Lumber bid

Today we got an estimate for the lumber for our house. Drum roll please... it came to $49700.00, including taxes and delivery fees. Ryan is going over the list today, and already found two typos that cost a lot of money- one mistake was in the number of Simpson ties we need. It says we need 1100 ties, but that is crazy! Even if you put them every 12 inches wour house is not 1100 feet around. We only need 110, (or is it 100???) so that adds up to a savings of around $5000. Also, Ryan found a 6x8 lumber column that says we need 680 board feet of it- but a 6x8 piece of wood is a hefty piece of wood and he has no idea where they would go, and 680 feet of anything on a house our size needs to be questioned. With that mistake (we think they meant 68 feet, makes much more sense) that saves us another $4000 or so. So our lumber estimate could be closer to $40,000. Not too bad. I know how much we want to spend total on our house, and how much we can actually afford. They are two different numbers, because we both agree that less is always better. I thought that anything under $50,000 for all the framing materials would be great. I don't know how I arrived at that figure, but I'm happy with it. Now we can better estimate and spend the rest of our budget on insulation, windows, flooring, cabinets, and sheet rock. We are going to be spending around $4500.00 on cement for the foundation, which includes a concrete pumping service, and around $1800.00 on cement block for the foundation. It pays to shop around and it is strange how one place will be cheap for some things but not others. Oh well, happy building! (Building your own house is just the way to go- both our dad's did it, and you get so much more house for a lot less money than hiring a contractor. Sure it takes FOREVER and sure you live in a TRAILER for years and sure when you are all done you say NEVER AGAIN! But your finished house is great! And you are GRATEFUL.)