Finance Gets Personal

Yippee!

We got our first bid for house painting today and it’s only (ha!) $2,600! I was expecting something more in the neighborhood of $5,000.

Needless to say, we will not be taking a week’s vacation later this month to paint the house.

Yeah, I know, I shouldn’t just use the first company that quotes a good price, and I don’t plan to. But this at least gives us confidence that we’re making the right decision. I’ll be getting more quotes and checking references in the next few weeks, and we might not actually have it painted until summer/early fall.

Part of our “deal” for hiring someone else to paint is that we’re not going to go on vacation this year. That makes me sad, because we were planning to go to Minneapolis. I had the iteniary all planned out - Twins game (I’m trying to visit all the ballparks), Walker Museum of Art, play at the Guthrie, shopping trip to IKEA, riding the escalator with our shopping cart at Target, dinner at the German restaurant…sigh. But we really couldn’t afford it anyway.

So, we’re taking a vacation in our own city, and our house will be the hotel. Basically, we’ll be doing all the things tourists do that we’ve never done (or haven’t done in a while).

I’m just SO happy I’m not going to be spending the whole summer scraping and painting on a huge ladder!

(This post was included in the Carnival of Money Stories, hosted by Money Walks.)

Photo Credit: Cheerleader by Hometown Invasion Tour, used under Creative Commons licensing

Speaking of emergencies, I’m concerned we’re going to have one if we attempt to paint our house ourselves. No, this isn’t our house, but it’s about the same height. Yikes!

We are definitely in over our heads, and we haven’t even started yet. Last night we watched “10 Things You Must Know About Exterior Painting,” and we’re sitting there like, “What? How long do you have to wait to paint after it rains? You’re not supposed to use flat paint? Those little clips do what?”

Yeah. So we are getting some bids this week. I figure it will cost us between $1,000-$1,500 to do it ourselves, so if it costs $3,000 for someone else to do it, it’s probably well worth it.
I have a feeling it’s going to be more than that though…

Photo Credit: Our Scaffolding by nuanc, used under Creative Commons licensing