Tag Archives: moving

Real Estate & Rent

Did I mention I hate home ownership? Like, despise it. With a passion.

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I don’t want to think about how much money I’ve put into our already painful overpriced plot of Bay Area land/house/box that we will live in, hopefully without major issues, for the next years of our lives.

It isn’t even the cost that’s getting to me. It’s that the more we spend, the more of a nightmare management of the home is. From too many decisions to make, to not feeling at all equipped to properly oversee contractors who are literally putting holes in our floors and walls, I am just over it. And there is still so much to do.

Yes yes yes I know this blog is filled with first world, still-have-a-job-during-the-horror-that-is-a-horribly-managed-global-pandemic problems. Sue me. I realize I’m fortunate. I’m blessed. Or, whatever. Yes. True. All of that. But, that doesn’t change the panicked feeling I have when I arrive at my house to check on something unrelated and the contractor’s subcontractor, who has already put in the beginning of plumbing work for the vanity, says “your vanity is 72″ right?” and I’m like… uh… no, 66″ — I confirmed that multiple times with the GC in our What’s App chat (btw, all the contractors like to tout using What’s App for communication, but this just means they can ignore you even more by saying “ok” to things you write in What’s App but then apparently not actually read them.

I’m not going to claim I’m an easy client. I’m particular. But for 25,000 I hope I get to be a little particular. Maybe that’s not enough money to merit particularness. In total we’re spending about 35k on the bathroom. I feel like that’s a lot. I mean, that’s the new car we’re not getting for a while. So. But I can’t be as hands on as I’d like because COVID and being pregnant and all. It’s already dangerous meeting my contractor while he’s in the bathroom and I’m in the hall. It’s stupid. I’m being stupid. After being so careful during the first half of my pregnancy, I’m risking my life over a bathroom.

But it kind of has to get done. It’s not there anymore. Well, the subfloor is there. And the studs. And some drywall they didn’t take down. I don’t know if they should have taken it all down. But it’s still there so. We need a bathroom. We need this bathroom to get done.

I still need to buy tile. It’s hard for me to visualize what things look like without seeing them done, and tile options are overwhelmingly limited yet awful. I don’t want too much grout, but large tile is not relaxing to me. Ok, so bathrooms are like, my thing. I like to relax in a nice tub. Get away from it all. As much as possible in a house with two little kids, a husband, and a father-in-law. So this is very important to to me. Maybe too important. But between how much I’m spending on it and wanting to feel GOOD about it on the other side of construction, I am freaking out about every detail and yet unable to properly manage this project.

That’s not to mention the nine thousand other things going on in the house right now that we’re trying to get done before we move in (spoiler alert, it’s not all getting done before we move in.) We decided we can’t justify paying another 3000 for January rent (plus I will be having a baby sometime in January and we want to be somewhat settled before that happens), so we made the call to move on Dec 21.  A month out from my due date. Baby could come sooner, but G-d willing, baby will keep cooking through the move.

Will I have functional electricity and plumbing? That’s another story.

We’re getting the panel replaced. It has taken a month and a half for my electrician to get an appointment with the electric company. So that’s happening in January after we move in. Hopefully that’s not a big deal. Seems like most of that work will be done outside. Jan 7 isn’t that far away.

The HVAC is getting done now. The crew seems to know what’s up. And in this case its all the new vents. And the furnace. Now in the attic. I hope they’re doing this all right. 20k. Including AC. We didn’t have AC. Remind me to never buy a Bay Area house without AC again? Pretty please and thank you. My husband, who I put in charge of researching cost of putting AC into a home without it, made a comment once that it would be under 10k if there was already ductwork in the home. He missed the whole part about if your ductwork is from 1966 and filled with asbestos and in your crawl space you’re going to want to put in new ductwork anyway and that will cost 20k. And require putting holes everywhere in your house. That will cost TBD but surely a few thousand to fill. Thanks husband. I don’t blame him – this shit is confusing and complicated as new homeowners, and I always expected things to be expensive, but it is just like … everything is expensive and complicated…

So there are holes in my floor? Who will fix them? How do I find a trusted floor repair service to do this? Many floor companies I’ve talked to apparently won’t do a job this small. The super sketch ones will. Do I go super sketch? Do I keep looking? I don’t know. There is a 3×3 hole in my hall closet into the crawl space. I mean, that’s kind of cool. who doesn’t want a 3×3 hole in their closet into the crawl space with no cover? It will be a show piece for the house cooling party that we’re throwing once we’ve all had two doses of COVID vaccines. Check out our new house — check out our new hole in the ground. Want to see the bathroom? Oh, well, look at those beautiful studs! Who needs a toilet when you can pee into the hole where the shower once was? Crawl space is amazing peeps.

I hired a gardener. I know nothing about plant life except it seems like it should be more green than not green. Gardener was hired because I had an emergency need to prep house for termite fumigation situation (apparently that’s a big deal) and someone who I knew through an old hobby responded to my post on Facebook in a random local group and said her husband can help. And he turned out to be a gardening service owner. And he gave me a quote for bi-weekly gardening service. 125 a month. Ok. But who does he hire to do the work? What do they actually get paid? I’m guessing these men doing the work are undocumented immigrants, which I’m not ok with, but I’m uncomfortable asking. And I’m worried about what they actually get paid. But it also seems most gardening services are owned by white dudes who have undocumented immigrants do the work. I don’t now. Maybe they are documented. How would I find out without making it uncomfortable to answer? I’m morally opposed both to hiring people who are undocumented and even mores morally opposed to paying some white dude 125 a month (which doesn’t even seem like that much) to pay people 10 an hour to do the work. Which, maybe they get more than that, but I would like to know. And I have too much social anxiety and panic to ask. But at least my horrifying field of doom grass has been cut. It looks like its dying. It’s winter. I guess that’s normal. Is that normal? The pepper bush is the most horrifying thing I’ve ever seen. Trees seem ok. The gardeners cut a wire to the lights in the front of our house. Didn’t tell me. I asked and he said they did it, but they fixed it, or something. I don’t think its fixed. I want to fire them but I don’t have time and now it’s awkward because it’s the husband of someone I sort of know who I might meet again. And I don’t have time to find a new gardener yet. So for now, they are going to have to do.

I bought too many things for the bathroom. What does that mean? Let’s just say 3 giant vanities (same one, 3 colors) were delivered to my driveway from Home Depot. Poor husband nearly broke his back getting them inside. I wanted to see the colors in person. But in hindsight that was dumb. Ordered a blue, grey, and white one. Leaning towards white. Was always leaning towards white. Home Depot supposedly will pick up a return for free, but that didn’t go so well the other day when we scheduled a return and couldn’t be at the house all day for pick up. We still don’t know if anyone came to pick up the items. One thing is for sure, we’re not going to be able to lift it and get it back to the store ourselves. So we have to return about 5000 of merchandise within 30 days or its ours to keep. Uh. Ok, bad job me. Blame my husband for getting stuck on the idea of a blue vanity. I’m aiming to win him over with purple walls (we both like purple) so we can keep the vanity white, and make it easy to go natural when I decide I’ve had enough of this house and need to sell it in about 2 months.

Oh, some costly-but-happy things… My new washer and dryer is being delivered in a week. Woohoo. The current ones appear to be from 1966 and even my husband (who was very adamant about not replacing them as long as they work) made a comment that they seem to be useless. So, I splurged (because why not, I’m spending all my money anyway) on some nice GE front loaders. At the very least in this house o mess of mine, I can have clean clothes. I mean, if the new electric panel ever gets put in. And someone can confirm the current wiring in the laundry room won’t destroy the new washer and dryer. It might. I don’t understand electric other than our house was not wired correctly. Much is not grounded. Some outlets are. Circuits are not set up right. I don’t know. Is my house going to burn down the first time I do a load of wash in my new sparkly sapphire blue washer? Possibly. That’s one way to clean clothes.

We need a new garage door. The old one is not only manual, but it is mostly broken. I mean, you can bang at it for a few minutes and get it to open if you’re strong enough. We dream of an electric garage opener.

How was this house 1.65M again? Would I have done better buying a 2M house? Did we get screwed? I don’t know, Zillow seems to think it’s worth that. Is Zillow fucking with me? Did Zillow spend 30 minutes having a panic attack trying to open the garage door the other day? That has to knock the Zestimate down at least 100k right?

There is still a random “wine closet” broken refrigerator thing with a lock on it with no key in our garage that the sellers left for us. Thanks sellers. Um. We need to fix our doors as well. And I’m supposedly putting in a door frame for the open nook in my son’s room so there can be a closet there a well.

Did I mention I’m having a baby in T-43 days? And trying to NOT be stressed right now?

Yea, moving in the last month of my third trimester. Great idea peeps.

Career, Depression, Mental Illness

Waking Up from The American Dream

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Today, we received notice for our annual lease renewal. Our rent will be increasing $170 a month to a total steal of $2465 for a one bedroom apartment, not including any utilities. If we lived in the city the same apartment would be at least $1000 more. That’s life in the most expensive area in the country — no matter how much you make, you’re still not making enough to afford the life you thought you’d have at this point. You just have to wake up from the American Dream and realize it’s just that – a dream.

I’m incredibly fortunate to be one of the few who is making a high salary — more than I could ever had imagined making and more than I believe I deserve. At the same time, I acknowledge that in order to afford a house here you pretty much need to be taking home $400k (as a couple) which isn’t in the cards for our future, despite my relatively very high income – even if I manage to find success and stability in my job. I realize that many others will never even make as much as I do, and I feel I make too much, but it’s a loop of relativity when I try to comprehend how much I’d really need to make in order to purchase a 3 bedroom house with a tiny backyard.

Do I need a 3 bedroom house with a tiny backyard? Even if I don’t, soon our rent, for a one bedroom apartment, will creep up to $3000 a month, even in the suburbs. We won’t exactly be priced out but we’ll be able to save less and less each year. At some point, I think we’ll have to accept that it’s time to leave. And with a total income of about $250k, we’re doing much better off than a lot of people who live here. It’s just not enough and it will only get worse as we attempt to start our lives together.

If kids end up not in the cards, maybe it’s doable. We can stay in a one bedroom apartment, no need to pay for extra space when it’s just us. We can live in a one bedroom for the rest of our lives. This isn’t at all the life I had imagined, but we can survive easily without that much space. If we do have children that changes the story quite a bit. I don’t see how we can have children and remain here, especially if I need to take time off for any reason. The pressure of being the breadwinner, especially suffering from severe anxiety, is too much. If I am responsible for me, myself and I — that’s no big deal, I can roll with the punches, live cheaply when needed, and just weather any storm that comes my way. With children, we need a much bigger security net. We’ll have to move. We will have no choice.

I write this at a time when many entry-level workers here are seriously struggling, unable to feed themselves or pay rent on minimum wage. I feel embarrassed to look at my quite high income and still feel so hopeless, because if I feel hopeless, how on earth is the rest of everyone supposed to feel?

I’ve come to accept that if I’m going to have children we can’t stay here. I don’t have a solution yet or an answer to “where to do we go,” but sooner than later we have to get out. I’ll very much miss the beautiful scenery and sunshine. I’ll look back on my 20s and be glad I had the opportunity to live in such a glorious part of the world. But it’s time to grow up and move out. Or, at least it will be soon.

People say to not worry about the future and to just live in the moment. I find it very hard to do that. We now face the choice of staying in our current apartment and paying an extra $2000 to do so next year (and continuing my 3 hour a day commute) or finding a place closer to work that will either be more expensive or less livable or both. We’ll probably just stay here for another year – neither of us wants to deal with moving, and $2000 doesn’t seem like that much compared with the inconvenience of finding a new apartment and lugging our stuff to it… moving isn’t free either. So we’ll probably give it on more year here and hopefully by the end of the next lease I’ll be pregnant and we can then figure out where on earth we’re going to live in the future (aka not California.)

I had hoped that I’d be at a point in my career where I’d feel so distraught over losing my job / career in order to have a family… but while I appreciate my job for what it is now, and really admire my colleagues and am so grateful for this opportunity… I have no personal investment in this career. I feel no sense of pride in my progress or role. In five years, to continue on this path, I end up in a leadership role were I will never fit. I acknowledge it’s soon time to leave. Right now, the best I can do is hold on for dear life, do the best I can, and try to save money by living relatively frugally and bringing in a good income where most of it goes straight into the stock market / my savings accounts. This may be my last significant savings opportunity in my life, given I plan to move to an area with a lower cost of living and obtain a job which pays significantly less in my next career move. My goal is still to get to $500k in savings before I make this move, and the goal is becoming much more dire given that I’m rounding the corner of my mid 30s and I know I can’t handle this life for much longer. If I can just hold out until $500k — I can completely shift my lifestyle to one of lower income and greater flexibility in another part of the country. We can live off of, say, $100k total across both of our incomes and still live a decent life. If we make more than that, great, but we don’t have to (or, in the case of staying here, I’d likely have to earn over $300k in order for us to hit the $400k mark and afford a small home.)

What was once kind of this running silent joke in my head about how one day I couldn’t afford to live here and that I’d move away is proving true. I guess what has changed is that I’m more ok with that than I was before. I used to think that I didn’t want to trade my career for a simpler life. I didn’t want to be one of those women who had kids and no longer had her own identity, especially a professional identity. But now, I don’t know, my professional identity is not who I am. Despite not making it to Hollywood or Broadway I’m an actress nonetheless, everyday portraying someone who I’ll never be. I’m over this obsession with what I thought was success. I have nothing to prove, no one to impress, no game to win. I have maybe 60 good years left on this earth if I’m lucky, and many fewer with all of my loved ones in good health. I hope to make the most of them, and it doesn’t matter if that occurs within a tiny apartment or a giant house. It feels good to finally accept that… to embrace the loss of this embedded classism my parents have taught me, to stop feeling like if I can’t maintain the level of comfort and luxury from my childhood that I am a failure. The only true way to fail is to lock myself into a life where I no longer have any reasonable options for escape.

Career

The First Page of the Next Chapter

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Today I started my new job. I’m already buried in work, but I like it that way. The company is extremely different from my last, especially in its culture. I know that I’ll miss the fun, quirky culture of my last company, but one can’t stay in a job forever just because of the culture. I have such a great opportunity and I want to knock this one out of the park. I feel like I’ve paid for a startup MBA (in the form of early-exercised stock options) over the last four years, and now it’s time for the big leagues.

That said, I really wish I had a place to go at my office for quiet. While I didn’t love the cubicle culture of my old company, the whole giant room with desks and no privacy doesn’t help me focus on writing, which is a primary portion of my job right now. My boss mentioned he doesn’t mind if I work from a coffee shop or something but given the team is so small I can’t help but worry – at least for the first few months – that it would give off the wrong impression if I weren’t at the office all the time.

I’m excited to get my first paycheck as well. I’m now making – base – nearly what I was making with my full bonus at my last company. It remains to be seen if I can hit my full bonus here, but I’m going to work my ass off to get it, and if I can accomplish that then my salary will be $25k total more than my last company, and more like $35k over what I was actually taking home given the bonuses weren’t fully paid out as the company started to slow on revenues. I really can’t half ass my new job anyway, either I’m going to be a rockstar or fail miserably. I’m going to do whatever it takes to rock it. I’m focused on this one quarter at a time, otherwise I’ll be massively overwhelmed. At least the bonus structure is quarterly so that aligns with how I can set and track to my own goals.

There’s just so much going on right now, starting the job really made the whole next chapter of my life feel real. My neurologist has diangosed me with potential temporal lobe seizures and prescribed an anti-seizure med that I started yesterday. I’ve been packing like a maniac all weekend, as I have to have all my stuff out of my apartment by next weekend, and I’m also just dealing with the whole transition of moving to a new town that I don’t know, away from one that I’ve really grown to adore. The change will be good, though, and if I have anything to say about it this company will do very well and my stock options will buy me a house back in the town I love, where I can raise a family and have some sort of stability. In the meantime, I just hope my boyfriend proposes to me soon, because I’m about to give up on his ability to make that happen!

 

Real Estate & Rent

The Moving Saga Continues

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Anxiety doesn’t begin to cover it. Within the next 26 days my boyfriend and I need to find an apartment where we will live for — at least — the next year. And no matter what, even if we live in some crappy area, our rent is going to significantly go up upon moving in together. It’s giving me major panic attacks.

He’s committed to a maximum of $800 in rent ($850 if we find a place that’s absolutely amazing.) That means we have to find a place for under $1600 if I want the rent payments to be equal. I do make more than him by about $40k, so right now I’d be ok with paying a little more. The problem is my job situation is very up in the air right now and I could easily go from making more than him to being on unemployment. I’d rather stick to an $800 monthly max for myself as well. That leaves us with very few options, and still a person $150 a month rent increase. Continue reading The Moving Saga Continues →

Career

Time for a New Chapter? It’s Time that Tells

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As an E/INFP I rely a lot on intuition, feeling and perception. This means that instead of analyzing a lot of data to make decisions I wait until a decision feels right. An opportunity crossed my path recently and while it terrifies me (in terms of responsibility) it just feels right. Really right.

I’m nervous about making a change. It’s easier to change jobs if it’s a big company which will live or die just as well with or without you. Harder when you know your parting will hurt, and when you’re very loyal to a company. But at some point one has to do what is best for their career. I wasn’t really ready to make the move now, but maybe I need to stop being scared and go with what feels right.

It may work out that I move to another town and also start a new job in that own within then the next four months. I am really itching for starting the next chapter of my life. I need a clean slate. New apartment. New job? Well, my next chapter is probably marriage + kids so this one better be good. I’m ready. More ready than I thought I was.

Move at the pace of guidance is perhaps the best advice my therapist has given me to date. Earning her keep. Also, my good friend is pushing me to leave my job because he believes I can do better. This would be big. This is working for some serious heavyweights in tech. This is a great opportunity. I should go for it. Right?

Real Estate & Rent

Apartment Hunting: The Search is On

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After driving in what seemed like too many circles in a three-block radius, we parked in front of a tiny row of one-story apartments and walked inside. The 450 square feet “one bedroom” apartment led you into a tiny room straight from the doorway, with another even smaller room in the back. The walls, you could tell, were extremely thin, as neighbors a few apartments over playing music were providing atmospheric entertainment. We looked around for a second then got back in our car and left.

The tiny Mountain View apartment was listed for $1175 a month.

I’m rather spoiled but I care about having a living environment that makes me feel good. This is an issue of both space and natural light, as the rest I can forgive. It seems though both space and light come at a vast premium around these parts.

Continue reading Apartment Hunting: The Search is On →

Dating and Relationships, Family, Life as I Know It

Happy Mother’s Day — a Long Distance Family Relationship

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2,797. That’s the number of miles between where I currently live and where my parents live. 6. That’s the number of hours it takes to fly from coast to coast to visit, not counting the 2+ hours on either end to get to and from the airport. $350. That’s the average cost of a RT ticket between each destination, on a non-holiday travel schedule.

On holidays, my family, including my parents, sister, cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents tend to gather together and spend the day talking and enjoying each others company. Even though I didn’t have a very close relationship with my family, I cherished the time spent together, the conversations had, and laughter shared between my relatives.

Then, 10 years ago I moved away from home. First, for college, I moved 814 miles away from home, and then, when I graduated, moved even further away.

In that time, my parents, cousins, grandparents, have all aged. I see them at most two or three times per year. Three years ago my father was diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer and told he had two years to live. My grandfather, over the last ten years, has lost his sharpness due to Parkinson’s disease. I can barely recognize my mother, as she looks more and more like a “grandmother” every time I see her. My cousins have gone from elementary students to taller than me, and I missed everything in between. My sister is now a junior in college — I left home when she was seven.

10 years ago, I wanted nothing more than to run away from my childhood, to start a new life for myself, to prove that I could make it on my own. Had I stayed in New Jersey I might have maintained a more consistent relationship with my family, but I never would have grown up. I needed to get away. But looking back, I do feel a bit of regret. Of missing the time with my family.

On the other hand, seeing my family less frequently makes those times shared more valuable and appreciated. My parents drive me absolutely crazy, with their fighting and complaining about everything, so living at or very near home would probably be a poor decision. Still, I’m contemplating a move back east, maybe not in the very near future, but in the coming years — I still have more good friends in New Jersey and on the east coast than I do in California, and whenever I envision having a family (ie kids) I see myself raising them back on the east coast. California, as much as I love it, will never feel like “home” to me. That’s not a terrible thing — home can be boring, California, for what it’s worth, still makes me feel like I live on constant vacation, as the weather is always relatively nice, and the landscape is beautiful. But I miss my family and friends. And I think I’m getting more and more ready to go back.

Yesterday, my boyfriend asked me if I’d ever want to live on the east coast. He rarely discusses the future — he hates to think long term beyond next week — so it was a conversation I was not prepared for. I didn’t have an answer then, really. Yes? No? Could I leave California — a place that, just by being outside here, makes me happy — to go back to a place that is depressing for half of the year during those dark, cold winters? Maybe. Maybe I have to, at some point. Maybe California has given me the opportunities I needed to kick start my career, and perhaps my experience here will open doors for me in New York. Who knows. I just think that as I approach 30, and as I approach my 5th anniversary with my boyfriend, and likely marriage and settling down in the next few years, deep down I feel like that has to be in New Jersey or New York. I can’t imagine raising my children away from my family. I want them to grow up with that. But I’m not sure I’m ready to make the move just yet.

But one thing I’ve learned lately is that money doesn’t make me happy, relationships make me happy. It’s extremely hard for me to make friends, and I generally have trouble relating to people (esp people outside of the tri-state area) — my family will always be my family, but if I never see them, I’m throwing out the most priceless item in my life’s possession. The more pictures I see on Facebook of family gatherings, the more smiles of my family posing for a large group photo and I’m not there, the more I realize it’s time to rethink the whole “I don’t need family” thing. I mean, right now no one is dead, thank goodness, but I can’t imagine the guilt I’d feel if one day I get a call that anyone in my family has passed… or is in the hospital with only hours to live, and I missed the opportunity to see them, and to be there when they were healthy, and when they were ill. I think in that sense I need to move back, the question just is when.

Real Estate & Rent

She Really Doesn’t Want to Move

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In 3 months, my two roommates will be moving out. And I will either be moving out also, or have successfully found two new roommates. Stressful moments of being a renter like these are the few times I think paying for a mortgage would be worth it. (Then again, in the Bay Area, the only place I could afford would be crooked and vertigo inducing or burnt and dirty — see the San Jose Mercury News cover story on Bay Area homes you can buy for the national medium home price.)

Today, I met up with a girl i know who has an apartment in another Silicon Valley City. It’s a 2br/1ba. Her roommate is moving out in July, so the plan today was to look at her apartment and extra room, and then for her to come look at my apartment. Her apartment is very small and, well, it feels like an apartment. It doesn’t feel like a home. That can be fixed, but it’s just so tiny. And the rent is higher than my current place because it’s a 2br. So rent there for a room that’s smaller than my current room in an apartment that’s not as nice would be $725.

My place is a 3br/2ba with a large room for $770 and two smaller rooms for $635. Free laundry in the apartment. A pool in the complex. The apartment is right off the highway. It’s 30 minutes or less to my office. And the more I thought about it today, the more I realized… I really don’t want to move.

So, I could just tell the girl I met up with that I’m not interested in her place. I bet she’s going to want to stay there because it’s close to her bf. We also discussed looking at other places when it gets closer to July, but it’s such a pain because we both would have to give 30 days notice, and we couldn’t even really start looking until the month before we’d have to move.

And… moving, on its own, is expensive and a pain. Renting a UHaul, dragging all your stuff from your place to the next place, it’s just no fun at all. So I’ve decided that unless I find an incredible place to move to, I really want to stay here. The hard part will be finding two roommates. It would be nice if this girl wanted to move in here, into the cheaper room. That way we can rearrange the rents so the two cheaper rooms are $575 each, and the larger room is $870. I think that’s fair since the larger room is giant, has a walk in closet and a big closet, and a private bathroom.

Hmmm…. this is really bumming me out right now.

Real Estate & Rent

Moving On… Out?

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Sure, there have been moments where I wanted to pull my hair out living with my current roommates, and I’ve been guilty of causing these moments in return, but the past 2.5 years living in this apartment have been some of the most stable in my life. This has been the apartment of my mid 20s, and now it’s time to figure out the housing situation of my late 20s.

My current apartment — a room in a 3br, 2ba in a nice condo complex in the Bay Area burbs (next to houses that cost $1.5M+) cost me $632.50 a month. The room is small, but big enough for a full size bed, and has a wide widow overlooking greenery, blocking the parking area from view. It has large sliding mirror doors on the closet, which makes it seem more spacious, and much better than the room I first lived in when I moved to the Bay Area (in Burlingame) that cost $450 a month but really felt like a closet.

The rest of the apartment is nice. It has a balcony that I rarely use, a large living room / dining room space, full kitchen, the full bathroom that I share with one other girl, and another full master bedroom with its own private bathroom. The cost breakdown between myself and my roommates has never seemed totally fair… the private bedroom with walk in closet and private bath is $770 a month, where the much smaller bedrooms are $632 each. But I’d prefer to have access to a bath (not shower only) and like the window in my room, so never bothered to complain. The complex is nice, has its own small park-like area, and a pool that I’ve used probably 6 times total since I moved in (but enjoyed greatly on the rare really really hot days of summer.) And the location is pretty good too. It’s about 25 minutes to work, 30-45 minutes to the city sans traffic by car, 10 minutes to my boyfriends house, 5-10 minutes to the supermarket. I’m right by a freeway exit (off the better freeway in the Peninsula.) Oh, and there’s a washer and dryer in the unit!!!

So why move? Well, maybe I won’t. But whether or not I move, there are some major changes coming, because both of my roommates are moving out. One is moving out for her school program, she’s relocating to Southern California. The other is moving in with her girlfriend and closer to work. That leaves me with one 3br, 2ba apartment and no roommates.

While my landlord may choose to increase the price of the apartment when my roommates move out, they may not if I can find immediate replacements. And there are only a few reasons why I’d want to leave…

1) Finding two new roommates is going to be very difficult, and I’ve had so many bad roommate experiences before, that maybe I want to live alone right now

2) The location is ok, but it’s really inconvenient for biking anywhere as it’s up a giant hill. I’d like to live somewhere that makes it possible to bike to work, and use my car less.

3) Maybe now is the opportunity to move to the city. I’ve always wanted to live in San Francisco, and it makes a lot more sense to do it in my 20s/ early 30s, versus when I am ready to have kids and settle down. That said, it would be kind of dumb to move to the city right now, as it would increase my commute time. There are rooms in the city for the same price I’m paying now, or even less, but the apartments wouldn’t be as nice as the one I live in, and they’d also probably not be in the areas I’d want to live in the city (if I’m going to keep my cost the same)

4) Should I find a place that’s cheaper? 632.50 is not bad for a room where I live, but I could feasibly find a place that’s $500. It may not have its own laundry in the apartment, it may require a longer commute, but I could save more money (or have more money to spend on things I need like a car, mental healthcare, etc.)

So… I’m not sure what to do. I’m scouring Craigslist on a daily basis but it’s too early to look. My roommates and I have decided that our move-out date will likely be July 1, which means I can’t really start looking until Mid-to-late May. So that’s three months of driving myself nuts over this.

It could be a great opportunity to be in control of finding my new roommates for this place… but, to be honest, I’m just tired of having roommates. I want something more private, a place I can be a recluse in when I don’t need to be around people. Where I can watch American Idol in peace. But that dream is expensive. When I lived alone previously my rent skyrocketed from $905 a month to $1300 a month in just two years. I feel much wiser paying $600 a month vs $1300! Then again, if I was paying $1300 a month or more it would be an easier decision to BUY a place vs renting. Right now I think I’m doing pretty good renting. I’m able to put a good chunk of change into my investment accounts.

Is it better to own a studio apartment and put all my savings each month into that, or just put all that money into my investment accounts? Plus… with my mental instability (the joys of bipolar II) I think I need the freedom of not being locked into anything (like a mortgage OR expensive rent payments.) I guess I will just have to wait until May/June to figure this out. I’m so tempted to move to the city, but that’s probably an awful idea. What do you think?

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Moving on Down, and Saving My Pennies

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My rent has gone from $1050 a month to about $650 a month. This move, which is saving me a good $400+ a month, is probably the best decision I’ve made in my life. Even though my gas $ will be going up, I still think I’m going to end up saving at least $300 a month, and that doesn’t even include the additional $250 that I would have had to pay if I stayed at my apartment and accepted the ridiculous rent increase.

It’s kind of weird making these smart financial decisions now. I always relied on my dad to make those in the past. I didn’t go totally overboard on my living situation previously, but given how much I was making, I definitely should have gotten roommates. Now, I’m making enough to live alone, barely, but I’ve realized that just because you make enough money to spend it, doesn’t mean you actually should.

Instead, I’m going to really focus on saving money now. I’m pretty sure I want to go back to grad school at some point, prob for a degree in Human Computer Interaction (Berkeley has an awesome program) and I’m starting to take programming classes at the local community college (which happens to be a few minute walk from my new apartment) to make sure that’s the right path for me – but I’m pretty sure it is. I need to learn the programming side and the research side, and then I’m ready to become a key player in web 3.0…

In the meantime, I’m dealing with some other things. Speaking of my father and his wisdom, it won’t be around for much longer. He was recently diagnosed with advanced stage prostate cancer. I knew he probably had cancer, but wasn’t really prepared to hear this. Basically that means he has a few years to live, at best. Well, what this means, besides all the emotional havoc it’s having on me and my family, is that all that money I’m saving on not renting the more expensive place might be spent on plane tickets. It costs about $400 to fly across the country these days. Ugh.

And it really is going to be time for me to step in and help my parents with sorting out finances for the future. My mom is such a duntz when it comes to that sort of stuff – I get my bad spending habits from her. My dad’s mostly a saver, and I’d like to be more like him. It makes me nervous to think that I’m going to have to take over for him, at some point.

Meanwhile, just the thought of losing him is really hard to deal with. We’re not really that close, and for most of my life I hated the guy, but he’s done a lot for me and my family outside of the mental and physical abuse, including working hard for most of his life and making sure we had enough money to live very comfortably. It’s tough to know that he’s worked so hard for most of his years – he just retired like a year or two ago – even though he is only in his late 50s – and now he’s looking at the end. He won’t get to enjoy retirement or that huge 401k he’s accumulated. Or he likely won’t… besides facing the fact that the cancer treatment will stop working in 1-10 years, he also is dealing with so many other medical issues. He can’t even enjoy his last few years on this earth, because all he does is sleep all day. I can’t tell how much is because he’s weak and how much is just depression. Regardless, it makes me sad to think of the life he’s led, working so hard, married to a woman he doesn’t love, saving up for retirement… and then, he gets to retirement, and he’s sick, and he’s dying…

It makes you think twice about the value of saving so much for so long. Not that I won’t be putting money away for retirement or focusing on getting and staying healthy so I can live to enjoy it, but… some people don’t make it that far. And our entire society is set up to work and work and save and save… but then what? What if that’s all you get?