Hardest Ever Year Financially
Overall, this was the hardest year in my life financially. Unexpected expenses from a maxed out health care deductible, more special levies required to complete Eden2, then selling Eden2, getting laid off after twenty years in the corporate world, Sylvia needing to go multiple times to Germany to care for her parents, then her father dying, fighting through bureaucracy to get the old NQ retirement money paid out. Finally, the stress of Sylvia moving her mother into a rest home, and selling the family home to insure her mother could continue to get the good care there without more financial stress.Health Insurance Nightmare
After breaking my arm during a hard paragliding landing at a SoCal XC League race at the end of April, I ended up with a health insurance nightmare just at the moment my cashflow was the worst it has ever been in my life. With our high deductible plan, I was $6000 out of pocket. Then after getting laid off, our family health care bill jumped to $1300 a month.
The situation made it more clear that in the USA health insurance is not really insurance against for healthcare. It's insurance against a predatory industry that will bankrupt anyone that isn't insured against it's out of control overcharging and blatent price gouging of consumers.
Eden 2 Pushing over the Finish Line
The first six months of 2019 had been a nightmare, with additional special levies forcing me to max out two credit cards and take out a third another personal loans on top of the two loans and overdraft in New Zealand. Finally, I started simply ignoring the balance on my Fidelity Credit card in order to pay for the additional special levies.After nearly two years of rebuilding process and not receiving any rent, Eden2 was finally finished in July. I flew to New Zealand to meet with the real estate agent, inspect the property and admire the beautiful staging arranged by the real estate agent.
It did look stunning. I fell in love with it all over again, and was reminded how closely the elegant, simple interior represented my ideal living space as the young professional I was at the time.
The plan was to sell it at auction, and after some last minute negotiations to get the right clauses for particular bidders, the auction went off without a hitch. The selling price was $620,000, but with a little extra thrown in as the winning bidder was willing to rent it until the code compliance was issued. Along with the rent I received a refund of over $3000 on all the levies, hopefully which will indicate that there will not be further levies in the coming months.
Getting Laid off as DXC Lurches from Crisis to Crisis
Getting laid off from DXC after twenty years of employment that spanned the globe was a surreal experience. My boss got laid off in June, and kindly told me that my notice would come on August 16. In that intermediate time, more or less the entire US cloud computing team was laid off. Each week if I didn't see people's name in the directory, I'd assume they were gone. Most didn't even send off emails to say goodbye.DXC stock price tanked 50%, and the lawsuits started rolling in. Layoffs had been timed to boost earnings in order for executives to reap larger bonuses. Unethical business at it's worst. Not only that, the layoffs were basically just a shell game - DXC spent 2 billion buying a Russian consulting company with 14,000 staff. Lay them off in the USA, buy them back in Russia.
At least I got the maximum, measly severance of 8 weeks pay, and had the EDS NQ retirement fund to fall back on. As I never contributed to that fund from my paycheck, there was less sting in using it to give myself from breathing room rather than just diving back onto the job market.
Juggling Loans through the worse cash flow crisis
After being laid off, Eden2 was sold, yet the settlement had to wait for the city council to provide the Code of Compliance Certificate. This created even more of cash flow crisis for me as I had taken short term loans while thinking it would close in July and settle quickly. The final loan was more or less dedicated to paying off the other loans. A downwards debt ladder. What all the loans forced me to do however, was cash flow management down to the cent in a way that I have never done before. Meticulous and tedious, but it did create some sort of comfort to know exactly what I owed at all times.
Selling Sylvia's Family Home
After the years long nightmare of selling Eden2, selling Sylvia's family home was a miracle in comparison. The first miracle was that Sylvia was able to get her mother to agree to sell in the first place relatively easily. Then her strategy of not publicly advertising it, rather offering it confidentially to the neighbors first, worked perfectly. It wasn't the Daumen family that offered to buy it who were our first choice, but the Pressler family, who had been Heinz and Marielies's tax consultant for many years. The fact that the buyer had been inside the house multiple times worked to our advantage, as they knew the neighborhood, and the house. It turns out that their is a lot less negotiation with house sales in Germany as here in the USA - there were no conditions or clauses.
The turnaround
As 2019 draws to a close, the tightness is still there, but easing. My old EDS severance bonus got paid exactly on my 50th birthday. Somehow very symbolic. But taxed at 40% it was a lot less than expected It means I have to start diving into my IRA savings with associated tax penalties until I get the Eden2 money. The Eden2 CCC was finally received on December 17th, so settlement will be in mid January will allow me to pay off all outstanding credit cards and debts. It will be a great relief not to be paying the $800 in interest and $1200 in principal that I've been paying for the for the last three years, which was essentially financed by stacking up loans on top of each other, with the last ones being primary to pay the payments on the other loans. A debt trap if ever I saw one.
Sylvia is gradually comprehending that after her mother's house sells, she is suddenly a 'wealth manager' of a $500,000 estate, with all the mindset changes and responsibilities that go with that.
After I get the full Eden2 proceeds, I'll have about $200,000 cash in the bank, a further $200,000 in retirement investments, and $400,000 in home equity.
After a year of financial stresses and strains, there is finally a light at the end of the tunnel....
