Instead of a $20 challenge, I now have a challenge of saving for our NYC expenses that would remain even if we lived someplace else for 1 year. Obligations and things that would need to be supported even if we did not live here.
After looking at a table below and seeing the total, you can understand why I named it "The pipe dream challenge." The amount is kind of unrealistic.
We may not choose to do it at the end, and so something else with it, but it would be great to have that money and to be able to have that choice.
It will take us a while to get there. I am starting fresh from 0, and money that are currently in our EF investments are not counted.
This month I was able to put away $1,800 towards the challenge (it cost us less to vacation in China than to live normally here). So I checked off my first item - Mortgage for 1 month! Yey. It is a big one.
Second column is car payment. 12 payments would be $3,000. But considering that the balance we owe on this car is now $4,050, I think we should just concentrate on paying it off totally and removing it from that chart altogether. It would be great to pay it off before the end of the year.
There might be steps backwards in this plan. For example, our EF is fully invested in stocks. (currently 10 month of our take-home salary). If market adjusts, we will be adding money to the EF in order to keep it at the same level.
"The Pipe Dream Challenge" part 1 - paying off our car
August 28th, 2014 at 09:46 pm
August 28th, 2014 at 10:20 pm 1409264436
Can you explain again why you have your EF in STOCKS!? I'm not going to try to convince you not too because I think you know this isn't a good idea, but why again?
August 29th, 2014 at 02:19 am 1409278787
One double semester we rented each of the 4 bedrms to university grad students who shared kitchen and 3 + 1/2 bthrm. Those kids were the best tenants as they were so incredibly busy with TAs, part time jobs and a full program we figure they were just here to eat and sleep. Our worst tenant was the son of a friend who need accommodation in our city but travelled for work. I don't think he every managed to pay the damage deposit and rarely paid rent when due. Very problematic because we had automatic withdrawal for condo fees, utilities, insurance and storage.
If you are in PRC the bank goes into security overdrive. It was impossible to do live calls because of time differentials.
August 29th, 2014 at 02:50 pm 1409323849
Snafu, this is a co-op, and many co-ops in NYC have very restrictive policies when it comes to renting out your unit (something to do with types of co-op financing being based on a percentage of owner occupancy). Even if we could rent it out, co-op would charge a percentage, and at best we could get enough to cover mortgage, not the maintenance). Even given all that, I should still have that amount. What happens if I can't rent it out? if the renter moves out or not pays or whatever. I should have that money available to cover such contingencies.
September 3rd, 2014 at 08:45 pm 1409777159