Roth IRA contribution instead!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

A quick note: furniture is one of the highest margin products that a store can sell. Oftentimes you pay double what it cost the retailer to purchase the item. If you go into a store know that, you can negotiate hundreds off the sticker price.

Single Ma said...

Will you come help me paint? *looking pitiful*