What are your next major purchases?

[Blackhawk]

Went out to check the car for tomorrows trip to town for odds and ends. Battery dead. 3 months old. Had to boost it with my riding mower to start it up. Let run. Hoped it would charge for tomorrow. Nope. I turned it off and tried to restart it ...dead. So tomorrow I have to boost it again and go to walmart and make them replace it free. Got my receipt from April. Fun fun.

Are you sure there isn't something somewhere that's actively draining it?

[Smoove_B]

Yeah, I was about to post the same. That sounds like you have a parasite somewhere slowly pulling off charge. Also, to recharge it after you get it going, you'd have to drive it around for a few hours (I think); you can't just let it idle for 20 minutes.

Might have corrosion on one of the leads or your alternator could be shot. That's been the issue on my end when I've seen similar problems. But yeah, a 3 month old battery shouldn't be dead.

[LordMortis]

Yeah, I was about to post the same. That sounds like you have a parasite somewhere slowly pulling off charge. Also, to recharge it after you get it going, you'd have to drive it around for a few hours (I think); you can't just let it idle for 20 minutes.

Might have corrosion on one of the leads or your alternator could be shot. That's been the issue on my end when I've seen similar problems. But yeah, a 3 month old battery shouldn't be dead.

30 minutes of active driving or a few hours idling is usually good enough for a new battery with a good alternator. I got nothing for diagnosing power loss overnight except make sure not to leave lights on.

[Daehawk]

Its all guesswork. We got the car in 2010. It had a problem then with a drain. Nothing was found. We bought a booster and kept it in the trunk and used it off and on to start the car. We got a new battery and had the alternator rebuilt and it was fine for years and years. Now here I am again. So battery / alternator / drain who knows what... and which.

ill have the battery replaced and hope for the best. If it continues Ill have to have the alt checked again. The charge gauge in the dash shows its in the middle and fine.

[LordMortis]

Car batteries don't last for crap any more. I've had to replace mine three times now on a 2009 and I'm not hard on it. Five years is all you get any more, even as battery prices have gone through the roof. Where's my $20 battery that last 10 years? It'd last so long you had to buy distilled water because the acid dried up. You'd spend more effort cleaning terminals than replacing the battery. Now I get a $180 battery that's lucky to make it a full five years.

[Isgrimnur]

Don't neglect the possibility of the wiring harness being bad.

[em2nought]

You should have them check your charge rate when you get the new battery instead of going by the gauge on the dash. It's easy to get corrosion between the post and the terminal, that should be checked. Go out to look at the car at night to see if you see light coming from anyplace. Trunk, hood, interior, dash.

If you only drive once a month or so, you might consider getting a trickle charger to maintain the battery. You can get one for about $10 when HarborFreight has a coupon.

[Kraken]

Could it be your battery-charger-upper? (Alternator?)

[Kraken]

We’ve started shopping for a house in the Berkshires. We’ve only actually toured one (which we haven't ruled out, but aren't excited about), but have done at least half-a-dozen drive-bys to rule out other candidates, and Wife watches the realtor listings regularly. The pickings are kind of slim and I doubt that we’re going to find the right place at the right price this year.

However, I spotted one at the top end of our price range that looks quite promising. We’re going back out there in a few weeks and intended to drive by, and possibly tour it if the neighborhood is encouraging. Today Wife checked Airbnb to see if any new listings might displace the motel room that we’ve reserved…and she found the very house that we’re interested in buying! Its only available for two of the nights that we’ll be there, but we pounced on that. We get a chance to test-live a potential home!

[Daehawk]

I think Ill rename my car the Fuckmobile. Not in terms of sexual flair but more of a fuck you fuck me fuckitall car.

It has that drain again like it had when we got it. Battery is new and good. Haven't had the alternator checked but it was recharging the battery from dead after a boost so its doing 'something' Will still have it checked.

But a random unknown battery drain is a PAIN IN THE ASS to find and get fixed. Mechanics like to throw parts here and there for things like that. Parts I cant afford to have thrown at it. Dammit.

I drove it around town Sunday or Monday and it charged up and restarted every time in town. Started it yesterday even. Been trying to keep it alive for my next trip into town.

Tonight go out and its drained completely dead clickclickclickityclick.. BAH! Very disheartening.

[em2nought]

Tonight go out and its drained completely dead clickclickclickityclick.. BAH! Very disheartening.

cheap fix
https://www.amazon.com/Top-Post-Battery ... r=8-3&th=1

[Kraken]

We’ve toured five houses in the past two days. Four of them can be ruled out for assorted reasons. The fifth…the one that’s at the very top of our ability to afford…we don’t agree on. Wife really wants it. I have reservations. We’re going to gather more info tomorrow. It’s unquestionably a very nice house, but I’m not sure it’s right for our (my) lifestyle. I’m going to try to address my misgivings before the weekend is over. Our financial advisor says that we could swing it without putting our retirement at risk, but it will be a big stretch.

I’m a little more attracted to the cheapest one we looked at, which is $235,000 less. It's a larger, nicer lot in a better location. We can afford it without raising much sweat. But the house itself would require a lot of work and neither of us want to put a lot of effort and money into making it right. We can retire after we solve our housing situation, and it could take a couple of years of reconstruction and renovation to transform “the red house."

[Daehawk]

Tonight go out and its drained completely dead clickclickclickityclick.. BAH! Very disheartening.

cheap fix
https://www.amazon.com/Top-Post-Battery ... r=8-3&th=1

Heck thats neat. And handy. Never knew of such a thing. Im gonna get one now. Thanks. But wont that reset my radio every time I use it? Like lose all its saved stations and such? Not to mention resetting the car's computer?

[em2nought]

Yes, you'll lose your settings. You should probably get the one with the black twist knob to avoid confusion as it actually attaches to the neg terminal. If you look at amazon you'll see there is a knife blade style one that's $12.00 which I think I'd like a little better, not sure. https://www.amazon.com/Battery-Disconne ... hdGY&psc=1

Black twist knob


With either you need to make sure there is room for the switch to fit between the top of your battery and the hood when the hood is closed.

I think some Walmarts might have the cheaper type if you wanted to go look at one before you bought it.

[Skinypupy]

Mrs Skinypupy has been wanting to do a major house renovation for several years. I have shot it down because it would have likely been a six figure project. Simply couldn’t justify that with kids just entering high school and middle school.

Our compromise was to get the kids all moved to their own rooms. Little B 14.5 has her own room now, but the Wonder Twins 10.2 still share a room. In order to do this, we now have to:

1. Purchase a very large cabinet storage solution for the garage and a backyard storage shed. This will allow us to clean out and organize the garage.
2. Move all the crap that is currently in the downstairs ”craft room” out to the garage. This craft room will become Wonder Twin A’s bedroom. This change requires a new bedroom set, apparently.
3. Mrs Skinypupy’s downstairs office - which is packed to the rafters with crap - will move to Little B’s current bedroom. This downstairs office will become Wonder Twin B’s bedroom. This change requires a new bedroom set, apparently.
4. Move Little B’s current bedroom into the Wonder Twin’s current bedroom. This change requires - you guessed it - a new bedroom set, apparently
5. Recarpet two of these bedrooms, plus our master bedroom.

For those keeping score at home, this means I’ll be purchasing three new bedroom sets, one massive cabinet storage solution for the garage, one outdoor shed, and new carpet for three bedrooms.

I…just should have agreed to the remodel.

[gilraen]

3. Mrs Skinypupy’s downstairs office - which is packed to the rafters with crap - will move to Little B’s current bedroom.

Should be a good time to "encourage" her to get rid of some of the crap...

[Skinypupy]

3. Mrs Skinypupy’s downstairs office - which is packed to the rafters with crap - will move to Little B’s current bedroom.

Should be a good time to "encourage" her to get rid of some of the crap...

Oh, that's been an ongoing process for the past 27 years. Yet the collection keeps growing...somehow.

[em2nought]

For those keeping score at home, this means I’ll be purchasing three new bedroom sets, one massive cabinet storage solution for the garage, one outdoor shed, and new carpet for three bedrooms.

I…just should have agreed to the remodel.

...or use facebook marketplace

[mori]

My dishwasher is starting to give up the ghost so I thought about replacement. I never priced a dishwasher before and did not realize it was one of the most expensive appliances to buy. I think I will forego replacement for the time being as I am sure all the appliances will fail around the same time (house was built and equipped in 2006) and a washer and drier, oven, refrigerator, and even a microwave is far more a necessity than a dishwasher. Never had a dishwasher until I bought this house and I still have to hand wash half of my stuff anyways so it will not be that detrimental to my lifestyle.

[em2nought]

My dishwasher is starting to give up the ghost so I thought about replacement. I never priced a dishwasher before and did not realize it was one of the most expensive appliances to buy. I think I will forego replacement for the time being as I am sure all the appliances will fail around the same time (house was built and equipped in 2006) and a washer and drier, oven, refrigerator, and even a microwave is far more a necessity than a dishwasher. Never had a dishwasher until I bought this house and I still have to hand wash half of my stuff anyways so it will not be that detrimental to my lifestyle.

Appliance packages are usually a better deal than one at a time too.

[Kraken]

We didn't buy a house yet.

Of the five we looked at, Wife fell in love with one. I didn't because practical reasons and threw the red flag.

We each get a red flag. It occurs to me to wonder if we should each get to play it a limited number of times.

[Scuzz]

My dishwasher is starting to give up the ghost so I thought about replacement. I never priced a dishwasher before and did not realize it was one of the most expensive appliances to buy. I think I will forego replacement for the time being as I am sure all the appliances will fail around the same time (house was built and equipped in 2006) and a washer and drier, oven, refrigerator, and even a microwave is far more a necessity than a dishwasher. Never had a dishwasher until I bought this house and I still have to hand wash half of my stuff anyways so it will not be that detrimental to my lifestyle.

We are currently on our third dishwasher in our 30 year old house. We discovered the last one was shot when we found water coming thru the walls near the dishwashers location. It was dumping water out in an early cycle.

[ImLawBoy]

I ordered a new dishwasher yesterday. The old one still works, but it's 10+ years old (not sure exactly - it came with the house) and the door feels like it's about ready to fall off. Doesn't make sense to pay for repairs on something that old, so rather than wait until the last minute when it finally dies we took the plunge and ordered it. Got a Cafe brand, which is GE's low-end luxury brand (as opposed to Monogram, which is their high-end luxury brand, as far as I can tell). Supposed to be delivered and installed next week.

We also got quotes for re-finishing the basement after our flooding issues and drain tile/sump pump installation. That's going to be very pricey.

[TheMix]

Oof. Especially if it has any plumbing needs. We've discovered that plumbing prices have soared.

We recently had to redo ~20 feet of our main outflow line in our house because it wasn't installed correctly and had low spots. Total price was around $5k. We added a whole house water filter and ended up shelling out around $13k.

[ImLawBoy]

The plumbing is essentially done outside of reattaching bathroom stuff after that gets tiled and reinstalling a sink in the basement kitchen-type-area. The heavy plumbing work was getting the roots out of the main sewer access, pumping out the catch basin, and installing the drain tile and sump. All told that was probably $30-35K. Before that we had flood cleanup and remediation at $10K.

Now, the exterior basement walls need to be reframed (the bottom of the framing had to be removed for the drain tile), all walls need to be drywalled and painted, the remaining tile needs to be removed and replaced, new vinyl plank flooring installed in areas with uneven floor, plus odds and ends. Quotes have ranged from $20K-$52K (plus materials), so I'm in the process of making sure the quotes are truly apples to apples (the $20K quote was pretty bare-bones, so it will certainly go up significantly when we add in everything we truly need).

Home ownership is a joy.

[Isgrimnur]

A basement just sounds like a hole in the ground into which you throw money.

[ImLawBoy]

A basement just sounds like a hole in the ground into which you throw money.

And hide from tornadoes!

[coopasonic]

A basement just sounds like a hole in the ground into which you throw money.

A hole in the ground that is cooler in the summer, warmer in the winter and makes it easy to limit light for specific purposes like a proper home theater.

Yeah, in the house I grew up in it was a literal hole in the ground with three dirt walls, an impressive variety of 4-30+ legged inhabitants and a rickety wooden staircase. On the plus side, it didn't really matter much when it flooded.

[Isgrimnur]

A basement just sounds like a hole in the ground into which you throw money.

And hide from tornadoes!

Good thing those never come to Texas.

[LordMortis]

A basement just sounds like a hole in the ground into which you throw money.

A hole in the ground that is cooler in the summer, warmer in the winter and makes it easy to limit light for specific purposes like a proper home theater.

Yeah, in the house I grew up in it was a literal hole in the ground with three dirt walls, an impressive variety of 4-30+ legged inhabitants and a rickety wooden staircase. On the plus side, it didn't really matter much when it flooded.

And a place to put things that is not as subject to weather as a shed or even garage or cellar. To say nothing of a nice place to do and hang laundry indoors or have folks over to play games as you switch its utility. A way to double a ranch' living space without building up. As I get older and appreciate stairs less, my opinion will change but for now, it's like a 2fer on a 1000 sq foot home, making a place go from slightly cramped for keeping a lifetime of things to shamefully opulent for one person.

Though when you finish one, it ends up being more maintenance, especially if it floods.

[LordMortis]

A basement just sounds like a hole in the ground into which you throw money.

And hide from tornadoes!

Good thing those never come to Texas.

Maybe a once in generation event...

[pr0ner]

My dishwasher is starting to give up the ghost so I thought about replacement. I never priced a dishwasher before and did not realize it was one of the most expensive appliances to buy. I think I will forego replacement for the time being as I am sure all the appliances will fail around the same time (house was built and equipped in 2006) and a washer and drier, oven, refrigerator, and even a microwave is far more a necessity than a dishwasher. Never had a dishwasher until I bought this house and I still have to hand wash half of my stuff anyways so it will not be that detrimental to my lifestyle.

A dishwasher is probably the cheapest (or second cheapest, if you count a microwave) major kitchen appliance you can buy.

[gbasden]

My dishwasher is starting to give up the ghost so I thought about replacement. I never priced a dishwasher before and did not realize it was one of the most expensive appliances to buy. I think I will forego replacement for the time being as I am sure all the appliances will fail around the same time (house was built and equipped in 2006) and a washer and drier, oven, refrigerator, and even a microwave is far more a necessity than a dishwasher. Never had a dishwasher until I bought this house and I still have to hand wash half of my stuff anyways so it will not be that detrimental to my lifestyle.

A dishwasher is probably the cheapest (or second cheapest, if you count a microwave) major kitchen appliance you can buy.

We replaced the dishwasher, oven/stove and refrigerator and the dishwasher was the cheapest by far.

[malchior]

Yeah an excellent dishwater (e.g. Bosch 800 series) is going to be as expensive as a low to mid-range refrigerator.

[Carpet_pissr]

My Kitchenaid was around $1300 and that was pre-Covid.

Per usual, I did insane amounts of homework and research before I chose that model (it’s a curse, not a blessing).

With three kids in the house, I don’t play when it comes to things that are heavily/daily used due to having a large-ish family. Washer/dryer is another where I’ll pay a premium in both time spent researching, and money, to get something durable and effective.

Easier said than done, bc the appliance world is definitely not just ‘you get what you pay for’ like for many other products.

[Kraken]

We found a house that we both want, and I'm having about three crises.

First, it's the Too Expensive House, priced at $75k over our maximum, and our maximum is already a stretch. But for complicated reasons our realtor thinks that our highest possible offer might graze their secret minimum requirement. I have to run the numbers tomorrow to see if we can swing it without compromising our long-term security.

It's a nicer house than either of us ever thought we could live in, and it comes with 10 acres of land. I could have my own fucking woods. Yesterday me and the current owner took a walk through the woods that made me fall in love. With the land, not him, although maybe there was a spark.

Leaving aside the money part I have a lot of stuff to work through. It's a 15-minute drive in any direction to the outskirts of civilization. I'm used to living within a 15-minute walk to anything I need. Nobody will deliver pizza or Chinese here. You want Thai or pho or groceries delivered? Hahahaha. That's gonna be a drive. I'm not sure I want to be a country boy, however nice the country is, when I'm used to having anything I want within 10 minutes of walking or driving.

I might adapt to that to have a great big house with my own fucking woods. What scares me most is that the fairies will stop coming. We have a trash fairy, a yard fairy, a snow fairy, a food fairy, and one or two others who take care of everything that Wife never has to think about. She just assumes that the fairies will keep coming like they always have done. But the secret is that I"m the fairy, and my workload would expand when I'm closing in on 70 years old and I just want to walk in the woods and not think about the ginormous yard or the endless driveway that have to be tended.

Before we offer them more money than we can actually afford for a house that's nicer than I ever thought I could live in, I have to find out if I can farm out the fairy-ing.

[em2nought]

You want Thai or pho or groceries delivered? Hahahaha. That's gonna be a drive. I'm not sure I want to be a country boy, however nice the country is, when I'm used to having anything I want within 10 minutes of walking or driving.

I might adapt to that to have a great big house with my own fucking woods. What scares me most is that the fairies will stop coming.

Bah, 70 with all that to take care of? Just move to BKK or Hua Hin Thailand instead. Fairies will massage your feet for $6 an hour, and you'll be rich instead of owning property that might go the way of 2008. The biggest downside, it's frickin' hot, but they have really nice mini-split ACs everywhere. You can live someplace you won't even need a car anymore, just ride the air conditioned train for pennies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyDlr6GExps

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65lP5zNYmxo

https://www.rw4utours.com/

https://www.huahintoday.com/local-news/ ... -over-60s/

[Exodor]

We found a house that we both want, and I'm having about three crises.

10 acres of land.

Everyone has different priorities of course but I'm just past 50 and part of the appeal of our new home is the almost complete lack of yard work. The front is a pretty steep hill covered with ground cover. The back has a 15x15 patch of grass and the rest is covered by very tall trees (like >100' trees). Like you I'm the only member of the household who does outside work and the old house was more than I wanted to maintain.


Speaking of the old house - it still hasn't sold. We had an offer and we were briefly "under contract" but the buyer walked away after a day (which makes me wonder what "under contract" actually means). We haven't had any bites since despite twice lowering the price . After two open houses I get the impression my realtor has moved on and isn't giving my house much attention. We're stuck with him for another 4 months but I don't know if we would want to switch if it still hasn't sold - would a new realtor be active?

I just want the fucking money.

[Octavious]

Weird in my neck of the woods houses don't stay on the market for more than a month still. Like zero inventory. The house across the street sold in like 2 weeks. It's been under contract for like 2 months though which is odd. Makes me think it's a bank buying it. Which would suck as we could get crazypants renters.

[Kraken]

The house we're considering initially went on the market at the top of our price range, then quickly got raised $75k higher. It's been at the too-high price for 2+ months now. I think they realized they had underpriced it at first, and now it's overpriced. Even if we do make our best possible offer, it might not be enough.

As far as all the upkeep goes, it's going to depend on how much of it I can hire out. Which means I need to investigate availability and price of yard work and snow removal, basically. I do like the nice big yard where I can have my garden and a view. I just don't want to be a slave to it.