Renovating on a Budget #059

out as opposed to a frugal purchase. Yeah, it looks dumb. It looks terrible and actually is incredibly ineffective. It doesn't really move the air quite as well. No, because it looks like it belongs in a four by four room as opposed to a twelve by twelve room, which is kind of what it's in. I think a desk fan mounted to this. Yeah, it looks so ridiculous. So she sent me this really interesting article from this site called young house Love dot com. And it turns out I

know that site. Oh really, Yeah, dude, that's the house renovating sort of site John and uh Sherry Kate and I used to you like buddies of these people. No, but Kate, I used to keep up with that site all the time back in the day when we first got our house. They were constantly doing sort of these d I y projects and they would inspire us to to try stuff out at home. But then they kind of stopped blocking for a while, so I guess they

fired it back up. So cool. Yeah, So I don't know if I don't know if this was a recent article or what, but but this is an awesome suggestion. I guess they too found themselves in a similar spot where they had a fan that had fan blades that were way too short and just didn't circulate enough air. And what they did was they reached out to the manufacturer, apparently, and they asked if they had fan blades that were

longer that would fit this exact same fan. They sent them the model number, and the manufacturer just sent them some new, longer fan blades that fit perfectly and the fans still worked fine. So awesome. Now I'm going to reach out to the manufacturer of my fan and see if I can do the same thing. See if I get some free fan blades and just make make that

thing work properly. That's awesome, man, I love that. Well, this is gonna sound ridiculous, but I actually reached out to the manufacturer of one of our fans because the led panel for the light went out and it's sat there for a little bit with sort of this half dim light and mood lighting. Some people call that with this half dim light. Yeah, that's right. And we knew it wasn't working properly, but I was just kind of lazy. But I finally reached out to the manufacturer with a

part number, and we had to pay for that part. However, it was only fourteen bucks, and because that we basically got our lighting back in our living room when before it was totally dark. That's something I've never really done before, actually reaching out to the manufacturer. I think maybe in a previous life I would have looked at that and been like, the fans gotta go in a couple of years, just let's just get rid of it. I remember doing that a while back with a caraft for a coffee maker.

He kind of busted, like he just kind of fell apart, and so I reached out to the manufacturer. I told him the model number I was working with, and and I was like, I really really love the coffee maker. I don't really want to buy a new one. Yeah, there's a lot more life in this thing if only I had the glass paper exactly. And so they sent me another one free of charge, which is super They hook you up. Yeah, dang it. So I feel like pay for my light, dude, that's well, four teen bucks

is not too bad. It's not bad. I was. I was pretty happy with it. But that's the downside to LED lights in general. Right, Like they say that, oh l eds, they're you know, they're gonna last for twenty thirty years, unlike traditional incandescent lights. However, the electric boards will sometimes kind of short out. And it's not that the LED itself is going bad, but the circuit tree sometimes may not be quite up to snuff. But I think it's really important to realize that it never hurts

to ask. Right, maybe I can reverse my cheap ways turn into a frugal wind. I mean, it's a beautiful thing. Yeah, man, I love the discussion between frugal versus cheap, right, it makes me think. A couple of weeks back, we had a listener in our Facebook group at how to Money, Ben, He said, frugal are cheap. My daughter has outgrown her sippy cups, and I used them to take milk to work because I hate the powdered creamer they provide for

the coffee. I fill up the milk at home and place it in the fridge in the office break room. What do you think about that? Man? I love it. I love it. Man. We've got so many freaking sippy cups around our house, and my girls, for some reason love to love to still use like some of the ones they used as babies. They just think that's the coolest thing ever. And and you know what, I should probably take some of them to work and do something

with him, something a little more creative. Yeah, But I love that that Ben's not putting him out the pasture, tossing him in the garbage, and he's getting getting a second life out of him. And I just think it's funny because if I was his co worker, I would probably ask for an explanation, but why is there a

sippy cup in the fridge? Right? But then I would have a good laugh and and probably use the creamer that he brought, because he's right, powder cream sucks well, added bonus, if no one ever knew that that's what was in its his coworkers wouldn't steal the creamer because I guarantee they probably think it sucks too, and they're like, powder creamer? Do we hire a baby around here? Where's this baby? Man? I've got my boss baby going on. All right, Joe, let's go ahead and mention the beer

that we're gonna have on the show today. It is from Prairie artisan Ales and this beer is called Apple Brandy Barrel Noir. This is an Imperial Stout aged and apple brandy barrels. And before we kind of get to the what it tastes like, I wanted to mention that this was donated to us from Jeff and Val of Monday Morning Pancakes. Dude. They wrote us a note and sent a couple of amazing beers and a few things they mentioned in the in the letter any pancakes too,

you know? I wish, although I don't think they hold up very well in the male. Yeah, I don't think so. They said that they were in a rut financially and had since been inspired to start their blog, Monday Morning Pancakes to document their path to a better lifestyle and

financial independence. I'll tell you what, man, Sometimes just starting a blog or some sort of diary, anything to kind of track your progress and put it down in writing can kind of help you not only to gather your thoughts and get started in a specific direction, but then also kind of hold yourself accountable as you're going through

the process. And so I love that. I love that they started something, and they started something together to kind of turn inspiration into like application, really right, Yeah, I love that. And what a great way to get on the same page as your spouse, right by starting something together. And what a great way to gain our favor by sending this beer. So I was really excited because I didn't tell you what beer this was. But have you had this before? Well, now I have to look at

the label. I don't know. I don't think I've ever had this one. Cool. I just know when I read that label, I thought, holy crap, this might be one of the best beers that we've had on the show in a long long time, just based on the name alone. So you are having a sip right now, and yeah, what are your thoughts, man? Yeah? I did just have a sip and you might be right, Matt, that's a phenomenal beer. The word I'm going to use this week

to describe this beer is barrel. And I know we say that almost every week, that oh, this is such a good beer, but for real, this beer is fantastic and my word is going to be apple. And all the other times we were just lying like none of those beers have been good, completely joking, but this one is good, right, Yeah, did you hear my word? I

said apple? I did, yeah, for it, Honestly, that's the word I almost went with, oh really, but I was like, it's a little too straightforward, because no, man, I take it right on the notes. So yes, So we'll describe a little bit later on the show exactly why we use those words. And no, we weren't lying in episodes past. We just honestly drink good beers every week. Super thankful to get a drink good beers with you, my friend, and do the show alright, Joel, But onto the topic

at hand. Huh you did that nicely. Yeah, that's how you do it. And so this week we are talking about specific tips when it comes to renovating your home on a budget. What are the specific tips you can use to save yourself money and to keep you within your budget. And last week we discussed the pros and cons and the factors that you should keep in mind when considering if you should renovate or if you should move, and we came to the fact that both can be

just as stressful and expensive. But you know, if you want to renovate, or you think that you will ever renovate, this is the episode for you. Yeah, Matt, And I think they're gonna be a lot of like big picture things for people to take away from this episode, but they're also going to be these small things that seems insignificant potentially, but could be the difference between having a contractor that does a good job for you or one

that takes your money and runs. And there are so many horror stories of people that decide to move forward with a renovation and they hire a contractor based on very little knowledge or or a word of mouth from one person, and and and and guess what, You pay a lot of money up front for them to start the project, and then you never see him again. And I've just heard and read too many of those stories

from people. And that's a huge reason why we're creating this episode is to help people not only figure out how to save money maybe d I y some things themselves, but ultimately also to avoid that potentially tragic circumstance where you lose a ton of money by giving your money to a scam artist. So we're gonna get to all those tips right after this break. All right, Matt, let's get right into it first. Are you sure you want to?

I mean, renovating a house is a pain. We talked about it last week, so certainly there are a lot of benefits, but there are also a lot of costs and headaches associated with a major reno. You might be able to instead, possibly spend a fraction of the renovation costs you're considering on storage and organization to save a ton. That's something we mentioned last week. I just wanted to briefly say in this episode in case you missed that one. Now let's get onto some actual tips for how you

renovate your home on a budget. The first tip that we're gonna cover is to keep in mind that it's gonna cost more and it's gonna take longer than you expect. I've never heard that about a renovation. This all the time, but you gotta keep in mind because it is duded. Is so true. I'm thinking of some friends of ours who live pretty close by. They would also say the

same thing. The project went a couple months over than what the contractors said, and so did the price, and so in their case, they kind of had the double aamy going on, man, which is not uncommon. Yeah, it's not uncommon, but it's just something to keep in mind. You need to set some expectations and chances are that one of the two of those are going to go over. Yeah, you're going through a home renovation right now, so you have some particular expertise at this moment in Yeah, that's right.

And so I think we're pretty much on time, which is pretty crazy, right, the fact that we're on this the time schedule that our general contractor had had said was gonna be the case. But we are going over budget for reasons that we'll get into later in this episode. But from a time standpoint, we seem to be pretty much on track, which is pretty freaking awesome. But it's not always the case. Yeah. So, speaking of budgeting and money, start saving now. Paying cash is the most ideal way

to pay for renovation. I realized that is a high standard. That's a difficult thing to live up to. But if you find yourself thinking right now, oh man, in a couple of years, I feel like we're gonna want an extra bathroom, or we're gonna want to remodel the kitchen, you know, whatever it may be. If you can think about it ahead of time and start saving for that,

then you don't have to worry about banks. And that's really nice to not have to go through a process of taking out a home equity line or loan or doing like a cash out refight, because those can just be a pain, a lot of paperwork, a lot of documents, ation, and any way that you can avoid that is awesome. Yeah. Or even on top of that, man, construction loans. That's the product that's out there that a lot of people use to renovate and like do a big renovation on

their home. But with those come a lot more work. The bank sends out their own inspectors and so it really slows down the work. You have to not only get the work inspected by your local government for permitting and whatnot, but the bank has to also approve the work because they're the ones that are funding the work, and so it really kind of slows the process down and as a layer of complexity to the work that

you're having done on your place. Yeah, and so if you do need to get a loan, the type of product that you want to get depends on the amount of time that it's going to take you to pay off that loan. So if you end up getting an adjustable rate loan like a home equity line of credit, you are only gonna want to do that if you feel like you can pay that off in a shorter

amount of time. Because chances are, in an environment where interest rates are rising, you're likely going to pay more in overall interest if it takes you a longer time

to pay off. And so if that's the case, if it's going to take you a longer time to pay off, and I'm saying greater than a three to five year timeline, you're gonna want to go with something that locks in your rate, like a whole equity loan or potentially that cash out refinance because interest rates are still overall at a pretty low level, and so if it's going to take you a while to pay off, well, it's best to lock that interest right in now when you're considering

taking out funds for a renovation, Yes, that's right, man. You want to have a plan to pay that off as soon as possible. Next tip, if it's a job that's going to be bigger, you want to consider hiring an architect to get some detailed drawings. Otherwise, not having decisions made ahead of time could cost you way more money and cause the project to run longer than expected.

And when you do this, you want to make sure you tell them your overall budget, because you might have architects who can do some incredible work and they might draw you some amazing plans right for a renovation that you could never afford, and you might think to yourself, well, how the heck am I supposed to even know my budget? But a way that you can get some ballpark numbers is to reach out to some contractors, have them come by your place and generally go over the score footage

that you're looking at, adding the general finishes. Most of the time you're gonna match your existing house, and they'll give you a range. With that range, you can then take that to the architect before you pay them thousands of dollars to come up with incredibly detailed plans that you can't actually do anything with. Oh and another quick tip when you're talking to your architect is make sure that you are having things designed and drawn to like

more standard sizes. So, for instance, doors come standard at six ft eight If you don't want to be blowing your budget out of the water, don't have some detailed drawings where you've got this custom seven ft two inch door in your house, because guess what those are gonna have to be custom made. Considers standard sizes and your

architect will know what those are. But ultimately, Matt, the biggest thing you need to consider when you're jumping into potential bigger home renovation is a general contract that's right at a g C. The g C can make or break the whole thing. And so we've got a few tips and selecting the right one. And it's important to ask friends and local realtors for recommendations for local contractors.

And it's really important to get at minimum three different quotes from different contractors in your area that will help you kind of develop a ballpark of what this project might cost. And when you're interviewing those contractors that have been recommended to you, it's really important to call their references, to ask for references, right, and then to call those references, and then you want to even go a step further because lots of people do that. They ask for the references,

they read the references. But if you can actually go out and look at a job that they've done, physically, go out to someone's house, see the work right, Yeah, that is so helpful in seeing, Okay, how good is the work? Right? And if you see it in person, you can see the little imperfections or the ways in which that contractor has taken special care to do a

great job. Seeing the work in person and talking to that individual not just over the phone, but to their face where you can actually discuss what the process was like. You're gonna get a lot more nation about how that how they worked with that contractor how easy it was, and how happy they are with you know, the final outcome.

There's a lot more sort of nuance that goes into conversation when you're hanging out in person versus say on an email or a quick text, where they might feel the needs is sort of gloss over some of the things that they didn't love so much. But again, like you said, hanging out in person. That's why we like to hang out in person. But they're just you have more fun and you're able to communicate a lot more

just robust lye. Yeah. It makes me think of our episode Matt that we did about screening a tenant, and it's very very similar to that, where that first impression that you get of a tenant through email or a phone call can be awesome, and then you meet them in person and you can tell a whole lot by when they show up, how they present themselves, and how that walk through the house goes. There's there's so much that you can gather from an in person visit that

you couldn't over a phone call. And the same is true when you're picking a general contractor. Another thing is that you want to make sure that your general contractor is licensed and ensured. Gcs can cost tend to earty percent of your total project cost, and that's a lot of money, so you want to make sure that you've got one that isn't going to end up being a liability for you. Yeah, and this vetting process can save you a lot of time, a lot of money, and

a lot of heartache. Spend the extra time on the front end to save all of those other things on the back end. Keep in mind, though, that when you get a quote from your g C or potential g C that is just an estimate, is not a final bid or or a final price. More than likely there are going to be unforeseen things that always arise once a renovation is underway, and you want a GC who will address these issues with a change work order and not just cut corners, because basically, something comes up and

you've got two options. If the GC feels that you know that you're locked into this price and that you're not really flexible, well they know that you're not gonna want to spend extra money to fix that, and so they're they're probably just gonna cut corners, or they're just gonna sort of dry all over that rotten spot or whatever it is. You want to g C who will communicate with you, have these discussions and hopefully that these

are decisions that you can make together and move forward. Yeah, and I feel like that process, Matt, the beginning process, that getting to know you kind of process with a general contractor receiving their estimates, seeing how they present themselves in person to you, whether they're on time, and how thorough they are, whether they get their estimate to you when they say they will. That is foreshadowing of how things are going to go when the renovation process actually begins.

So take note of that when you're getting your quotes from contractors. How that process goes down is going to be very indicative of what your future with that contractor looks like, Yeah, Joe, I couldn't agree more. Right if you If you're gonna have to make like five phone calls just to hear back from your contractor to get you a quote, chances are they may not be the best fit if you're expecting to, you know, hear back

after one phone call or one text message. You also want to have a general contractor who's familiar with the permitting process of your particular city. So building codes and our standard and international, the local government they're the ones who handles the permitting approval process, and they all do it differently. What documents they expect varies and how they

want that presented. All that varies, and so you want a g C who is familiar with that process and knows how to sort of streamline that and quickly move it along. That's gonna have a huge impact on the projected amount of time. However, even if you are using and experienced local contractor, you might want to consider using an expediter if time is of the essence for you.

They'll be the ones who are most knowledgeable with what your local permitting office is looking for, and hopefully they're not doing anything illegal, but they're the ones who can kind of take your plans and set it over on their buddies desk, and who knows, maybe they'll get to reviewing your plans two or three weeks before they would

have otherwise. You gotta love a good wheel grease and don't pay big amounts up front and never pay in full to your contractor, and you want to make sure that you withhold final payment until the project is a complete I've heard stories of people that pay their final payment to their contractor before the final punch list is all done, and obviously there are even worse stories than that, but there's work that still remains incomplete on the renovation

that you're doing. You shouldn't pay the contractor until all of those things are completed, because once that last check has been put in the hand of that GC they're gone like that's that's it. Their job is complete, at least that's the way they're going to view it. And so you want to make sure that you withhold until you're completely satisfied that all the work has been completed

according to the plans that you set out. Yeah, and Joel, and certainly this is definitely the case too with smaller subs, right like, if you say we're just gonna like have a contractor sort of put a new roof on your house or something like that, you never pay until the project or the job is done. However, typically with a bigger job with a general contractor, typically there's a payment schedule and there's draws that are planned at different completion

points in the work. Those are the kind of details that you're gonna want to see in the contract with your general contractor, and some of that you can negotiate if there's, you know, something weird or something that stains

out to you. But keep an eye out for work and payment that looks like they should sort of mirror each other and coincide, because factly, sometimes there's just a lot of material that need to be purchased, and there's other sort of subs that need to get reserved sort of in a sense where they're paid a deposits under the general contractor. So, you know, we haven't even mentioned this, but a general contractor is sort of like the manager

of the job. They're typically not the one who's doing much of any of the actual work on your house. They might do like some trim work or some sort of miscellaneous odd job work here and there, but they're the ones who are coordinating scheduling the subs and making sure they are there on time. They're the ones overseeing the entire project and going back to deposits that they are giving. Sometimes they are needing to reserve their subs

to make sure that they're good for the job as well. So, Matt, I feel like that does beg the question do people even need a general contractor? And that's a great question to ask, because, as you mentioned, a general contractor can often make ten tot of the overall price of your innovation, and depending on the scope of your innovation and your personal availa ability, your specific need for a general contractor varies.

And so we'll kind of get into that and some other cost saving measures that you can take when you're undergoing a home renovation right after the break, All right, jul let's now talk about whether you should or shouldn't have a general contractor. And so, if you're a type a personality, right, you might consider being your own general contractor if you have the time and knowledge. This is gonna be a little controversial of a statement to make.

Chances are you're gonna be pouring over the details and wanting to know why everything is happening the way it is anyway, So check with your state laws, as some require a license, sometimes with experience, but that might be a way that you could save some serious amount of money. However, I will say that most people will want a general contractor.

Most folks renovating their home can't take on their added responsibility of basically another full time job making the decisions, or even having the knowledge or the experience in dealing with subcontractors. A good general contractor is totally worth it. They've got relationships with suppliers with subcontractors, like I just mentioned, They've got that experience, you know, those relationships with subcontractors. That's honestly what kind of makes or breaks a renovation.

And like having framers or a roofer or a plumber or an electrician to have them show up when they're supposed to. That's the difference between your project running months over when it should be finished and it's staying on time, or that's the difference between you going way over a budget, because this is something that wasn't considered because there wasn't somebody overseeing the entire project to it falling within the

scope and the budget that you were expecting. You know, as a homeowner and someone who's renovating their house currently, dud we make so many decisions right now, I could not imagine having to also make tons and tons of other decisions that involve people that we aren't talking to every single day. Yeah, especially if you're kind of a novice homeowner, it really isn't even something that should you

should consider. If you have a little bit of experience when it comes to building, or you're taking on a much lighter project, maybe you want to think about being your own GC. If you're hiring just a few subcontractors and hopefully you've had experience with some of those subcontractors before. But if you're whipping out the yellow pages and thinking and thinking that you're gonna find the right folks to complete your innovation, and you need to hire everybody from,

like you said, framers to electricians to tile workers. Chances are you're better off in the hands of a general contractor. And basically, if you have to Google like should I be my own general contractor, you probably shouldn't. Yeah, Google disresponds big nope. Yeah. Another important question Matt to ask is but what can you do yourself? Right? And that's an important question because we would never tell anyone to

shy away from a good d I Y project. And if you can save some money by tackling some of these projects yourself, that's freaking awesome. We're all about that, right, And there are little things that you can do along the way they could save your self thousands of dollars in a home renovation that we think you should totally consider. And the first part of that is the beginning, and it's the demo that's actually kind of the more fun part too. Right. You get a big sledgehammer, you start

knocking out kitchen cabinets or whatever that is. And that's something that you can actually save some money on by telling your contractor, hey, we're going to take care of the demo, making sure you know the scope of what you actually need to take on in that demo, but that's a kind of maybe fun way to get your aggression out and save some money at the same time. What kind of aggression are you dealing with? Man and painting, dude, that's something else that a lot of people can do

and have done themselves as well. Yeah, that's usually one of the last things right on the list is painting a room. And so yeah, if you can handle the front end, a little bit of demo, the back end, a little bit of painting, you can save yourself big money. And then you're also kind of not getting in the way of some of those subcontractors that are that are doing some of the heavy lifting in the middle and

while interior painting, you know, it seems totally doable. I'm not sure we would recommend you taking on the exterior painting of your house, in particular if it's more than one story, because you might die. Death is not worth it. Another tip is to consider saving money by getting recycled materials. You could visit your local habitat for Humanity restore. This is something that we've done when we were adding a

storage room onto one of our rental properties. We found an awesome, perfectly sized window that we were needing on a wall that we're putting in, and we saved so much money by picking up this random window. And sure it doesn't really match the other windows in the house, but you know what, none of the other windows really matched either, so it doesn't really matter. And also consider

picking up remnants of say like a countertop. You can go to a countertop warehouse or installer and a lot of times we'll have remnants on site from a bigger job where there's pieces of say that granite or that marble that they couldn't use from the larger piece that they cut it from. And you know what, if you were just remodeling a smaller kitchen, or you only needed that for maybe an island, you could say some huge money by just picking up this piece that they were

going to end up just tossing in the trash. Yeah, and let's say you've got appliances that are in solid condition, man reuse the appliances, don't tossos out. That's like a common thing that people do when they renovate. They go all the way and they end up tossing out something that's perfectly good if you've built it into your budget and that's a strong desire to to have, you know, new appliances at the same time. I mean, I think that's okay. I just know that it deserves a mention. Matt.

I know you're salvaging some of yours and that just cuts down on the overall costa of the rental that you're undertaking. Yeah, man, that's true. However, we did have to get a new dishwasher. Did I tell you my dishwasher story? How we were limping along with his dishwasher that we got for free, so our old dishwasher essentially stopped properly working. I mean, it just was not cleaning the dishes, and we knew that we were going to have to get a new dishwasher at some point. But

I found one for free. A friend kind of put us in touch with somebody else that had purchased a rental and they were swapping out those appliances. But the dishwasher totally worked. Being the frugal guy hopefully not cheap that I am. Uh dude, I went over there and grabbed it was already uninstalled, brought it over to our place quickly, was able to get it in there. And dude, I tell you what, that base model tends a twenty

year old dishwasher with dust all over. It worked so well, way better than that old stainless steel dishwasher that we had. But I love that idea for a lot of folks. If your appliances are only a few years old, if they are in solid condition, like, think about keeping it as opposed to replacing something that's perfectly good the way it is. Yeah, or even if they're mismashed a little bit, like, no one really cares if your appliances don't all match

orf they're all from the same suite. Yeah, And just like that new car, smell it. Honestly, it doesn't last very long. And that same feeling that you get when you walk into a brand new kitchen with brand new appliances, you know what, that feeling doesn't last all that long either, enjol. Something else to consider is think about whether you would be happy with more cosmetic changes like painting or maybe getting that new backsplash versus moving walls and taking on

a huge project. You know, if you consider not changing the layouts, that can save you huge, huge amounts of money. However, if you are going to move some walls, consider not moving major systems, anything that involves large amounts of HVAC or electrical or plumbing. These are all things that are going to require each one of those subcontractors to be in there to do that work, and all that adds up. So,

for example, think about the bathroom. Right, if you're gonna update that bathroom, you're gonna get any toilet in there, replace the tile, maybe switch out the sink, get some new faucets. It's gonna cost you a lot of money. However, if you're gonna move that bathroom from point A to point B, that's gonna cost you way more money because you're involving a plumber. You're having to basically rebuild that

bathroom in a different location. Yeah. You know something else that adds up, Matt, the secondary cost of renovation after the fact, And so it's really important to take those into consideration before you sign a contract with a general contractor and before you actually start demo. So you mean like adding onto your house or making it a little bit bigger, Yeah, exactly. So a lot of people that are considering a home renovation, they are adding on square footage,

potentially to a house. And so if you are doing that, not only do you have to consider you just mentioned moving plumbing or electricity around, which adds a lot to the costs of that renovation, but also your taxes will go up because of the increased square footage. You'll also likely end up paying higher energy bills because of that renovation. You got a heat and cool that space, man, exactly, it's more space to take care of, and so that's

just gonna cost you more money. That's right, though, That's an important consideration. That was episode forty eight where we talked about why everything costs more than you think. Yeah, and home renovation costs more than just the bottom line on the contract that you get from your general contractor before the actual renovations begin. It costs you more in time and money usually than that. And then on top of that, there are secondary costs that you have to

think about. Just don't forget to consider those before you dive in head first. All right, Gel, that's right man. Let's go ahead now, and let's get back to our beer. We are drinking an Apple brandy barrel noir, which is an Imperial stout by Prairie artisan Ales, and I'm gonna go ahead and kick it off with my wordman, which was apple, like the apple I love it. That was almost the word I went with. And the reason I said that was because literally, that's what you smelled like

on the nose. Like on the nose, what it smelled like to me was like a bowl of apple jacks, just that apple, wheat and grainy smell. However, when we tasted the beer, dude, I did I feel like I didn't taste the apple nearly as much as I smelled it like on the nose, strong apple in my mouth, wheat apple. I felt like the barrel actually influenced this

beer so strongly. Yeah, you could totally taste that. I'd be so interested to know how long this beer was in the barrels, because that can completely change the way a beer taste. And some breweries will put something in for a couple of months and you get very very light barrel flavor, and this beer it must have been for a year or close to it, because you got ten years. Who knows, because you've got a huge amount of that apple brandy barrel on the nose in the

flavor profile. And so that's why my word was barrel because I feel like the barrel was the big stand out here. I got to know that barrel and the flavors that it didn't parted through this beer very very well. Yeah, definitely, there's a lot of roasted flavors. And I agree with you as far as the barrel. It added a lot of earthiness to it, Like it felt like I had my nose down in like wet earth mixed with coffee.

It's like I had a hot cup of coffee next to my apple Jacks and I'm sitting there and it's just like all wafting up towards my nose. But I thought you switched to hot water. I do drink hot water throughout the day, but I drink coffee in the afternoon that's right when I eat my apple Jack's. Yeah, this was a delicious beer. Thanks so much to Jeff and Val for sending that over. It's always greatly appreciated when a listeners sending a beer, and especially a beer

of this sort of magnitude. This was incredible, all right, mat Let's get to our final thoughts, and a really important thing to mention is that pay in cash, or at least saving up a substantial amount of cash when you're considering a home renovation is so important, And honestly, it feels like something that people would laugh at or scoff at in this day and age of easy home loan reefinances and home equity lines of credit. Well why not finance it when I can? But we would say

save up as much as you can. It's gonna put you in a better position to tackle this potential home rental. That's right, man, you don't want to foot your future self with the bill from today's lifestyle. And another tip that I think is pretty important man, is to consider an architect, not just an architect that will give you the basic plans, right. You don't want to go cheap if it's a bigger project, consider having detailed drawings that will save you so many decisions. And Kate and I

have had incredible decision fatigue. This is something that can save you just a lot of that time stuck. We're constantly on call to make decisions. Yeah, and the decision that you make when it comes to a general contractor is probably the most important decision you're gonna make when

it comes to your renovation. It can make or break the entire process for you and so we would say, have a strenuous vetting process where you interview multiple three or more general contractors and get solid recommendations from friends that have renovated and from local realtors. Yeah, and if you are pretty handy man, truly consider the different things that you can d i Y, things like painting or demo. However, for most folks, you probably aren't going to be able

to d I Y being the general contractor. Most likely it'll be best to leave that to the pros. And lastly, it's really important to consider whether you'd be happy with some smaller cosmetic changes. Taking on a big renovation is life changing. It can suck a bunch of your energy and time and a lot of your money. So going in a simpler direction can provide you a lot of what you're looking for at a much cheaper price point.

And do did we even talk about storage solutions? I bet you could spend one percent of what your innovation might cost awesome, really nice storage at your place. And I bet that alone, right there could buy you another four to five years in your house. Yeah, depending on your situation, really good storage can be a big difference maker. All right, Matt, that's gonna do it for this episode. You can find show notes for this episode on our website,

how to money dot com. Yeah, and if you found the things that Joe and I talk about helpful or interesting or even mildly entertaining, we would love to hear from you. We would really appreciate if you were able to leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. You know that helps to get the word out, so you know, share your thoughts. It's like a big red megaphone for potential listeners. Yeah. Man, that's right. And so until next time, best friends out, Yeah, best friends Out.