Decision Time

[laterbloomer]

Due to Covid I have had 3 weeks vacation accrue. Now I have a choice to make.

1. I can do nothing and just use it up whenever we are allowed to travel again. Though my boss will kind of freak out at me taking that much time off in a short time frame.
2.I can get it paid out and redo my main floor floors. I have been wanting to switch them out from laminate to LVP for a few years now. (I should have done that when I installed the laminate, lesson learned I guess)
3, I can get it paid out and put it into retirement savings.
4. I can get it paid out and put it towards paying off my camper, that is at 4% interest.

Which way would you go?

[mary2029]

I think you stated in the past that you were happy with your retirement funds, so I would go with 2.
YOLO.
(Says someone who is trying to have more savings/life balance.)
If COVID was going to disappear by the end of the year, I would have voted for 1.

[Sharon]

I also vote for option 2.  What I decided is that I am spending so much time at home I want it to look how I want it, and it is worth the money to accomplish that.

[Jake 48]

I would do the floors, I'm spending more time at home and have been doing all those projects that have been put off. much happier with how things are looking.

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

I vote for floors.  We used our stimulus to finally rip up the carpet in the sunroom.   The longer I was stuck at home looking at it all day the more it was enraging me.  Having it ripped out made me feel so much better plus it makes the sun room a nicer place for DH and the girls to do their work during the day.   It was money well spent.

Yeah I won't have a bizillion dollars in my retirement account because I didn't invest that $1200 but at least now I am no longer *thiseclose* to going Mommy Dearest on my house.

[laterbloomer]

Thank you all. I was leaning that way but between all of you and ISO it's official. Floors it is.

[countrygirl2]

I am still waiting for hubs to do the floors. I told him if he didn't feel like doing it would do carpet, he says no, he will do hardwood. but he says after this or after that is done, sigh. For 2 years this has gone one. We can't afford what it costs to have it put in and I'm not sure I could do it. I ought to try, he is going to buy a good nailer. and I can read up on it. somewhat different I'm sure then installing laminate.

My son used to let his time off accumulate and then take a check. They will not let them do that now so he has to take it off. He has been off since a couple weeks ago and is for the rest of the year. I can't even imagine. He went to meet some old friends of his in Maine, glad he got to go for a week or so.  They had pictures of bears outside the guys cabin. Son said it was beyond remote.

[CCL]

I vote for new floors. We replaced the carpet we still had with engineered hardwood in the spring and love them. I don't even know why we didn't do it sooner.

2nd choice would be to buy something nice (and fun!) for camping trips since you said you have a camper.

[CCL]

Nov 20, 2020 22:35:31 GMT -5 countrygirl2 said:

I am still waiting for hubs to do the floors. I told him if he didn't feel like doing it would do carpet, he says no, he will do hardwood. but he says after this or after that is done, sigh. For 2 years this has gone one. We can't afford what it costs to have it put in and I'm not sure I could do it. I ought to try, he is going to buy a good nailer. and I can read up on it. somewhat different I'm sure then installing laminate.

My son used to let his time off accumulate and then take a check. They will not let them do that now so he has to take it off. He has been off since a couple weeks ago and is for the rest of the year. I can't even imagine. He went to meet some old friends of his in Maine, glad he got to go for a week or so.  They had pictures of bears outside the guys cabin. Son said it was beyond remote.

Your hubby should be able to install the floors pretty easily. Mine installed our engineered wood floors thru most of the house in about a week. The solid wood may take longer, but a lot of the installation process is similar. Or go with engineered wood. No-one has been able to tell the difference between these and solid hardwood.

[Rukh O'Rorke]

take at least some of that time off - unless you have a super easy nostress job with a lot of holiday time. and accrue vacation quickly. I'm taking 2 weeks EOY to use up all that can't roll over.

I only get 18 days/year, so cashing out 3 weeks would leave very little for future vacays.

work is allowing some extra rollover this year, but no cashing out.

[countrygirl2]

Hubs just has a few things to finish in the bathroom at the post office. And then starting on our house. Will give him something to do for the rest of the winter.

We are adding to the floor project. Finally putting a bathroom in the basement. It's just not very useable without it. We started out with just a toilet then found we can hook a shower and sink into the upflush toilet system.

Then finishing out a bedroom in the basement, it has 3 walls already so needs 1 on the outside wall. The closet finished out, drop ceiling, and door.  That will let us move the guest room down there and free that bedroom for my office. Our bedroom suite is going down there and the guest room one in our room. That will free up a room so we can move stuff in and out to do floors. I'm assuming this will take us a few months and for all of it maybe $8 to $10k for everything. Maybe not that much with him just buying materials. He drew up the plans for the bathroom, won't be huge but will be useable. 

[laterbloomer]

I ended up taking one week and cashing out 2. Then we got locked down so now I'm just sitting on the money until I see a really good flooring sale and then can get someone in to do them.

[buystoys]

We got so lucky when we redid our kitchen.  The flooring we liked was at a super low sale price.  It was less than we thought we'd ever pay for flooring.  That made up for our overage on electrical wiring. 

[countrygirl2]

We have a lot of hardwood to buy, I estimate $5k or more. We are going to do the whole house upstairs, well except kitchen and bathrooms. The hallway is also ceramic through most of the house and to the front door.

I think its going to be more then $10k now though. The toilet is a $1000 and then sink and shower stall, everything is always higher then anticipated.