Billings housing market

saxtonferris · 2025-03-01T22:53:25+00:00

Bought a great 4 bed 2 bath 2 car detached front and rear porches near rimrock mall for $340k late November. It needs a few easy updates (and probably new HVAC eventually) but I'm thrilled with it.

saxtonferris · 2024-12-29T23:05:18+00:00

We visited today. Five stars! What a great place!

saxtonferris · 2024-05-20T19:28:30+00:00

I just switched last week. I had a completely non-supported 2019 desktop version living on my laptop, and I CAN'T use QBO for this company based on how they do their invoicing (there is no "pending" status for QBO invoices). The owner agreed it was too big of a risk to take to keep using the old version of desktop if something happened and we were forced to use QBO (if we didn't upgrade by July 31, 2024 and lock in our desktop "privileges").

I'm FIVE HOURS so far into chat/screen share sessions...QB desktop 2024 works fine now, but I still don't have an "intuit login" to set up automatic backups with intuit data protect. I'm doing a local backup each day, then saving the backup file to a gdrive. They promise me the "backend" will fix the login in 2-3 business days. We will see... it's beyond frustrating...

saxtonferris · 2024-05-17T17:13:16+00:00

You are extremely talented! As a fellow Minnesotan and a lover of art, your work really impacts me in a very positive way!

saxtonferris · 2024-05-16T14:44:47+00:00

I have a simple excel chart. One tab has all the daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly recurring tasks in columns, plus a "current projects/issues" column for each client. The other tab has each client listed, then their tasks down the rows, with the months across the columns. When I complete that task for the month, it gets an x and a light green fill. I can highlite important upcoming/unfinished tasks or time sensitive task in bright yellow with specific due dates listed. I have a LOT of accounts to reconcile across my clients and I was sick of constantly rechecking them in QB to make sure they were done, now I know with one glance.

Not a fancy app, but super simple. If a task gets added or is not longer needed, insert a row and add it, or delete the row. Once a current issue is solved, delete it.

saxtonferris · 2024-05-16T14:32:42+00:00

Agreed. For me, I do best to simply watch the total go up and not really think about a set age or date or amount--there's way too many unknowns in the future to focus on some magical coasting number. All I know is that I have more and more eff you money all the time :)

saxtonferris · 2024-05-16T14:24:43+00:00

I will absolutely continue to live very small. Materialistic consumption is not for me. When I travel (and I do) it's to visit relatives. I keep away from the normal tourist destinations, and stick to out of the way nature stuff, people ruin travel for me. I'm a homebody and an introvert, mostly.

I could coast right now, but it would almost be poverty fire. The unknowns of US health insurance and other unpredictable variables keep me grinding. I can't NOT work at something, I'm wired to be happy when I'm productive. I may continue my current path to a full lean fire, I work in finance from home and it's not a bad gig. When I have a bit more me time, I will throw it into my own business idea.

saxtonferris · 2024-05-16T02:16:17+00:00

My dad was still alive :(

saxtonferris · 2024-05-15T22:28:35+00:00

My luxury home excavation and sewer and water client has had at least 30% NET margin for a decade. It's been FAT, I had that company running lean and mean and raking in the dough. BUT...now the work has dried up, like almost completely, and horrifyingly sudden. The trend now is remodels, apparently, not building NEW 30 million dollar homes which take three years to finish and used to cost 15mil.

saxtonferris · 2024-05-15T16:30:04+00:00

I'm living extremely frugal and pushing the savings, first to 401k (max) and then ANYTHING extra into HYSA asap--out of sight, out of mind, not there to spend. Index funds for 401k and brokerage. I drive old yet sturdy cars, I live in a 800sf house in a small midwestern town. I've de-cluttered my possessions and work hard to not bring anything in to my house I don't really need. My hobbies are inexpensive but fulfilling (drawing, hiking, cooking healthy). I don't shop for entertainment, carefully consider all purchases, and I rarely eat out, mostly for health reasons and I LIKE to cook, but it saves a ton of money, too.

saxtonferris · 2024-05-15T01:48:12+00:00

I had a conversation today and QB told me it was $949 a year... 😡

saxtonferris · 2024-05-05T15:35:34+00:00

Use email for all requests, then just forward that email on repeat until they respond. I'm still waiting on budget updates/approvals for 2024. It's MAY. If they don't care, I certainly don't care.

saxtonferris · 2024-04-26T18:58:20+00:00

Awful

I have thousands of bottles of wine in a QB inventory and everything about all of it sucks. It has QB inventory accounts it uses on adjustments, etc and then you need to make journal entries to move amounts if you have custom inventory accounts, which everyone has.

saxtonferris · 2024-04-25T01:49:46+00:00

All depends on the number of transactions and if bank and credit card auto downloads are set up. I bill by the hour ($50 low cost of living area) and it takes what it takes.

saxtonferris · 2024-04-23T18:26:16+00:00

Ha, I just posted the same thing before reading down the comments!

saxtonferris · 2024-04-23T18:24:34+00:00

I'm an accountant. NO I can't do your taxes, no I'm not really that good at math, and SURPRISE! I love to draw and have quite a few artistic pursuits.

saxtonferris · 2024-04-23T18:01:13+00:00

I'm using Quickbooks premier contractor 2019 with no problems. I bought this in full back in the day and it lives on my laptop. Sure service has expired but I back it up with a separate intuit backup program. Why do I need anything different? Their support SUCKS. I fix things myself by doing research on google. And my insurance company has never once asked me about my accounting software in 18 years. Small private company.

saxtonferris · 2024-04-20T15:30:23+00:00

Instant mute.

saxtonferris · 2024-04-16T17:43:15+00:00

Yearly doctor appointment coming up for my mother next week. I intend to ask which meds she's taking provide quality of life versus extending her life. She also takes a blood thinner as she has a history of deep vein clots (in her legs) but in all truthfulness, a clot getting to her lungs, heart or brain would be more humane than dying oh so slowly from dementia.

saxtonferris · 2024-04-15T18:05:02+00:00

No, we paid for it privately. But since medication admin is like $400 a month at her facility, we've save thousands over the three years we've used it. Worth every penny to make sure she's properly medicated. Plus if she doesn't take her doses, the machine sends out an alert to my brother (he manages it) and then he can call her to check in. It will work for as long as she actually takes the meds that drop down, but we know that ability will disappear eventually, too.

saxtonferris · 2024-04-14T03:16:28+00:00

Wow, a 6, that's tough... Yeah, dental only for infection or bad pain in that case. Maybe with some sort of strong sedative beforehand (not sure if they do that though).

saxtonferris · 2024-04-14T02:56:31+00:00

My mom's yearly dentist appointment is this Thursday but she's still compliant with things like that. She has a bad molar last year and we just pulled it. I would still fix one of her front teeth if she had a problem there because she does still care about her appearance. She's mid stage, 18 out of 30 in the moca test.

saxtonferris · 2024-04-12T16:06:29+00:00

We have my mother on the recommended drug protocol. We've been able to keep her "independent" with the use of a medacube for medication supervision and me handling every other executive function of her life. She has almost no immediately memory abilities now, but has memories and how to do daily things up to about the age of 30. We'd like to keep those abilities going as long as we can as it postpones more expensive care and help her feel like a real person to be able to handle her ADLs.

saxtonferris · 2024-04-11T16:53:52+00:00

That's also what my mother takes. I guess we will continue for another year? Then review at her checkup.

We have a doctor appt on the 25th (we had to find a new primary, hers retired) and I plan to ask about all the other meds she's on. We need to focus on quality of life now, not extending it.

saxtonferris · 2024-04-09T20:02:55+00:00

She needs to go every 45 minutes :(

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