Is this house my home?

Brian and I have been married for just about 5 months now and we have our next big goal: To move into our own home. Just 6 months ago I was obsessively watching 4 weddings, Say Yes to the Dress and compulsively clicking on wedding websites. You'll now find HDTV as a favorite'd channel on our Windows Media Center. In fact I've told Brian that Scott McGillivray, from the show Income Property, is now my TV Husband. There's just something about an intelligent man that can actually build things with his hands, but that's a big reason I love my Brian anyway.

So as of January we went and talked to a lender, got pre-approved for a loan, got ourselves a realtor and have been scouring online resources for new homes to visit. What we didn't realize is that we just missed the window of housing price lows, and what we had assumed would be a more than adequate budget has turned into minced meat. We find the houses we are attracted to are just above the price range we have settled on. It's an aggressive market where seller's can ask for much more than what their houses are appraised for or what comparable houses have gone for.

In fact, when talking to realtors we found ourselves in discussions about blind offers, unconventional methods of closing a deal, and offering much more than these over-bloated listing prices. When we first started this journey to find a home I was giddy about the experience, but as time moves on this experience is wearing on me. Brian and I have decided that while we are sick and tired of apartment living, and our ganja-loving neighbor, we don't want to make a purchase this large and feel this uncomfortable doing so. If we have to wait and save more money then so be it. In case you didn't know this a 20% down payment on a house saves you quite a bit of money on your mortage because you don't have to pay something called PMI (private mortage insurance). It adds a pretty penny to your monthly mortgage payments until you get to a 20% equity mark. If you don't have the 20% down a convential loan will save you a bit of money on PMI but your credit score needs to be solid. Anyhow, I've gotten off topic. Brian and I have made a couple promises to each other in this house-hunt:

1) We have to be able to purchase a home pretending that only one income can afford our everyday living expenses and the mortgage. It makes it harder to find a house but we don't want to he house-rich and cash-poor. We want to enjoy life and if we bind ourselves to a mortgage payment that is a beast, we will always be under the stress of making ends meet.

2) Location and school district are more important than finishes and square footage. While we all want both at the perfect price, it's a very difficult thing to achieve. I can buy a 2,200 square foot house on a half an acre lot at a steal of a price, but it will most likely be next to mental hospital or cemetery. It's all preference, but location is ours.

There are many things we want and prefer but everything, except the aforementioned, is negotiable. Sometimes I find myself getting slightly depressed over the large increase in prices, but I constantly remind myself that I am more than okay. Everything is great, and one day Brian and I will have our own home that we can start our family in. A home where I can bake pies and paint in an art room, a garage Brian can work on his car and store his outdoor toys, walls that will one day have crayon marks all over them and a backyard where we can hold outdoor movie nights. I am so ready for this part of our lives, but it's a good thing I have some semblance of a patient personality, otherwise I'd be more crazy than I normally am!

You + Me = us

Its been a little while since I've posted, though I have stopped and started posts too many times to count in the last 3 weeks. It wasn't writer's block so much as it was emotional exhaustion.

Here at the McB house, crises are as abundant as as snow in the mountains. Between being sick, my sister getting in a car accident, hubby's family dealing with a couple of major medical issues, I am plum worn out.

So what do you do when the world is shattering around you? You cling to the most stable thing around you and hope for the best. That's my husband. My stable thing.

I won't say I have the perfect husband. I'm sure we both have laundry lists of things we wish the other would improve on. I would give my eye teeth for more romance and I would not be surprised if he sold his soul to have me be the driver more. Yet our short comings are insignificant when compared to our dedication to each other's happiness.

I am starting to realize that in spite of our many years together before the wedding, we were never one entity or one force. We were always K or S. There was no guarantee.  Now its like an unspoken requirement that you choose your spouse's feelings and need above anyone else's. You are a team and if you want that to last, you work at developing this new joint identity.

Its a very strange metamorphosis, the blurring together into one. It doesn't happen all at once. Instead, the realization that you are less of a "me" and more of a "we" seems as natural as growing your hair. Soon people start treating you like you are a single being, as if all knowledge imparted to either of you is shared by osmosis.

Maybe it is.

At the very least there is a lot more intimate conversation. Or should be, if you expect the marriage to grow instead of shrivel.

Its not even weird to call him my husband anymore. People have stopped asking the dreaded "How's married life?" 7 months into marriage I now feel we are married.

That was then or is it now?

I love the forties & fifties fashion, music and the hopeful spirit of the American family. I have a friend who is completely immersed in that era and vacuums with a vintage machine in her high heels and vintage dress! Well I am not that obsessed I do find it hard to accept those that think old fashioned about my place in the kitchen. My whole purpose in life is not based on how clean I keep the house. I was actually disgusted at the pope's comments that sometimes a woman deserves a beating for not cooking, cleaning and keeping her husband happy! How ludicrous!

My husband knows I would rather go to work 12 hours a day than stay at home being a maid. There is more to life than pleasing others. One has to expand yourself and find those hidden talents. Often those are just as rewarding to others as much as it rewards yourself. Taking pride in being a contributing force is what makes people happy. And if momma ain't happy, nobody is happy.

These ads are lies making you think they know what being a good wife/woman is. The last one is so condescending implying all women are useless. But since I think these are foolish, I will have to chart my own, new way.

He's not heavy, he's my husband.

Being the big sister of the family, I always felt an obligation to help my younger siblings. After all, I had a high-paying job since I was 16 and have always shopped at thrift stores. My biggest expense was rent, and that was because I insisted on living in my own place. So, how did I get to the point where I can't support myself anymore? Up until now we have split everything right down the middle and I didn't live above my means. I want to be the feminist, Independant woman I claim to be. So why can't I keep my head above water? One thing is for sure is that I have put in plenty of hours at work. (I actually had a 22 hour work day this year and only got $100 for it!)

It makes me feel like such a burden to my family to not be able to give them any help. My mom says every couple goes through this when they are first starting out. But I feel like I have been eating Ramen for the past 10 years, when do we get a break? J reminded me that my hard work is paying off and I have nowhere to go but up. It had been weighing so heavily on my mind; it was a relief to finally have real support. For so long I made sure to always look out for myself and help family when I could. Now I have family to help me and just when I needed it most.

The State of the Union

Nothing can put more heat into a relationship, and not in a good way, as money and politics. Whether the politics are referring to the local or national government or the politics of any typical family, it is easy to ended up jumping from the frying pan into the fire.

So its tax season. People may tell you that one of the perks of getting married is the tax break. Well, I'm sure that happens once you have a house or 2 or three kids in the picture. However, for two hard working, able bodied, child free, renting, young Californians... You might be screwed.

It seems we are. I mentioned  in a previous post that we had done everything possible to not be a burden on others and to not go into debt over our wedding.

One of my plans of action was, unsurprisingly, to work my butt off. In addition to my normal day job, I freelance as a production designer and as a writer.  In order to defer the cost of our wedding, I freelanced a lot. Way more than usual. I ended up earning an extra $11,000 last year, which in turn was a magic number for a wedding and a nice honeymoon. The trouble with this type of work is taxes are taken on the back end and I could not anticipate jumping tax brackets so severely that the government would ask for 10k of that back at the end of the year.  With that extra 11K my taxes quintupled. How do you plan for that? How do you set aside that large of an increase? Well, it wasn't simply tax brackets, it was also joint property, more stringent rules for claiming student loan interest. This weekend we ran into the a+b+c = us being screwed.

This of course is not the end, we need to go to a tax guy (or gal) to work things out better. Maybe turbo tax was on crack. I had let my husband fill out the documents initially and he drastically underestimates our expenses, including what I can and should deduct for basically owning my own business. I wanted to set his mind at ease by seeing what numbers would come up if we filed married but separate. This is when panic set in. Because suddenly my standard deductions disappeared. I was staring at the horrid red numbers thinking, "where did I go wrong?" The answer was, we got married.

Lets face it, our American government is not exactly the most accommodating to people of my generation. Student loan debt is drowning many of those who might be our future leaders. People are failing to put down roots or get married because we just can't afford to. And the government wonders why the nation is in crisis. The education system has basically created a generation without hope, a dwindling middle class trying to keep its head above the water. Add to that, if you dare to brave a forward path, you will be given little to no assistance. It really makes you wonder why you work so hard. Suddenly, you have a lot more sympathy for those relying on welfare, because it seems the American economy would prefer its citizens to embrace that lifestyle.

I wonder, 100 years in the future, if the history books will talk about the American generation that stopped being. The ones who chose or were forced to revert to a child like existence. To move home in their 20's and 30's. The ones who could not afford to "have a life" so instead reverted to safer places like video games and Facebook. These are the people who might have magnified hope and lead progress. But instead, they have been crippled. Their path ripped out from under them.

You can probably guess I am frustrated. I think I went into a debt coma when I saw those numbers. I know once I recover I can be more proactive, but for the moment I am wallowing.

I know one of the reasons we waited as long as we did to get married was because of debt. I'm a good girl, my only debt is my student loan, but damn is it a whopper. Now, my scrimping and saving and working 12 hour days to make things a little easier for us had apparently been a trap waiting to be deployed.

All I could think about was my poor husband, and how are we going to get through this if we can't find ways to lower it? Well, I could empty out my piggy bank, so much for traveling to Poland to see his brother or having a down payment for a house in the near future. Thank you America for dooming us to stagnancy.

I told my brother, hoping for advice on a tax guy. Instead we got lectured about how we're doing "it" wrong. "It" being life. He told us we needed to buy a house, as though we didn't already know this. But where would the money come from? I mean the government wants my nest egg back. He suggested we find a cheap home in a bad neighborhood. I wondered if my safety would be a smart compromise for my financial well being. I mean, who wants to live in a neighborhood where they aren't happy to go outside for a walk. He suggested if not the "not so good" neighborhoods locally, perhaps we should move 2 hours away from our work to where prices are more reasonable. Again, I couldn't imagine much joy in a 4 hour a day commute to our offices. Jobs, I might add, that we love.

I expected my hubby to be grumpy. I sure was. I apologized to my parents in advance for being short and to friends and family for not driving to watch the Superbowl with them as gas is expensive. But Scott simply held me and told me its okay, we'll figure it out. Now, we'll scale back and take care of ourselves, rather than working to pay off loans that refuse to go down. He promised he'd find some way to keep my nest egg and coaxed me to put down my work for the night and instead play some video games and relax. Work will still be there tomorrow. He calmed me down, and hopefully, my creative thinking will kick in, and we can move past this bump. But I really cannot deny that  I have a wonderful husband.

On the upside, this learning experience has taught us, not to kill ourselves over repaying our debt, because all that hard work will come to bite us. All advances will be nullified. So simply. lets enjoy what time we have. Let take those 4 extra hours of work and make them 4 extra hours of play instead.  Maybe it doesn't matter how hard you work or how many extra hours you give to paying back your perceived debt. Maybe the most important thing our generation has left to cling to is our joy. Lets not let anything take that away from us.