t-minus 421 Days: Couches and Patios

I have a couch that was purchased around 1970. The couch is still as comfortable today and I ever remember it being. Fast forward to the couch and love seat recliners we purchased in 2011. It has not held up well at all. My wife wants new couches and I keep telling her: you can get new couches when we get to Florida, I don't want to have to move new couches.

As a compromise, we decided to have our 9 year old couches repaired. The repairman came today and found a number of broken brackets. I wouldn't be surprised if a kid was jumping on the couches at some point and broke the brackets, who knows? Anyways, they are broken. The good news? They are covered by a Lane lifetime warranty. The bad news? Lane declared bankruptcy seven years ago.

If we are able to convince Lane to supply the parts, the repairman will fix the couches and re-stuff the cushions for $200. Two hundred dollars for an extra 14 months with these couches? That sounds like a really good deal!

I received an updated price on the cost of a patio for the side entrance: $3300 for a 330sqft patio. Alternatively, I could rip up the grass, put down weed barrier, and cover it with marble chip stone for only $500. A patio would have a lot more function but... I won't be here to use it! We are on the fence between doing what is right and what would be the cheapest.

In other news, I reached out to a second real estate person. My wife didn't want to put all our eggs in one basket, and, the basket we picked hasn't been very responsive. I am sure agents hear from people all of the time with big dreams that never come true and perhaps that is why we haven't received very much information. We'll have a bit of a competition between two or three agents and pick which ever one wants our business the most.

Several months ago, I had the heavy thought of leaving our house for the last time. This is where our kids grew up and where we have spent 17 years of our life. Every dent in the wall and every scrape on the floor has a memory attached to it. The idea of leaving that last day knowing that I'll never be coming back was troubling. I'll never be able to walk through that front door, grill on the back deck, or look out the window at the farm fields. That was difficult for me until I resolved to the idea of starting a new chapter; looking forward, not backwards; getting excited for what lay ahead instead of thinking what will be left behind.

We all come to these thoughts at different times. While it struck me several months ago, it just struck my wife this past weekend. Rather than work through it, she has decided to bury it and not think about it.  Eventually, it will come back and she'll have to work through it. While I believe I have already crossed this bridge and put it behind me, I suspect there will be some things I'll still need to work through as well.

We are selling items on Facebook Marketplace like hot cakes! There is so much going on that I've had to keep track of it in a spreadsheet. Many items are posted, many more need to be posted, some have been sold and picked up, and others are waiting for pickup. So far, it is all small toys, $5 to $20. We do "porch pickups" which means we leave the item on our front porch with an envelope. The person buying the product will put the money in the envelope and put the envelope under our door mat. I am trying to put two or three new items into MarketPlace every day, but I realized with only 420 days before our move, that isn't hardly enough! Somehow, I'll need to find a way to really ramp this up, and get some more family members involved.

That is today's update. Come back soon to find out how we get ready for this massive move!

One Annual pass

We are trying an experiment this year. We decided to save some money and get four 10-day Disney passes. We learned we might save even more money if we bought three 10-day passes and one annual. The person with the annual pass pays for everything and takes advantage of the discounts. So, free parking, discounted restaurants, discounts at the gift shop, and more!

Did this approach save us any money?


Annual Pass Cost $740
10 Day Pass Cost  $440
===================
Price Difference  $300

Did we save $300 by getting one annual pass?

ADMISSION
Parking was $20 x 10 = $200

FOOD
ABC Commissary, 20% = $13.34

SOUVENIRS
Sunglasses, 20% = $4
========================
TOTAL SAVED $217.34

If we could have gotten into Disney Quest, it would have save us an additional $150. We couldn't get in... so... I can't count that.

sorry - I didn't finish this blog entry. I planned to provide a detailed account of all the savings but I never got around to it. I can tell you for certain we saved more than enough to pay for the pass.

Our Disney Tickets For 2016

If you are a Disney fan, then you know the price of Disney tickets have become insane! A one day pass is now over $100.








We have gone to Disney once or twice every year since 2009, and many times before then. We have done Disney and enjoy the activities. But do we really need to go to Disney every day that we are in Florida?








Last year, we decided to do an experiment. Our yearly pass expired half way through our vacation. Rather than renew the yearly pass, we decided to front-load the trip with Disney and then find other things to do for the several weeks of the remaining trip. We still went to Disney during those weeks, but we did "free" things: Disney Springs, resorts, etc.  The rest of the time, we enjoyed our villa, the surrounding towns, and the myriad of other things to do. This decision saved us thousands of dollars.








When anyone renews their yearly pass, they receive a discount. If you let the yearly pass lapse, you lose that discount. Returning in 2016, we were faced with purchasing the full cost of Disney Yearly passes which, for our family, is around $3,000!






I said "wait a minute... how many times are we going to Disney?" During our 2015 trip, we found many non-Disney park things to do that we loved and wanted to repeat. We found other non-Disney park things we wanted to do during this trip as well. While we were going to be near Disney for five weeks, we were actually only going into the parks for 12 days. With the annual pass, that would be $250 per trip into the park.






"Can we get that down to 10 days instead of 12?" I asked. My wife and I worked on the schedule and re-arranged everything. If we could get it down to 10 days, we could get a 10-day pass and save $1600 (minus parking charges). In fact, with our Disney Visa Reward points, we could almost get that 10-day pass for free!






So, we did it. We only purchased a 10 day pass this year. All ten days must be used within 14 consecutive calendar days. But that's fine! We decided, again, to front-load this trip with Disney park, and put everything else we want to do for the weeks at the end of the trip. Perfect! And we saved a ton of money!!

Money Diet: Outback Ranch Dressing

When we prepare for a Disney vacation, we go on a money diet. We try to save us much money as we can and put it toward our trip. One way to save money is to avoid going out to eat. We love eating at Outback. It is one of our favorite places to eat when visiting Florida because it is just down the road from our Villa. I've discovered a way to bring outback home by making a home made version of the famous outback Ranch Dressing! It is simple. Just mix the following:

1 teaspoon of Hidden Valley Ranch dressing mix
1 cup mayonnaise
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/4 teaspoon coarse ground black pepper
1/8 teaspoon paprika
1/8 teaspoon garlic powder

Mix it. Chill it. And save yourself a trip to Outback!

How to afford a long Disney stay

~~From my 2013 Journal~~

I have ha many people ask how we could afford going to Disney for a month. I will share with you some of our secrets!

First, our Disney Visa Credit card. We have the extra point program and charge everything we purchase. We earned enough points in two years to pay for our Disney year passes! That means we are visiting the parks for free!

Next, we visit Down Town Disney a lot. Down Town Disney has no admission fee. We also visit the Disney resorts and tour them. They don't have admission fees either. And there are free shows, for example: Yeeha Bob at Riverside, magicians at Boardwalk, and nightly movies under the stars - all free!

We had a house with a full kitchen. So, we bought groceries like we normally would, and ate two or three meals at home per day. Compared to staying at home? No additional cost.

As part of our normal budget, we go to the movies about once per month and eat out once or twice (sometimes more) per week. We transferred that normal spending pattern to Disney. We did, admittedly, splurge on some Disney dinning experiences and those contributed to the cost of the vacation. While I am glad we had those experiences, I would skip them next time and thus save on a lot of the restaurant costs.

We normally do a summer vacation - either Myrtle Beach or Florida. That is part of our yearly budget that we save for. We learned that for the cost of a hotel room for two weeks? We could almost rent a house for a month! Renting a house is a lot cheaper than hotels. When renting a house there are many options with many price choices - we just had to find one that fit our budget.

In addition to house rental and restaurants, we drove our van 2,500 more miles than we normally would have. That gasoline cost us an extra $370.

You could drive from New York to Florida without stopping (20 hours) but we get a hotel along the way. I got great deals on hotels - I found a HoJo for $47! The hotels added to our vacation cost.

We extended our vacation with several stops. South of the Border is a free stop. The USS Yorktown required admission. Hershey World is free, but has some optional activities that you must pay for. And touring the Gettysburg battlefields is free.

Going to Florida for a month isn't cheap. But we were able to do things that kept the costs under control. House rental, hotels, gas, and some restaurants totaled up most of our vacation cost. But we used our credit card points, transferred our normal spending habits, and rented a house to help keep costs low.