Changed Plans

I should really start this blog by saying that God was merciful to Pinellas County in that He sent Hurricane Isaac away from Florida, west into the Gulf of Mexico, so that Pinellas County got little more than a good dousing of rain.  Our neighbor Michelle e-mailed me that we actually had more rain with Tropical Storm Debby earlier in the summer.  She said that Dunedin closed schools for one day, but that the potentially damaging storm never hit.  Thank God. We know that Gladys is safe, although I still wonder if my flowers are hanging yet off the hook at the front of the house.

Rick and I have done a lot of talking, a lot of figuring, and a lot of soul searching lately regarding Gladys.  We know that our remodeling still is not complete.  We are getting the granite in the kitchen replaced October 30, so originally Rick was going to fly down to let the granite people in to remove the old stone and to install the new sink and countertops. He was then going to fly home, and after Christmas, we were going to pack the Toyota and drive down to Dunedin.  That plan has changed.

We have decided to drive the car down to Florida now in time to get there before October 30.  I finish my only class on Thursdays at 8:30 a.m., so on October 25 we are driving two cars to Milwaukee.  I will leave my car in the short-term parking lot so it is there when we fly home from Florida.  From Milwaukee, we will spend three days driving to Florida, arriving there on Saturday, October 27.  Driving down now will save us (we hope!) from the hazards of icy or snowy roads that we were sure to encounter in December or January.

We originally were going to leave Green Bay immediately after Christmas so that we could get to Florida in time to declare Florida domicile before the first of the year. (By doing so, we could apply for Florida Homestead credit on our taxes for 2014.) However, we worried about how many of the offices that we would need to visit to change residency would really be open between Christmas and the New Year.  We then started talking about my taking a week off from classes and driving down with Rick while the weather is still good.  As he put it, "Do you want to save $150 by teaching that week only to give up over $750 in tax savings in the future?"  Of course, the smart thing to do is to go now and to recover the tax savings later.  I will have to ask off tomorrow, but at this point, there is not much NWTC can do to me.  Could they fire me?  Sure, but that would cost them more headaches than it is worth.  I have my lesson plans all set and my papers run off, so everything is set for a substitute teacher.

So we are set to pack up the car, pray that the old doll will roll that far, and get to Florida in time to get the granite installed.  We actually will arrive one day before Steve and Chris fly in. We then can spend that week getting Florida domicile, getting new drivers' licenses, registering the car, and setting up a bank account in town.  Since offices will be open in October, we do not anticipate any problems.

Our other topic of discussion was whether we should take out a new mortgage or somehow just refinance the rest of the remodeling.  After going back and forth on this topic several times, we have decided to let our current mortgage against this house in Green Bay "ride" for now with plans to make additional payments as much as possible each month.  "Ha!  Good luck with that!" you may be thinking, but we actually have been very successful in doing that in the past. If we dedicate our actions to that plan, we both think that we can get the house mortgage down to a reasonable rate to pay it off in four years.  We can do this if we set our minds to it.

The other question, of course, is what we can accomplish with the money we have left for remodeling.  We are not sure.  Each month I have some left over from my retirement checks, but healthcare costs and meeting deductibles are eating that up right now.  If we can earmark my NWTC checks to healthcare, we can probably swing a little remodeling each month with what I have left.

We need to enclose the laundry room and add air conditioning/ heating to the space.  We need to gut the main bathroom and install new walls, a bathtub, a tub surround, and new lights.  The vanity is new and in place, and the new countertop and sink may have to wait a while.  Our master bath still needs a new shower, but that, too, is functional for now.  On the outside, we need to pour a new front porch, repair the front sidewalk, add a new white fence, plant a new tree to replace the dying Holly tree we removed last year, and renovate the now barren landscape.  Some we will do now, some will take years.  And then there is the power-washing, sealing, and painting the house...

How will we pay for all of this?  We don't know.  What we DO know is that although interest rates are low, neither of us wants to pay $3500 in closing costs just to refinance our current loan.  With those closing costs, we could purchase the materials for a new fence!  We have some options of just paying as we go, doing what we can with what we have.  We can borrow from ourselves from our savings (at no interest, and we know that no one can sell our "loan" to anyone else) with a plan to pay back one withdrawal before we do anything else, or we can take out a home equity loan against Gladys which will avoid those horrific closing costs.

Since we do not have a bank yet in Florida, the home equity is something that we have investigated but have not yet really discussed with a live loan officer.  That will come later this month if we decide to pursue that route.

Right now we only know that we are happy to drive the car down to Florida while the weather is good.  We are happy to get everything arranged to become residents of that state, and we will take a little break to check on Gladys before we return to Wisconsin.  This trip will take the pressure out of leaving during the Holiday season.  We can wait now until after the new year, knowing that the timing of our changing states will be acceptable and beneficial to us in the future.

While I will again miss family and friends when we fly back down to Florida in January, I certainly will not miss the winter weather.  Right now the rain is falling, as it has for the past 36 hours, and the temperature is 49 degrees.  Cold, damp, and miserable.  I suspect that we are going to have an early and possibly fierce winter, and I will be happy to miss all of that misery.  I look forward to getting outside each day for a walk or --for the first time in my life -- for a bike ride in the middle of winter! This is a new phase in our lives, and having something new to look forward to at our ages is really not all that bad!