It has been 5 years that we purchased our house. We have made many changes since then.

In the past on each anniversary, I raised the mortgage we paid every month by $50 or $100. This year, we would like to reflect on changes we made during these first 5 years.

Prior to moving in:

We painted inside the house.

I painted the kids room and painted a wall with chalk board paint.

 

We sanded and finished the wood floor in the bedrooms.

We removed the carpet in the living room.

New fridge 9-17-2014

We purchased a fridge on clearance at Lowes to replace the one that was there.

We purchased dirt to upgrade the dirt level around the foundation.

We purchased a lot of tools. Some we didn’t even use.

We installed a radon mitigation system for about $1300.

After we moved in:

We replaced the kitchen faucet.

I installed a food garden in the front yard.

I turned the flower garden in the back yard into a food garden.

We fenced our vegetables and fruit gardens from deer and bunnies.

Basement after I painted

I painted the basement.

I installed vinyl tile on the basement floor.

I installed vinyl floor in the bathroom.

We planted many fruit trees. For the first time this year we have a lot of crops from strawberries, raspberries, currant, and seeded grapes. Our American persimmon tree produced fruit for the first time in 2019. The fruits are still small on the tree and it is end of August. We lost many apple and pear trees to bunnies in 2018.

We installed a carbon monoxide detector.

We installed a ceiling fan in the living room.  We wanted to install light in the living room and the electrician recommended that the easiest way to do that was to install a ceiling fan that came with light socket. It was installed November 2014 for a little under $300.

My kitchen at bedtime_8-1-2019

We installed vinyl floor in the kitchen and hallways.

We installed the laminated floor ourselves in the living room for just over $1300 for the flooring and accessories, around late winter 2015.

We caulked the gutter around the house to stop leaks. Some were successful and some not.

We installed GFCI outlets around the house and the basement on Feb 2015

We replaced the back house door and its storm door in June 2016 for about $1,000

We changed the locks on the front door In February 2015.

We installed a new furnace in November 2015 for about $2,500.

We purchased our second chest freezer.

We replaced the faucet in the bath tub.

We replaced a leaky pipe behind the bathtub wall.

We purchased a new dryer to replace the old one.

We replaced the stove.

We purchased our third chest freezer.

We painted the siding.

We purchased many shelving units to install in the basement where I store my homemade canned food and to organize the basement.

We replaced the locks on the back door on the garage.

Bathtub when we moved in

Bathtub after we caulked on 1-14-2019

We re-caulked the bath tub.

We replaced the smoke alarm detector.

Many changes occurred inside the house. But some happened outside as well. There are many other things that need to be fixed or replaced.  We are grateful we purchased that house. We live in a good neighborhood, close to our kids’ school and not too far from my work. We own one car that my husband takes to work and I walk to work during spring, summer, and fall. I take the bus in winter or when it rains. The house is not too expensive. At the time we purchased the house, my husband and I had many debts and were approved for $150,000 loans. We purchased our house for about $120,000. At the time, we wanted to live in it for a year and get it ready to be rented out and we would purchase another house to move in. After we moved in, we realized overtime that the house meets our shelter needs just right. Therefore, we decided to live in it and save to invest in rental properties instead. Having a low mortgage makes it easier to live on one income and use the other income to invest in our businesses and pay our mortgage. By the 5th anniversary of the house, we paid over half of the mortgage loan. Most of it was paid after the 4th anniversary. It was when we started to live on one of our incomes and use most of our second income toward the mortgage. Our minimum monthly mortgage is just over $900 including interest, principal, PMI, property tax, and home insurance. We pay around three times that amount whenever it is possible. As employees, we didn’t feel confident having a loan on our house. It is a shelter for our family and it makes sense to us to pay it off.  Without a mortgage, it is so much easier to live on a small budget. We grow some of our vegetables and fruit. Fruit and perennial vegetables produce more than they cost. They don’t require any watering, fertilizing, spraying and I don’t do any of that. We purchased our food staples with employee discount at the end of the year which I like to save for. We purchase our meat, fruit, and vegetables I don’t grow on sale using the grocery stores’ weekly ads. Cooking from scratch and from our pantry and freezers helps us lower our food bills. Most of my meals for a family of 5 cost me less than $5 and the same meal is eaten for dinner by 5 and the leftover is the next day lunch for 4 people. It is about $0.56($5/9) per dinner or lunch per person.

Our house is 3 bedrooms and 1 bathroom. It has a full basement semi-finished with a 3/4 bathroom and a room I turned into a home office. The house is about 1,000 sq. ft. The yard is about 10,000 sq. ft. The house has one car garage. Living in a small house keeps the maintenance cost low. Because the house is ranch style, we were able to paint it ourselves without problem as it is not too high in the air. Our electric bill is high. If the house was bigger, our utility would be even higher. It is possible for me to clean our living space daily because it is not too spacious. Because the house is small, we have a lot of yard space that we have a big garden. We don’t have in-suite master bedroom. We all share one bathroom. But we are happy, we have what we need.