Project Creep: Home Maintenance and the Retirement Budget

Now that we are both in the post-remunerative phase of our lives, Robin and I have re-allocated our home responsibilities to match our respective skills and interests.  I have been designated the “Paul Ryan” of our Home Budget Committee and, as my first act in this newly created position, I was to determine whether there was a significant deficit in our annual budget.  In our prior lives, budgets were forever on the “to-do” list, but our income flow never necessitated a hard look. 

Coincidentally with my taking over the chairmanship of this committee, Verizon announced that FiOS was finally available in our neighborhood and the “triple play” was something to be considered.  By way of background, as great believers in both competition and inertia, my wife and I have maintained several providers for all of our Internet/telecom services (Comcast for cable and Internet, Verizon for local telephone, and Sprint for long distance).  But now, with my green eyeshades on, I began to analyze the costs we incurred to support our principled beliefs.

By converting to the triple play, we would eliminate the cost of local and long distance telephone service and save $60 each month, or $720 per year.  When put to a vote of the committee, a kinetic action to obtain digital telephone service was unanimously approved.  As Chair, I quickly obtained an estimate of the cost FiOS would bring and compared it with that of our current provider, Comcast.  I carefully compared the visual aspects of the two services by watching two high-def TVs side by side.

In the final analysis, a decision was made to stay with Comcast because the Chairman was unable to grasp the nuances of the FiOS remote, whereas he was able to manipulate the Comcast remote without looking at it and keep his eyes on the screen while changing channels, searching the program list, or checking his list of DVR’d programs.

Our installer came promptly.  His first question, naturally, was “Where are your phones?”  When I showed him our kitchen wall phone, he queried sternly, “Are you going to use THAT phone with our service?”  “Why not?”, I asked, and he explained that my old copper wire phone had a nano-bandwidth whereas a new digital phone would give us a bandwidth as wide as the interstates.  Not wanting to disappoint our youthful technician, we agreed we should go for the bandwidth (not knowing if we would ever think of enough reasons to use it), and quickly went to our local electronics store to purchase a set of the newest digital phones for $150 - ka-ching.  OK, we still were reducing our deficit by $570, AND we were gaining bandwidth.

About a week later our security alarm system people called, saying they had not received a signal from our house for more than a week.  Had we done something?  Like change our phone system?  When I said we had moved to the triple play, they explained that our current security system was analog and we needed to update our system to be able to communicate with them.  The cost? only $500 - ka-ching.  But we still had reduced the deficit by $70, not bad considering the new digital highway we installed.

When the alarm system installer arrived to bring us into the new digital security age, he checked each window sensor and we glowed with satisfaction -- that is, until we got to our bedroom where seven years ago we had hung beautiful draperies over the two bedroom windows behind our bed.  Looking behind the fabric, we discovered to our horror that we had never closed the storm windows; the moisture and dust that had entered created enough mold, mushrooms, and other bacteria to make Marie Curie proud, and the windows were disintegrating.  

My other committee member then remarked that two other windows on the second floor probably should also be replaced “while we were at it”, and so it was that a Window Replacement Subcommittee sprang into being.  The Subcommittee’s diligence and research produced the recommendation that four new double-hung windows be procured.  Cost:  $6,000 - ka-ching.

Yes, we had increased the deficit, but these windows would last a lifetime, and we were already on our digital superhighway.  When our window installer came to measure and check, we not only did an “inside view” but we toured the outside of our house to be sure the look of the new windows was right.  As we looked up, we could see the paint peeling from our siding and worn spots on the trim of our house, which had not been painted for many years.  Had it not been for FiOS coming to our neighborhood, we never would have realized that we needed this further improvement - $7,000 - ka-ching.

The responsibility of the “Paul Ryan Chair” in our house weighs heavy.  Our 1998  single processor personal computer needs replacement.  I am thinking about shifting to an Apple product.  Hmmmm . . . if we purchase an iMac, we can then get an iPhone and iPod, and then link them all together with an iPad2.  I will have to check with our Technology Committee.