Irregular Payments

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Apparently stuck on the extra-special super-extended hold line (when and how did customer service get so incredibly bad that 10 15 20+ minutes waiting on hold isn’t anything but outrageous anymore?) and thought I’d take a little initiative and get this done before a week of November has passed! How about taking a quick peek and see how that ol’ balance sheet did this month. Of course followed by a few notes if interest, to me at least…

a little random commentary

• Must say that a 4% gain on the retirement investments for the month was a pleasant surprise. A couple of our fund allocations are enough out of line to probably need a little rebalancing, but I’m going to continue our plan and wait until the beginning of next year to do so. (mental note to myself: our investment strategy might make a good post!)
• Well, I was enjoying seeing our assets increase and our liabilities decrease. At least until we hit that line of credit. No surprise at all, but I wouldn’t have complained if my mental calcalutions weren’t quite as accurate as the one on screen! And just going to get larger, I’m afraid. Ah, well, someday I’ll have to assess what our home value actually is and not feel so bad about taking on all of this extra debt…
• Not directly PF-related, but our migraine-inducing contractors (plumbers, if you were interested) did actually show up over an entire weekend - including a Sunday - following my warning and the parade of interested parties I mentioned earlier. We’re not done with them quite yet - they still have to attach a few faucets and other minutae after a bit of drywall work is done. No bill of any type from them yet, and I expect I’ll see a few charges on there that I’m going to refuse to pay - i.e. any non-regular working hours charges, seeing as the only reason they had to work those hours is because they blew our job off so long that I had to threaten to fire them. But the vast majority of their job is done and we will soon be rid of them forever.
• So, obviously we’re still renovating away, and progress on the total debt is still going the wrong way for the time being. But for the first time in a while, I’m seeing light at the end of the tunnel. Here’s hoping it’s not a train…

Tagged:
 » debt, renovations, report card, balance sheet, credit card, investments

Want a really simple, painful way to save lots of money? Pick up a really nasty fall cold, and stick with it for ten days or so…

• Nothing stops you from wasting money on pointless purchases quite like feeling too ill to do anything but lie around and stare into space. Even normally dangerous places like a book store don’t appeal to me when I can’t concentrate.
• When you can’t really breath, nothing has a taste. So that filet mignon or lobster tail probably won’t be trying to make an appearance in your menu planning. As a positive side effect, if you’re trying to lose weight, not being able to taste will certainly help you along!
• A diet of cough drops and chicken noodle soup is dirt cheap.

Tagged:
 » cold, illness, blah, chicken noodle soup

Yes, I know, this is barely personal finance related. It’s my party blog, and I’ll cry vent if I want to…

I was reading through the Real Estate Journal this afternoon (while waiting on a few stragglers to bring in the last bit of info before the tax extension deadline ends) , and stumbled across an article titled Finally, the Contractor Will Take Your Calls. And felt my blood begin to boil a little more.

As a whole, most of our contractors in our grand remodeling project have been nothing short of excellent. We let them know what we’d like done. They give us a date that they will have it done. And, amazingly, several days before that date, the work is generally done.

But we’ve been dealing with one contractor who has been especially adept at delaying us, apparently just to make up for the others being so easy to work with. And honestly, if they weren’t a local business that also does business with us, we would have long ago let them go. After looking through my notes Tuesday, I realized that a job of theirs that was given to them almost six months ago - and that should have taken an utterly inept contractor a month - still wasn’t complete, nor been worked on for at least a month (I’ve been taking pics to send to an interested relative, and the date tag on one showing their last progress is 9/9).

This job, if not done by the end of the next week, will delay a whole line of the other excellent contractors. So, I called and told them the job absolutely needed to be done by Friday. Late yesterday afternoon, what do I find but a message on my cell that, umm, well, we’ve got a few projects that came up that need to be taken care of immediately, and so the job can’t be done by Friday. Followed by a chorus of a vast array of loud, choice words to noone in particular in our (thankfully) empty office by yours truly.

Now, let me be perfectly honest, I’m a bit of a pushover - I generally go out of my way to not be confrontational. But I’d had enough. I called them back, found no one in, and left my final missive to them on their answering service: Finish the job by the end of business Monday. Or my Tuesday would be spent finding someone who actually wanted my business, and the business of anyone who would seek my opinion, from that day forward. Honestly, with this crew, I didn’t think even that would motivate them…

What I didn’t realize is that my wife had been talking with the next contractor in line, expressing her frustration with our delaying crew. And he was going to be having a conversation with them this morning to see what he could do.

Meanwhile, and unbeknownst to either of us, my mother-in-law was sending in my father- and brother-in-law - who not so inconsequentially do a fair amount of business with these guys - in to have a chat about our delay as well.

I’m guessing their entire Friday morning was spent dealing not only with my warning that they were about to be fired, but also with groups of people none too happy with the way our job was being handled.

I just received a phone call from one of the partners over there. After months of annoyance, it looks like action is finally going to get taken on this big delay.

This weekend.

All weekend if necessary.

While I really am not at all thrilled that it’s taken this kind of effort to get some action, I’m cautiously optimistic. I just won’t be holding my breath. Wish us luck!

Tagged:
 » contractors, renovation, construction, customer service