Roomie just bought a place and the purchase puts in high relief that i need to get my adulthood act together. sure, i'm an adult and everything, with a great (burgeoning) career and friends, but perhaps it's time to finally get off the roommate train that i boarded back in 2000. it's been fun, supportive, fiscally feasible and wonderful to have a partner in crime but i'm almost 40. maybe i've been using it like a crutch. (and Roomie and i have talked about this so this isn't something she doesn't know has been kicking around. she sometimes sees things before i do.)
but i was looking at my so-called options yesterday and it gave me a stomach-ache. financially, nothing can happen before italy (I-TAL-IA!) but i still need a plan, right?
what is it that i want? what do i imagine the next stage of my life becoming?
is it a single, 40-something life in a streeterville studio? (affordable but depressing for me)
is it a single, 40-something life in a west town apartment? (not depressing and affordable if i get a whopping raise)
is it a financially strapped single 40-something life in a condo in west town or logan square? (stressful and totally not affordable)
i'm trying to think about these things as clear-eyed as possible, with as little emotion as possible. (i think i do my best thinking when i'm not emotional about it.) but, very viscerally, i have one image in my head of what i don't want my life to look like: the female version of B-'s life. one fork, one spoon, one plate, one towel. i may have made fun of it but i should have paid more attention to how alike we actually were, because right now, i'm pretty much one fork, one spoon, one plate, and so on.
(we can include one bed, two bookcases, one bench, two chairs, tiny tea cups, one tv, one bench...you get the picture.)
but while i also feel the pull to be adult (i.e., accumulate) i also don't want all that stress-inducing work, you know? setting up a household. it sounds so daunting. i'm certainly not one of those die-hard folks who want to lessen their 'footprint.' my footprint is what it is: less than other people's, more than a homeless guy's. but i also want to throw a sop to my vanity and live a life that's really wonderful, you know? that's not chintzy. one that's full. self-indugent? perhaps. but that's what it is, too.
but, hey. at least my fibroid will be gone in two months. yay.
14 comments:
My townhouse is cleaner than it's ever been. My job is interesting, but grueling, and it pretty much allows me to afford the comfortable, material life I had been praying for during those gross grad school days of poverty. Right now, I'm on summer break, so work is the furthest thing from my mind.
So I'm really lucky.
But I cannot imagine doing this for 20 more years.
I have two resumes out now, one for the Beijing Olympic committee. It would be double the pay, but it would only be until next September. Besides, I'll never hear from them.
The other is an internet company in Shanghai. The work would be TOTALLY up my alley, but when the CEO called me he quoted a salary that sounded like a massive pay cut.
Sigh. You should come visit me in Seattle, while the house is clean, and I still live in it.
Also, I found a Christmas card where you totally invited me to go to Italy with you all. I'm totally going to show up in Italy, and pretend that I'm having more fun than you!
Why not buy yourself a condo and have a big housewarming party (maybe an open house so everyone's not there at the same time), and register for gifty gifts for cute dishes, silverware, etc., to outfit the joint? It's not as if you expect to be hitting your friends up for baby gifts the next year.
I have honestly gotten almost all of my furniture from the alleys. When people move, they leave really great stuff there - like the semi-circle red velvet chair i got most recently. It has taken a while, and I don't have all the things I need for a complete house - but it is cheap and satisfying (and urban outfitters has been great for pillows and window coverings).
Logan square is a great neighborhood - it has such nice diversity and only one starbucks (but one on the way). We have a farmer's market, great restaurants, plus a good grocery store (strack and van til) and the target. BUT, it is a little challenging at times living here if I need something, and don't want to take an hour to get there. Without a car, it is annoying to go say to the drugstore or to find some creamer for your coffee - or just to get a book. But, if you have a car, parking is easy.
I'm feeling the press to become more of an adult - but also resent and resist that at the same time.
Have you looked into co-ops at all? I was admiring that one that is right off the pink/green line the other day (near ashland). I don't really understand them - but it sounds like it would be all neighborly - and well, cooperative.
jp: well, the villa is girls only (cough) but i'm sure we wouldn't turn you away if we found you biking up our drive screaming in italian. that might even be charming.
shanghai? yeesh. and i'm bitching about a smaller place in another chicago neighborhood in two years or so. you're brave.
orange: i so would register for home items. totally forgot about that. and you're right - it's not like i'm going to be getting pregnant or married any time soon. but the condo buying, yikes.
didja know i sent an email to a life coach today? i need to figure out some crap and it's starting to stress me out.
shrinky: you know, that's totally how i furnished my apartment in grad school? it was a combination of thrift, parental hand me downs and rummaging when all the med students moved away.
the car thing doesn't really bother me; eventually i'm going to have to get my license. (cough cough) i don't know, i guess i'm so snobbish now about how quick it is for me to get here and there on CTA from where i am that the thought of major change is just so...inconvenient.
but overall i have much less against logan square than the northside. ick. the congestion. (sorry, orange!)
ding,
you should talk to a mortgage person and ask to get pre-qualified. It doesn't cost anything, and you'll know how much you can afford.
don't worry, they'll be nice to you, because they want your business.
i was really nervous when i got pre-qualified, because a) i was totally ignorant about the whole process, and didn't want them to make me feel stupid, and b) because they would be looking at my credit score, etc.
but then i realized, they had seen it all, and they really wanted to walk me through it, so i'd do business with them.
then, if/when you find a place in your price range, you make the mortgage people compete with each other for your loan.
this is why people get husbands, isn't it? so they can deal with this.
jp: but seriously. was your credit bad? what did your mortgage person tell you? how did they walk you through the process? how did you learn what all those words meant?
We just let the mortage person, or "moneylady" deal with everything. And then we went to a "moneyguy" that our friends just used and he lowered our payment in the refi not 6 months later. Neither Sion nor I understood every single part, except: how much, when? and for how long? OK. Fine, that's what we can afford every month. And we signed and then we had more available money every month because they gave us extra to pay off our 30K in credit card debt we had accumulated in grad school/life after. We lived way way way way beyond our means for like 12 years, and then wierdly buying a house meant we could pay off that long term credit card debt. Our credit, by the way was OK, not stellar, but not crap either. (paid our stuff on time, but carried too much debt for our income.)
JP's right: just go talk to someone who sells money for buying houses.
i love how the terms we use are so vague: moneyguy, mortgage lady.
i'm so freaked out by this i can't even poop.
ding,
my credit was way better than i thought it was. my mortgage person said that filipinos tend to underestimate their credit due to some past blemishes and a lot of shame issues.
it's the mortgage person's job to get you through that nicely. if they make you feel bad, find someone else.
talk to your credit union about a loan, or find a mortgage broker (or two, to compete with each other).
property is an investment. it will make you money. last year, my townhouse appreciated $100,000. i refinanced to get a lower rate, paid off my car, credit cards, student loans...
don't be freaked out. once you do this, you'll wish you had done it ten years ago
well, i do have some blemishes.
should i talk to a mortgage person now, even though i'm not going to be in a position until next year to do something about it?
and does owning property *really* make everything better - or is that just a bunch of hooey grownups tell us to crush our peter pan spirit?
ding,
chances are your credit blemishes are too far in the past to count. you just tell them you want to see how much you prequalify for. then you'll know how much condo you can afford.
if the credit blemishes are recent enough to affect your prequalification, the mortgage person will tell you how to repair your credit.
people get prequlified so they know how much they can afford; that way, the real estate agent is not wasting everybody's time by trying to tempt you with an expensive home out of your rage.
once you get prequalified, your next step is to shop for houses. but if you want to stop right there, you don't have to go any further.
i was really worried about my peter pan spirit, but then my friend told me, if you want to move, you just sell. no big deal. or rent. it's not really that much more hassle than renting.
look at it this way; right now you're paying rent. you're paying money to the owner of the property, and by the way, the property is making money for the owner just by existing. the property appreciates, and eventually the property owner raises the rent.
when you own your own home, you are paying off the loan to your bank. however, you own the property, so when the value of the property goes up, THAT MONEY IS YOURS. you can use that money your house earns to pay off the mortgage, to renovate, to go on vacation... hell, if you want to see what $30,000 worth of bacon looks like, you can do that too. (smart money renovates, because that adds to the value of your house even more).
OR you can use that money your house earns as a down payment to buy an even nicer place. you should think of it like this: when you pay your mortgage, you're really paying yourself upgrade to a better place in the future.
Or you can throw your money at rent and never see it again.
Add up the money you spend on rent every year, and realize, that's a lot of money that could be working for YOU, rather than working for your landlord...
you're totally welcome to my extra set of dishes. They're quite nice. Solid, heavy enough to protect you from home-invasion-ists when you throw the plates at them. There is one chipped plate, but other than that... a complete-ish set for 6. Including salt and pepper shakers.
Whats so wrong with being 1 plate away from homelessness?
ok, jp - since you're my adulthood guru, how do i find someone to prequalify me? and should i be doing this even though this kind of move is sometime in the future?
wade: i'm in dire need of dishes. all i have are cute, tiny, vintage teacups.
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