financial advice

I wish you were around to give me some financial advise. I got an estimate for the roof work tonight. $7,200 to tear the shingles and plywood off, replace the broken beams, replace the plywood and shingles, and redo the flashing around the chimney. I was worried it would be half that.

My options are:

• borrow the money from my home equity line of credit and owe even more on the house
  
• take the money from my retirement savings and pay income taxes on it for this year
  
• take the money from an investment account and pay some capital gains taxes for this year
  

None of these appeal to me, but since I haven't won the lottery ever, I have to do something. The life of a wealthy slum lord if full of decisions :)

Jerry

Plano

Actually talked to Jessica on the phone today. She's so busy I can understand. We're going to meet on Wednesday at Sam's and then go to lunch. I hope I can remember to take ice with me. All Sam's has is huge bags of ice and I don't need that much to get home with the food I buy.

I told you Marie and her family are working on the house in Plano. She sent me a picture of her kids cleaning on the apples in the back yard. That brings back memories. I used to pay the kids by the bucket to pick the apples up out of the yard. There were many years I felt like chopping that damn tree down, but I never did. It is the best shade back there. My grandson Curtis is the tall skinny kid in the middle.

Jessica is going to Plano this weekend to visit some friends and take a look at their house. They're in the same situation I am. They have to rent their house out in Somonauk. I hope it works out better for them than it is for me. She'd going to hook up with Marie and see if she can find some more yoga stuff in the basement.

No word on the roof repair estimate yet. It's probably going to be thousands instead of hundreds. I have suspended all buying of non-essentials until I get this taken care off.

It almost seems unfair for me to just tell you about what's going on in my life. I have all kinds of questions about what's going on where you are, but no way for you to let me know. I appreciate you hearing me out though.

Jerry

the money pit

That house in Plano is popping up again. The woman who had a signed and sealed rent-to-buy contract decided to bail with two weeks notice instead of 60 days. Last weekend was her final move out date, even though her lease ran to October 25th. I was so sure this was going to work out because she made a $4,000 deposit to the company who arranged the deal. To top it off she and her roommates trashed the place. They even had most of the chain link fence I put up torn down for some unknown reason. I will be getting a forwarding address and charging them for the cleanup and the fence. Not that I have a snowball's chance in hell of collecting. I ordered a dumpster today for $400+ so the house can be cleaned out, and that's just for starters.

I have someone looking at the house now and they brought in a contractor to take a look. Turns out when the chimney collapsed last spring, it broke four roof beams too. Why nobody noticed that while they were rebuilding the chimney or patching the roof around it, I don't know. Now the roof has to be partially torn open to get new beams in the attic to repair the structural part of the roof. I'm supposed to get an estimate on that today. And of course no rent coming in now to help pay for it.

The good news is the family looking at the house have agreed to rent it and do some of the cleanup work. They'll probably move in the first of October. They'll be filling the dumpster with the crap the old renters left. It turns out it's Marie and her new husband. You probably don't remember, but Marie is Doug's first ex-wife. She and Doug lived in the house with me back around 2000-2001. At least she knows what to expect and is still willing to rent the place.

That's the silver lining to the whole issue. I think I can trust Marie. My grandson Curtis is 15 now. I must be getting old since I have three that are older :)

You still there?

Hey Frank. It's been a little over six months since you died. February 12, 2015 will always be a dark day for me. Of course it was darker for you. Grief is selfish in a way. I feel bad for you dying, and for Melissa having to go on without you, but I feel sorry for not having you to talk to also.

I'm sure you're out there somewhere. I'm not big on religion, but what I have faith in is that there is a higher power out there, and the higher power is fair. You can call that karma if you like. What it means is you're in a better place. I'm going to assume you can tap into this blog. If I'm wrong I'll never know. At least not until I die too. Nobody gets out alive.

I'm going to start using you as my sounding board again. I've been floundering. That's my fault, but I'm going to see if you can help me out. Don't be surprised if I ask you dumb questions. I always did. I usually got some pretty good answers though. Now I'll have to figure it out for myself, but you and I both know we were never about getting help as much as we were about finding out if we were so far out in left field we'd never make it back to the dugout.

That's all for now. I'll keep in touch.

Jerry