The Half-Ass Homeowner and the Money Boss Homeowner

Kim and I have been in our new house for ten days now. We love it. We love the charming quirkiness of it all — the low ceilings, the funky layout, the small space and lack of storage. We love the yard. We love the neighborhood.

That said, there are definitely some things we don’t love. Chief among those is how poorly the previous owners took care of everything. Their motto seems to have been, “Why do it right when you can do it half-ass?” At every turn, we are amazed at how they cut corners or chose the cheap, quick option when the best option would have cost very little extra time and money.

Let me give you a specific example to demonstrate what I mean.

The Half-Ass Homeowner

In the backyard, the previous owners built raised beds to grow tomatoes. That’s great, right? Built properly, raised beds can be a fantastic way to maximize vegetable garden production in a small space. I’ve built raised beds in the past, and have always enjoyed the sense of order they give to a garden.

That said, the raised beds in our yard have half-ass construction.

• They were built with cheap planks less than half an inch thick. A good quality raised bed ought to use 2×4 or 2×6 lumber — or something similarly robust.
• These beds have no lining, which means the wood will rot quickly from contact with the soil. A quality raised bed ought to be lined with heavy-duty plastic along the inside walls before adding soil.
• Most annoying to me is the fact that the beds aren’t level. Rather than spend an extra few minutes to spade a flat surface, the previous owners simply built the frames to the slope of the yard. So lazy!

This is but one example of the many half-ass repairs and modifications we’ve discovered during our first ten days in this house. We’re constantly uncovering new and crazy cases of laziness and lack of care.

When we moved in, for instance, nearly every knob on every door, drawer, and cabinet was loose. Our guess is that they’ve been loose for years. In ten minutes of walking from room to room with a screwdriver, I tightened everything that could be tightened. I have no clue why the previous owners chose to live with loose hardware for so long.

Or there’s the half-ass shelves in the office closet. Rather than spend a little time and money to do things right, the previous owners apparently used scrap molding as a sort of base/frame for each shelf, then tacked the shelving material to these flimsy supports. Naturally, the shelves couldn’t support much. The tacks had long ago popped loose. The shelves bowed and bounced with even light use. It took half an hour (and $48) for me to tear out the half-ass frames and screw in high-quality brackets to support the three shelves. Now they look better and can hold more than shirts and sweaters.

I could go on but I won’t. You get the idea. The previous owners of this house — who are perfectly pleasant people in daily life — not only seem to have deferred most maintenance on the property during the seventeen years they lived here (which we knew before buying the place), but when they did make improvements they cut corners and did the bare minimum to get by.

This, my friends, is not the Money Boss way.

The Money Boss Homeowner

As a money boss, you manage your personal finances as if you were managing an actual business. If you’re also a homeowner, your house is likely your most valuable asset — and your greatest expense. It makes sense, therefor, to be especially diligent about maintaining and managing your home.

To that end:

• When you notice a problem, whether it’s a minor repair or a major project, make a note of it immediately. I’m not saying that you always need to take care of things right away — although sooner is better — but you absolutely ought to keep a list of work that needs to be done around the house.
• Keep your list of projects in a central location that you access often. At our hundred-year-old farmhouse, Kris and I kept a hand-written log of future work. Today, Kim and I have a Basecamp project devoted to our new place. Whenever something new comes up, it gets added to Basecamp.

• Set aside a regular time to maintain your home. Even one Saturday morning a month is better than nothing. If you’re able to devote more time to upkeep, that’s even better. Plan in advance to tackle specific tasks. Buy any tools or supplies you need before the time you’ve set aside to perform the work.
• Take time to do things right. Don’t rush your projects. Use the interwebs to research how to do quality work. As most of us have learned by now, you can find almost anything on YouTube. If, as sometimes happens to me, you find that you’ve made a mistake, don’t be afraid to go back and redo things the right way. It’s better to spend a few minutes making a correction than it is to continue down the wrong path. That’s the road to half-ass homeownership.
• Choose quality tools and materials. Yes, quality costs more upfront. That’s okay. In the long run, quality will save you time and money.
• Keep a curated list of quality contractors. As you work with folks you like, add their names and numbers to a spreadsheet or contact database. Better yet, pool resources with your friends and family so that you have a shared list that everyone can rely on. My brother, for instance, thought the folks who repaired his siding did terrific work. They’re not cheap, he says, but they’re worth it. I plan to call them when we replace our siding. Meanwhile, my friend Emma (who owns rental properties) recently shared her spreadsheet of trusted vendors. When you don’t want to do work yourself, it’s helpful to have a catalog of reliable workers.
• Create a dedicated home-improvement fund. I’m a fan of targeted savings accounts, and think it’s wise to have one devoted to home maintenance and improvement. The rule of thumb I’ve always heard (and which has worked for me in the past) is that each year you should count on spending about one percent of your home’s value on necessary maintenance. So, because our place cost about $450,000, Kim and I should budget around $4500 per year (or about $400 per month) for ongoing projects — once we’ve taken care of all the deferred maintenance left by the previous owners.

The other night, our friends Bret and Vicki came over. We commisserated about our homes. Fifteen years ago, Bret bought a place like ours, a place with lots of potential but tons of deferred maintenance and a history of half-ass repairs. For fifteen years, he’s been gradually upgrading and erasing the stuff the former owners did.

“I don’t get the mentality,” Bret said. “When the previous owner was installing a shelf or something and ran out of screws, instead of taking the time to go get the right screw, he just looked for some half-ass solution. Like, he might take a nail and use it instead of the correct screw.”

Here’s a general Money Boss principle, not just for homeownership but for all financial matters: A money boss doesn’t do things half-ass. She does them right. She doesn’t mind that it might require more time or more money. She doesn’t mind that it might mess with her current plans. She understands that doing something half-ass today leads to years (or decades) of frustration. Doing it right means she never has to think about it again — because it’s right.

The Bottom Line

It’s important to note that there’s usually not one specific “right” way to get something done. There are generally multiple paths to success. Using the raised beds as an example, there are dozens of options for quality construction.

It’s also important to note that while doing it right is sometimes more expensive than taking the easy way out, that doesn’t mean you need to spend a fortune to obtain quality. It cost me $48 and 30 minutes to upgrade my closet shelves from sloppy to solid. It’d probably cost something similar to upgrade each of the raised garden beds.

It comes down to is this: A money boss is a proactive homeowner. He doesn’t procrastinate until a minor problem becomes a crisis. He doesn’t constantly defer maintenance until his home falls into a state of disrepair. He doesn’t cut corners on upgrades and improvements, but chooses options that will last for years — or decades.

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