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Time to Remodel Our Bathroom

AlexLeave a comment

I’m not sure if I’ve ever mentioned it, but we got our house cheap — like, really cheap. $32,500 with 5% down and a 2.65% 30-year mortgage cheap. 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a sizeable backyard with no neighbors behind us… listen, you can pry this house from my cold dead hands.

The downside to a cheap house? It was outdated. Built in 1957 with odd updates here and there throughout, though mostly everything was still original — and not in good shape. Still, it was livable, and with us just starting out in our new careers the mortgage payment was more than feasible.

We did updates when we could, taking on quite a bit of debt thanks to a HELOC to do so. While we haven’t gotten around to updating our upstairs bathroom which is literally falling apart, we did update the first floor bathroom… and then a storm hit in late June 2024 which flooded the bathroom and kitchen, and so we had to tear it all out and start over again. It’s 2026 and that bathroom has literally been half-gutted this entire time, since we haven’t had the time to think about a bathroom remodel let alone the money. Well, technically we had the money, but I’ve been really focused on buying more assets (i.e. stocks, rentals) so I’ve been more or less fine with really only having our upstairs falling-apart-piece-by-piece bathroom.

Anyway, coming up on the two year anniversary of that storm, I’ve finally decided to put off investing for 2-3 months in order to get the downstairs bathroom done. Usually I’d have my regular contractor do the work since I know I could get it done for half the labor price, but (1) we want it done ASAP, (2) we want someone who is good with details and tile, and (3) I want to keep my guy working on whatever project I’ve got him on. So, we’ll be paying a bit more, but that’s okay.

Here’s what the bathroom looks like currently, untouched since it was half-gutted from the June 2024 storm:

Yeah… the prison jumpsuit orange was a mistake, okay?

Anyway, here’s what we’re kind of trying to go for with the newly-remodeled version:

Obviously it’s not going to come out exactly like this, but it’s a blueprint of sorts.

The remodel is set to start this upcoming week, so I’ll be sure to make another post with photos and details once all is said done… and then I’ll make an end-of-the-first-half-of-2026 update post to fill everyone in on what’s new finance-wise. Boy, is there a lot to talk about… and not all of it is good news.

Talk soon!

– Alex

Hello, World!

AlexLeave a comment

In my usual fashion, I’m 15 minutes late with Starbucks. Except that 15 minutes is more like 15 months. Or something.

Anyway — also as usual, there’s lots of new developments to report. I’m a bit lazy though, and so I’ll keep it simple:

  • Still with the same company so far. Recently passed the two year milestone, which is nice! I’m not sure of my exact salary, but it’s somewhere around $113k I believe. My partner is sitting somewhere around $105k. Nice tidy sum together if I do say so myself.
  • Our emergency fund is finally full at $20k, which covers well over 6 months of our mandatory expenses! Now every extra dollar goes toward investments and/or paying down debt.
  • Speaking of debt, we’ve got about $39k in bad debt left — most of it was accumulated from remodeling a home that I purchased for my mother in the past two years, so it is what it is. It’s all 0% interest though, and we’re slowly chipping away at it.

I told myself that I’d take some time away from investing in real estate to focus on the market. Well, I did that, but after ~2 years spent remodeling my mother’s new house and sitting on the real estate sidelines, I’ve got a hell of an itch. I ended up recently finding a new property to pick up, so I close on rental #6 in a month! Woohoo! The numbers look really good — if I’m guesstimating correctly, it should cashflow somewhere around $650/mo. ($450/mo. after setting aside $200 for maintenance and whatnot), and should finally bring me right to the $2000/mo. in rental income mark. Kind of hard for me to imagine considering I started my real estate journey almost ten years ago now. It’s been a slow process, but it’s definitely been worth it and I don’t regret a thing, even though I’ve played it relatively safe and probably could’ve hit a few more home runs than I have. Hey, a win is a win!

I’ll make a post again soon talking about updated FIRE numbers and whatnot. For now, I just wanted to post a little somethin’ somethin’ since it’s been so long.

Talk soon!