Financialae Update.... another 5 years later

[financialae]

I don't know what made me think of this after so many years..... or if there is anyone left who remembers the giant house and mulch saga. LOL.

In 2016 I updated that I had separated from my husband and bought a house.

It's now 2021 and time has flown. I have been re-married for a year. 

I ended up spending a significant portion of my assets on renovating the small house that I bought in 2016. My daughter and I lived in it for several years as it was, then my FI and his daughter moved in for a year. Finally got historic and zoning permission to put a significant extension on the house and that process is now almost complete. 
We will either sell or rent the house when it's finished hopefully in a month or so. 

Last year an opportunity came up to buy a house a few doors down from my house around the corner (basically on my dream street). We bought it privately to be our new blended family home and did a major renovation. Ironically this is the first year since the big house that I've had to buy mulch by the yard. We got 9 yards to cover both this house and the other one.... and I think we bought too much. It's a lot more yard to deal with than my post separation yard, but soooooo much more manageable than the big house. I also find that I am way more suited to being in town and being able to stroll to restaurants, etc.

My new DH loves to invest so while I am still pretty hopeless with it, he does a lot. As a result we are now far more diversified financially. We came to the marriage with around the same net worth, but that has improved a lot in the past year with all the value added to my house by the addition and with the stock market increase. 

For the first few years of my separation I did a ton of airbnb on the house (ended up getting $400 - $495 per night for the whole house) and did the photography for a while. A couple of years ago I went back into real estate. 

The house we are in now is still fairly big (just over 3000 sqft) and probably worth as much or more than the big house was when we sold it, but it's so much more manageable - especially the yard. Taxes are also lower. Utilities run about $350/ month (natural gas/ electric). All in all it's a very manageable situation for us. 

DH invested kiddo's college money and we're now at $85,000 ish. My SD is 16 and her college fund is pretty much fully funded.

Anyway, that's the update if there's anyone left who remembers the initial story.

[chpmnk1015]

I vaguely remember some of this...
Sounds like lots of good stuff!!

[dr.girlfriend]

financialae ,Are you okay with me linking your prior posts? :-)

I'm glad you're happy!

[ellipses84]

I remember! What a great update. It’s crazy how life can change so quickly in ways you can never predict.

How’d you meet your husband?

[mcsangel2]

Whoa, I absolutely remember the big house and the big yard/mulch issue. Out of curiosity, how big *was* the big house? And you're saying the yard in your current house is bigger than the yard of the big house, though the house is smaller? What size is your lot? Man, it all still sounds like so much work to me!

ETA:I just went back and reread all your posts on that thread, lol. That whole saga reminds me of how I like to window shop on Christie's Real Estate for fancy houses in Europe. It is not unusual to find legit castles or mansions on huge hunting estates or pastureland or vineyards only going for a couple million dollars. I always wonder how often it happens that new millionaires buy places like that thinking it's a steal, not realizing how much it costs to actually run and maintain the entire property. Glad you are in a better place.

[dr.girlfriend]

I also think it's funny that with all the stuff in the original post, people got stuck on the mulch. I have a little house in the 'burbs and I just got quoted $2k to trim my bushes and mulch my flowerbeds! (I'm WAY too cheap for that and did it myself)

[pumpkin]

I remember the mulch “issue.”
So glad to hear you’re doing well. Thanks for the update.

[financialae]

Apr 16, 2021 21:48:49 GMT -5 dr.girlfriend said:

financialae ,Are you okay with me linking your prior posts? :-)

I'm glad you're happy!

Sure - that's totally fine. 

[financialae]

Apr 16, 2021 23:41:33 GMT -5 ellipses84 said:

I remember! What a great update. It’s crazy how life can change so quickly in ways you can never predict.

How’d you meet your husband?

I started a no-dating, friendship only group for recently separated and divorced people in my area. 
My now husband showed up to the first meeting when we had 20 or 30 members. There are now over 2000 and another couple got married a few weeks ago. The no-dating part wasnt very successful. LOL

[financialae]

Apr 18, 2021 14:01:37 GMT -5 mcsangel2 said:

Whoa, I absolutely remember the big house and the big yard/mulch issue. Out of curiosity, how big *was* the big house? And you're saying the yard in your current house is bigger than the yard of the big house, though the house is smaller? What size is your lot? Man, it all still sounds like so much work to me!

ETA:I just went back and reread all your posts on that thread, lol. That whole saga reminds me of how I like to window shop on Christie's Real Estate for fancy houses in Europe. It is not unusual to find legit castles or mansions on huge hunting estates or pastureland or vineyards only going for a couple million dollars. I always wonder how often it happens that new millionaires buy places like that thinking it's a steal, not realizing how much it costs to actually run and maintain the entire property. Glad you are in a better place.

The big house was over 5000 sqft plus at least another 1000sqft in the basement with 6 acres of property although mostly wooded. Probably 1 - 1.5 acres that needed maintaining. 

The post divorce house was 2700 sqft (it's now almost 3300 sqft) on 0.08 acres. Almost the entire lot was house. It had a small patio and a couple of beds in the front for some flowers.

Our current house is just over 3000 sqft on 1/4 acre right in town. It's a great balance and the yard is considered pretty big for in town but it's still pretty manageable. We finished the mulching today. LOL. Still needed some help, but with our own child labor and a couple of extra teens for a few hours we got it done. 

I think buying too much house is really easily done - especially if you're coming from a HCOL area or from a town or city.
Our city house was actually significantly more expensive than the big house even after you factor in the renovations. But affordability wise the country house was a whole different ball game. It actually seemed like a bargain - which from a sales price point of view, it was. We made quite a bit of money on the house when we sold it, but if we had stayed it would slowly have bled us dry.
The sad part of it all is that the marriage didn't survive the stress. There was a bunch of other stuff too obviously, but it didn't help. 

I think in the end it all turned out how it was meant to. I am so much happier now. New H and I have had our issues, but we're a good life match. Financially I feel back in control and I'm not afraid of an unforseen large bill like I was. 
I have noticed a bit that ex H is not quite as good with money as I had thought. He is still often short on cash even though he owns his house outright and and my new husband has a higher child support/ alimony burden than he does. My guess it that ex h and new h are pretty similar in terms of earnings, so it's puzzling. I wonder if more money was going out in my previous marriage than I realized and I hadn't noticed before I stopped bringing in money myself. 
I think ex h has had 3 new cars since we separated 5 years ago. I'm still driving the same CRV. It's just a bit of a different mindset.