Update!
Hopefully soon I will hear about a promotion at work, looking for around a 10K raise, wife just got a 3% that will take affect next school year.
Income: Me $76K ex industrial engineer now in corporate, wife special education teacher $50K
Updated the spending analysis(I am looking at best case, really working on getting my wife to start sharing my fiscal goals):
Mortgage $1,458 Int rate of 3.875
Food and Dining $900 We make 95% of our meals at home, wife is a veggie/fish person, we do enjoy going out twice a month which bumps this up.
Car $300
Shopping $150
Utilities $250 cut the cable!
ATM $60
Phone $100
Travel $400 Like to travel, do one international trip every two years
Sum $3868
income me $4,350
income wife $2,916
Total $7,266
Net after $3,398
Assets:
Assets
Savings(between us both) $20K
House $235K est.
Car-Me $7K
Car-Wife $16K
Pension Me $17K
401K me $30K
Teacher Retirement $15K
Total $340K
Liabilities:
Liabilities Interest
Student Loan $3K 4%
House $200K 3.875% + PMI of 1.1% untill we hit 177.6K
Credit Cards N/A
Wife Car $14K 0%
Total $217K
Specific Question(s):
Link to first post for some background:
http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/ask-a-mustachian/minnesota-odd-couple-aspiring-mustachian-from-minnesota-married-a-chicago-girl/msg389924/#msg389924Current situation:
Making progress on the debt, two more payments. Everything is going swimingly, strung together a couple of frugal months. But then... Wife's friend husband has a side remodel business and we started to get a quote to redo the kitchen. Quote just came back at 25K! We are trying to do it on the cheap but the real cost driver is tearing out a wall to open up our main living area. I think we would get some great value out of it but it is a lot of $! Luckily my wife is thinking we pass on the remodel. We could pay cash more or less for the entire project, but should we?
Question is:
Is it worth it to do a remodel? Would we get that much value out of it? Anyone come to the precipice of a large remodel and back off?
If we do not remodel what should we do with the cash?
Max out 401K? I am putting 5% in 401k to get max match.
Pay off debt? House than Student loan? or the other way around?
Go to Vegas ;)
Thanks again for the thoughts!
-Minnesota Jon