You may remember, or perhaps you don't, that we adopted a kitten from the Humane Society in December. It's been a rocky road with the cat. Husband and I had cats growing up and before we had kids we had three cats (the last one died when Brother was 4) so we felt that we could handle this experience... clearly we were wrong.
From almost day one the interaction between the cat and Sister was problematic. She was overbearing and he was agitated. Sometimes I thought he was just overly playful when he would bite at us, but other times I thought of him as an attack cat. Most recently he would lie in wait for her to run by and then attach himself to her leg and bite her knees. Another time, when she was upset and laying on the floor crying he attacked her head, she yelled "no" and pushed him back which made him very aggressive and he bit her shoulder and it left a mark on her skin through her shirt. Last night they were interacting and I asked her to leave him alone (I must say "leave the cat alone" 2,000 times a day) of course she did not leave him alone and minutes later she was in my room with the door closed stifling cries of pain as the cat attacked her and she was pinned down under the foot of the bed. I got very upset and yelled at her and at the cat as I stripped her clothes off to see the damage to her arms and legs and then I lectured her continually as I bathed her and washed all of the scratches. I asked her to please help us teach the cat how to behave....I thought I got through to her...
In the evening, after the kids goes to bed, he is usually nice, but he has had his bad moments with all of us - he's come to lay on my lap and then bit my arm when I pet him! However, when I got up early today to go to work I was optimistic that she would wake up and be reasonable with the cat. A couple hours into my day Husband wrote me a text and said he was taking the cat back to the Humane Society today. It turns out that Sister woke up and immediately started playing with the cat (she doesn't do anything to hurt him, but she does like to pick him up, pet him and generally interact with him continuously when he wants to be left alone). When the cat started biting at her Husband put him in his litter/time-out area and locked the kitty door so that Sister would leave him alone for a while...a few minutes later Husband had to rescue sister - she had sneaked over and let the cat out and the cat had her pinned against a wall and was biting her legs!
While I am focusing on the terrible interaction between Sister and kitty - It was not all her fault. This was a cat that never ran away or backed down from anything. He never hid. He was very sure of himself. If he wanted to lay somewhere and didn't want to be touched and one of the kids went to pet him he would bite at them and stay where he was. We tried different tactics to try to teach him not to bite, we blew in his face, we told him "NO" we gave him time-outs....but on the whole the number of biting incidents kept going up and he was especially aggressive with Sister. When I talked to Brother over the past week about getting rid of the cat Brother said, "but he barely ever bites me!" Brother has been the model of a compassionate cat owner - following every instruction we gave him and generally meeting the cat on his terms - but even then he has been bitten at a number of times.
So they took kitty back to the Humane Society today while I was at work. I feel like such a failure as a pet owner. I feel like I just gave my kids the worst possible experience as pet owners after lecturing them when we brought him home about how this cat was part of our family for the next 15-20 years....Brother was crying this morning as we explained (me over the phone) that we feared a continuing escalation of hostilities....He understands, but he is mad at us. Sister said it is ok that we took him back. It's just a sad situation and I never would have thought that this is how it would have gone.
Brother's acrostic poem
(at one point he asked me, "what is the word for 'figuratively drowning in sadness'?"):
Sad
Terrible
Ornrey
Raincloud
Miserable
Ending
Yelling
We are not going to have a pet for a while.
Tuesday, February 19, 2019
Final accounting...
When we talked about getting a larger trailer and truck I was optimistically thinking we would spend $40,000 out of pocket (after selling off the Hideout and Tacoma). Yesterday we sold the Tacoma and could calculate the final out of pocket cost....it ended up being $42,000. So I was very close in my estimation. While we did finance both the new truck and trailer from both dealerships we will be paying them both off this month from the proceeds of the sales as well as drawing from our savings.
We ended up selling the Tacoma to a dealership after using Kelley Blue Book to get the range of values for trade-in/cash/private party sale. It appeared our range was approximately $21,500-$26,500. While we were very fortunate with the sale of the Hideout we didn't want the hassle of finding a buyer for the Tacoma. We thought if we could get $24,000 we would be happy. We ended up with $23,800 after visiting three dealerships (Kelley Blue Book was $23,600, 1st dealership was $22,000, second matched KBB, and final dealership went to $23,800). The second two dealerships were concerned about buying a manual transmission - they were unsure if they would be able to sell it. So...if you are keeping track that means we got $37,400 for the sale of the Hideout and Tacoma. That is a return of 70% of our combined original purchase price (with sales tax).
So....here are some take aways...if you are thinking about embarking on a full-time RV life, you want to buy new, and if you are a family of two I would say that you could find a truck for around $30,000 and a trailer for around $20,000 and be really comfortable. If you are a family of four (with two members growing at some ungodly pace) then you need about $45,000 for a truck and $35,000 for a trailer. I am sure there are deals to be had in the used market. In terms of new, I feel that we have been very frugal in terms of finding the most economical truck and trailer in the classes/sizes we were exploring. We have limited handyman skills and even less time to devote to projects, so we did not want to buy anything that needed to be fixed or worked on. But the family that bought our Hideout got a good deal and won't need to work on anything - so there must be other deals out there, they just take time to find. With that said, I have seen/heard of people living in all sorts of refurbished trailers.
From our original rig to our current we paid 60% more and we have 60% more living space in the trailer and 200% more payload in the truck. If you are going to start from scratch, I highly recommend buying the trailer first and then fitting the truck to the trailer instead of being limited by the truck. However, if you already have a truck and want to use it (like we did with the Tacoma) then by all means do what you have to do to get out on the road!
We ended up selling the Tacoma to a dealership after using Kelley Blue Book to get the range of values for trade-in/cash/private party sale. It appeared our range was approximately $21,500-$26,500. While we were very fortunate with the sale of the Hideout we didn't want the hassle of finding a buyer for the Tacoma. We thought if we could get $24,000 we would be happy. We ended up with $23,800 after visiting three dealerships (Kelley Blue Book was $23,600, 1st dealership was $22,000, second matched KBB, and final dealership went to $23,800). The second two dealerships were concerned about buying a manual transmission - they were unsure if they would be able to sell it. So...if you are keeping track that means we got $37,400 for the sale of the Hideout and Tacoma. That is a return of 70% of our combined original purchase price (with sales tax).
So....here are some take aways...if you are thinking about embarking on a full-time RV life, you want to buy new, and if you are a family of two I would say that you could find a truck for around $30,000 and a trailer for around $20,000 and be really comfortable. If you are a family of four (with two members growing at some ungodly pace) then you need about $45,000 for a truck and $35,000 for a trailer. I am sure there are deals to be had in the used market. In terms of new, I feel that we have been very frugal in terms of finding the most economical truck and trailer in the classes/sizes we were exploring. We have limited handyman skills and even less time to devote to projects, so we did not want to buy anything that needed to be fixed or worked on. But the family that bought our Hideout got a good deal and won't need to work on anything - so there must be other deals out there, they just take time to find. With that said, I have seen/heard of people living in all sorts of refurbished trailers.
From our original rig to our current we paid 60% more and we have 60% more living space in the trailer and 200% more payload in the truck. If you are going to start from scratch, I highly recommend buying the trailer first and then fitting the truck to the trailer instead of being limited by the truck. However, if you already have a truck and want to use it (like we did with the Tacoma) then by all means do what you have to do to get out on the road!
Saturday, February 16, 2019
Sale updates
So the sale of the Hideout went very smoothly. We met the buyers at our mutual bank, worked with a personal banker to notarize the title transfer, and transferred the money from their account into ours. We then went to the storage place, hitched up and drove the Hideout to their house. They even offered to pay us for gas (which we declined, but thought that was a very nice gesture). The family is very nice and I am sure they are going to have a blast getting out of the desert over the summer and into the mountains! They plan on doing a lot of boondocking and this is the perfect rig for it!
The appraisal was completed on our rental home and it did appraise. After almost 12 years of being a rental needs some repairs. I'm not too worried about that - we will work out something with handymen, the buyer, and anyone else, to ensure the bank is satisfied. We are scheduled to close at the end of the month. I could say a number of disparaging things about the process of selling a house in a small rural AZ town...we've dealt with the same realtor for a while and he's difficult. Here is one example of how things are...I called to transfer the water into my name instead of the tenants. When the person on the other end of the phone at the city first heard my request she said it would be $150. When she realized who I was, "Oh! I know you!" she only charged me $30. Then she asked me who is buying the house, I feigned forgetfulness about the buyer's name but told her where he worked, then she said, "oh right, the Smith's, I knew that!" (their name is not Smith). Her whole tone changed when she "recognized" me. She went from gatekeeper of utilities to my friend...this is how everything is in a small town...gossip and who you know and so and so can do such and such...it can be quaint, but it is mostly annoying and I will be glad to be done with it. Here is a picture of the house - it's a nice ranch 3bdrm/2bthrm....We've owned it since 2007!
Next we need to get the Tacoma listed. It is a 2015 4x4, manual transmission with very low mileage (30,500) despite hauling the Hideout 6000 miles last summer! I looked up the Kelley Blue Book and we are looking at between $23,500-26,500 selling it outright and perhaps $22,000-24,000 if we sold it to a dealership. Obviously the latter would be far easier...Maybe I will shop around and get some offers and see how I feel about selling to a private party. Though it went so well selling the Hideout, I do worry about receiving the funds...there are some nefarious people out there. I made some progress cleaning it up today, we may have time on Monday to drive around to some possible dealers that would buy it.
I love feeling so much less burdened by these things. Once the Tacoma is sold we will be have our nest egg in the bank, Rancho Status Quo, the Mesa Ridge and Ford F150, and our 2009 Toyota Yaris which will all be paid off. From there we are poised for many more adventures! I will be discussing our Summer 2019 plans in a post very soon...
The appraisal was completed on our rental home and it did appraise. After almost 12 years of being a rental needs some repairs. I'm not too worried about that - we will work out something with handymen, the buyer, and anyone else, to ensure the bank is satisfied. We are scheduled to close at the end of the month. I could say a number of disparaging things about the process of selling a house in a small rural AZ town...we've dealt with the same realtor for a while and he's difficult. Here is one example of how things are...I called to transfer the water into my name instead of the tenants. When the person on the other end of the phone at the city first heard my request she said it would be $150. When she realized who I was, "Oh! I know you!" she only charged me $30. Then she asked me who is buying the house, I feigned forgetfulness about the buyer's name but told her where he worked, then she said, "oh right, the Smith's, I knew that!" (their name is not Smith). Her whole tone changed when she "recognized" me. She went from gatekeeper of utilities to my friend...this is how everything is in a small town...gossip and who you know and so and so can do such and such...it can be quaint, but it is mostly annoying and I will be glad to be done with it. Here is a picture of the house - it's a nice ranch 3bdrm/2bthrm....We've owned it since 2007!
Next we need to get the Tacoma listed. It is a 2015 4x4, manual transmission with very low mileage (30,500) despite hauling the Hideout 6000 miles last summer! I looked up the Kelley Blue Book and we are looking at between $23,500-26,500 selling it outright and perhaps $22,000-24,000 if we sold it to a dealership. Obviously the latter would be far easier...Maybe I will shop around and get some offers and see how I feel about selling to a private party. Though it went so well selling the Hideout, I do worry about receiving the funds...there are some nefarious people out there. I made some progress cleaning it up today, we may have time on Monday to drive around to some possible dealers that would buy it.
I love feeling so much less burdened by these things. Once the Tacoma is sold we will be have our nest egg in the bank, Rancho Status Quo, the Mesa Ridge and Ford F150, and our 2009 Toyota Yaris which will all be paid off. From there we are poised for many more adventures! I will be discussing our Summer 2019 plans in a post very soon...
Monday, February 11, 2019
Good News!
Well, it has been two weeks since we listed the Hideout for sale and today we accepted an offer of $13,600 for it. The sale should take place on Wednesday - I hope it all works out as anticipated. We are going to meet the buyers at our bank (actually we all bank at the same place) and transfer the funds and title. We paid $22,000 for the Hideout in June of 2017 so our monthly cost of living for the 19 months we lived there was $450. Now that we have our larger home we can reduce the cost significantly by staying in it for longer.
In other news, I've written before about how much we've wanted to simplify our life and part of that was getting out of the rental business. In 2017 we sold three houses (our primary and two rentals), but we still had one rental remaining. We were talking about how much we want to be done with renting over the holiday break - but we've had an awesome tenant in the house for the past three years. In January I decided to call them and how they would feel about us selling the house. To my surprise they told me they were going to move out! So we listed the house and they started moving. In the meantime we accepted an offer. This past weekend the tenants moved out and tomorrow is the appraisal for the sale. We are scheduled to close on that house at the end of the month. It has all happened so smoothly!
I'm just so happy that in only one month all of this change has taken place and everything has fallen into place. Life is very good.
In other news, I've written before about how much we've wanted to simplify our life and part of that was getting out of the rental business. In 2017 we sold three houses (our primary and two rentals), but we still had one rental remaining. We were talking about how much we want to be done with renting over the holiday break - but we've had an awesome tenant in the house for the past three years. In January I decided to call them and how they would feel about us selling the house. To my surprise they told me they were going to move out! So we listed the house and they started moving. In the meantime we accepted an offer. This past weekend the tenants moved out and tomorrow is the appraisal for the sale. We are scheduled to close on that house at the end of the month. It has all happened so smoothly!
I'm just so happy that in only one month all of this change has taken place and everything has fallen into place. Life is very good.
Friday, February 1, 2019
Hideout anyone?
Well we have cleaned and scrubbed and paid to get the exterior cleaned....The Hideout is for sale. It is a little sad. It was a good home for us, but now it should serve someone else. We have it listed on RVTrader...Here are the pics! Reach out if you or someone you know is interested! We have it listed for $15,400.
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| Storage/pantry behind dinette |
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| Cabinet above sink |
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| Pantry to left of fridge |
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| Built-in vacuum - this is one thing I miss in the Mesa Ridge |
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| The Master |
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| Kids' bunks with twin mattresses and storage bins |
RVegan in Mesa!
I am LOVING this kitchen. Who knew that 315 square feet was the sweet spot for a family of four?!? The thing is both adults can be in the kitchen together. One can cook while one is doing dishes or chopping or using the counter space to make hummus in the Vitamix! (which is what we did today) It's great - it is also great that we have so much room in both fridges. I didn't know how much I could buy last weekend - I thought I bought a lot of cold stuff, but I could have gotten more!
Between plant-based milks, sparkling water and fresh veggies the fridge has always been full, but in this house there is plenty of room for it all. In addition to having the extra cold storage, the outdoor kitchen has come in handy over the past week. We've used it for making fresh bread in the breadmaker and we've used the grill for baked potatoes. I know the outdoor kitchen will be even more useful in the summer and while on the road.
This week, now that we are settled, we did a lot of cooking in. A new recipe that I have created from looking at many other recipes is a vegan Thai Basil Red Curry. Well, it actually is not vegan because it had 2 tsp of fish sauce - but we did use tofu for the protein. It was 99% vegan. It turned out really well - though could have been a lot more spicy (but I didn't for the kiddos).
There is a restaurant in Tempe that makes the BEST red curry and I am chasing that recipe - this one was close, but it needed more basil!
I served it over long grain brown rice. The kids ate it without much fuss, though Brother doesn't really like tofu and sister only likes the tofu...
As mentioned earlier I am making hummus again - We've been buying the premade stuff while living in the Hideout because the Vitamix just didn't fit anywhere. This week I made an old favorite - lentils and rice (Mujadara). You dip a whole wheat pita into the hummus then into the mujadara for the most perfect earthy bites of sustenance that have ever crossed your lips. It is truly one of my favorite meals - so simple, wholesome and filling. I didn't take a picture because I was too excited to eat it, but here is a picture from another time I made it (though this time I didn't make three flavors of hummus - just garlic).
In addition I made Broccoli soup with the homemade bread. It's been a good week of eating thanks to a little more space in the kitchen!
I'll leave you with this art called "The Earth Dreaming" by Isaiah Zagar - it is displayed in downtown Phoenix. There are a couple of different panels and some designs in the sidewalk as well. It is beautiful and it made me happy to walk by it the other day.
Between plant-based milks, sparkling water and fresh veggies the fridge has always been full, but in this house there is plenty of room for it all. In addition to having the extra cold storage, the outdoor kitchen has come in handy over the past week. We've used it for making fresh bread in the breadmaker and we've used the grill for baked potatoes. I know the outdoor kitchen will be even more useful in the summer and while on the road.
This week, now that we are settled, we did a lot of cooking in. A new recipe that I have created from looking at many other recipes is a vegan Thai Basil Red Curry. Well, it actually is not vegan because it had 2 tsp of fish sauce - but we did use tofu for the protein. It was 99% vegan. It turned out really well - though could have been a lot more spicy (but I didn't for the kiddos).
There is a restaurant in Tempe that makes the BEST red curry and I am chasing that recipe - this one was close, but it needed more basil!
I served it over long grain brown rice. The kids ate it without much fuss, though Brother doesn't really like tofu and sister only likes the tofu...
As mentioned earlier I am making hummus again - We've been buying the premade stuff while living in the Hideout because the Vitamix just didn't fit anywhere. This week I made an old favorite - lentils and rice (Mujadara). You dip a whole wheat pita into the hummus then into the mujadara for the most perfect earthy bites of sustenance that have ever crossed your lips. It is truly one of my favorite meals - so simple, wholesome and filling. I didn't take a picture because I was too excited to eat it, but here is a picture from another time I made it (though this time I didn't make three flavors of hummus - just garlic).
In addition I made Broccoli soup with the homemade bread. It's been a good week of eating thanks to a little more space in the kitchen!
I'll leave you with this art called "The Earth Dreaming" by Isaiah Zagar - it is displayed in downtown Phoenix. There are a couple of different panels and some designs in the sidewalk as well. It is beautiful and it made me happy to walk by it the other day.
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