Paying for Improvements

Kel Posted: Jan 14, 2004 04:24 PM

Paying for Improvements

I have it in my head about getting our kitchen redone .. even if it means refacing the cabinets instead of replacing them .. but mainly I'd like to update the old stove and old, tiny oven .. and replacing the oven couldn't be done without doing something to the cabinets .. it's a wall mount, which I love, but it's very narrow.

Question for the group .. would you finance, or dip into savings .. or wait and try to keep saving, since technically it's not something that absolutely needs to be done now???

I'll also pose the same question for siding .. I believe we have issues with the siding on our house, and many places are doing 35% off right now ... I think the siding is more of a concern than the kitchen .. finance it, use savings, or wait???

The main concern I have, is that DH and/or I may be needing new(er) cars soon .. and that will be a big drain .. so I'm just curious .. how does everyone do it???

jennyg Posted: Jan 14, 2004 04:27 PM

Re: Paying for Improvements

We have a home equity loan that we used to finish our basement. However, I am extremely debt averse and although we also need to redo our siding and get bedroom furniture, I'm going to wait until the basement is all paid off. You should look into a home equity loan though, b/c you get a tax write-off from the interest (which is still very low).

Sonicstef Posted: Jan 14, 2004 04:44 PM

Re: Paying for Improvements

I think it depends on what sort of debt you carry now. If you own your home outright, there is nothing wrong with getting a little bit of a home equity loan to do some major renovations b/c there is a lot involved nad sometimes getting a lot done at once is cheaper in the long run.

But if you are carrying a big mortgage on the house, I tend to think (and im really conservative about this subject so Im sure people will disagree) that you NEED a pretty large emergency fund in case something goes wrong and you need to pay the mortgage with less income or you need to fix something that is urgent, etc... So in that case I would I wait to do any sort of renovations until you have a good emergency fund stored up and can afford it.

Karen H Posted: Jan 14, 2004 07:15 PM

Re: Paying for Improvements

We're waiting until we hit Mega Millions

We've been doing small things piecemeal. 'Financed' some new furniture on a 6-month no interest card from Furnitureland South, but only because we know we can pay it off before the end-date so we might as well take advantage of keeping the cash as long as we can so we get the interest.

JennRenee Posted: Jan 14, 2004 10:05 PM

Re: Paying for Improvements

We pay for all of our home improvements in cash. It's taking us a little longer than we'd like to get things done, but IMO it's worth it. We just gutted and completely redid the LR DR and baby's room, and now we have to take a break and save again, and hopefully next fall we can gut and redo the kitchen or the den.

Jenn P Posted: Jan 15, 2004 09:35 AM

Re: Paying for Improvements

We also do everything in cash. It requires a lot of patience that is sometimes hard to gather but I really want to limit our debt to the mortgage and one car payment. (I'm hoping my car will outlive the car payment on DH's car, but that's a tangent.)

I think it's worth it to wait, pay cash, and not have that extra burden of debt. It's bad enough that I have this monster of a mortgage on my house. Like Stef said, without the mortgage it's different.

MarcellaBella Posted: Jan 15, 2004 12:31 PM

Re: Paying for Improvements

We're all about paying in cash as well.. DH is soo paranoid about loans that he refuses to finance anything.. We also have oh-sh!t money in the bank, just in case that we won't touch...