Wishlist Vs Necessities... Serious Budget Control
As in any project we have also introduced checkpoints in our house building project. If you don't do a reality check every now and then, there is a big risk of exceeding the budget to more than one can afford. As the saying goes "Stretch your foot according to the length of your blanket".
We had a meeting with Magnus from Myresjöhus to finalize the changes we have done so far in the house plan and also to see how much have we gone up from the initial budget when we started. The outcome of the new calculations was not in our favor. We knew and expected our budget to increase, but we did not think that it would increase so much. The fact that what ever change we do in the house and the resulting increase in the cost would also result in increase of "Pantbrev" (mortgage deed) was totally missed out. In addition to this we also had to consider the "Lagfart" (land registration) cost.
When we did the calculations including all the changes we had made plus the cost for "Pantbrev" and "Lagfart", the reality hit hard in our face. We were shocked and a little worried by the increase in the overall cost for the house. We were prepared for some increase in the cost, but this was beyond what we had thought. So it is now time to re-evaluate things. Need to check our "wishlists" Vs what we actually need.
Me and Ana had a long discussion later in the evening that day and started chopping off things in our list that were "good to have" but "not really necessary".
The first thing we crossed out from our "change list" was the "Vitrinskåp" (Display cabinets with glass doors) in the Kitchen. These are just one of the "good to have" things that aren't really necessary. Normal kitchen cabinets (without glass doors) would still serve the same purpose of storing the plates, glasses, etc. There is no need for showing these things off anyway. Also, if having these "chique" cabinets is going to cost so much that we won't have any money left to purchase new items to put in these cabinets, what is the use?
Next thing to face the "merciless budget control axe" was the special stainless steel Kitchen appliances like oven, microwave, dishwasher, refrigerator and freezer. Having these Kitchen appliances in "stainless steel" is just a "marketing gimmick". The non-stainless steel versions of these appliances function the same way and has the same output quality. So why spend unnecessarily on these things. Also, these items are the ones that can be replaced anytime in the future whenever needed. So spending additional amount of money just to have them in stainless steel is a waste of money in our opinion.
Now the amount we will save from these above mentioned changes will be used for other useful purposes. We want to have full length windows down to the floor in the Veranda as we think it will provide a better ambiance and more light in the house. Weighing this change in Veranda against the "good to have" things in Kitchen clearly steered our opinion and motivated us to do the cuts in the Kitchen.
So there, we did some budget control to fit things in our estimated budget. But this is just for now. We will have to have these "pit-stops" every time we make any new change, until the full list of things in the house is finalized.
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