by Hope
We are staying put. It was just too much to keep searching and hoping for somewhere to move too. And with the requirement to give 60 days notice here, it would have put us moving towards the middle of the school semester. So we are staying in our cozy 2 bedroom apartment.
I did make the commitment to the kiddos and myself that come May of next year, we are out of here! Thus I have already given notice that we will move out on the day our lease ends which is right after the end of our school year in April.
Where we will go then…no one knows, but we will be leaving here. The possibilities are endless and a bit exciting:
- Have found and purchased a home here for less than $150K (that is the top of my budget and I would rather be right around $100K so we are definitely looking for a country home, fixer upper.) Only time will tell if we can find one.
- Put all our items, really not very much in storage and hit the road to travel for a while. The littles and I did this for a couple of months right after we were forced out of our previous rental home as we waited for the home my dad purchased to be built. It was fun and with planning, we can do it fairly economically. I’ve been looking at the Ultimate US Roadtrip and wondering if they was a way we could do that.
- Have a rental ready to move right into…I’m really not so keen on this at all. With the dogs and the space and the price, it’s just SO expensive here.
- Decide to move away…it will be History Buff’s senior year and he should be quite far ahead after this year so technically most of his work will be online via dual enrollment next year. None of the kids are really excited about this possibility and frankly, I’m not either but it is a possibility especially in light of the cost of living here.
So who knows what is to come…but we now have the school year to figure it out. And I’m very pleased with this decision in light of keeping our housing costs relatively affordable despite the lack of space. We are definitely paying for location, location, location.
AND I will have yet another winter where I don’t have to deal with snow! AND by the time we move BOTH twins will have their driver’s licenses. So I am definitely looking at the blessings here.
Hope is a creative, solutions-focused business manager helping clients grow their business and work more efficiently by leveraging expertise in project management, digital marketing, & tech solutions. She’s recently become an empty nester as her 5 foster/adoptive kids have spread their wings. She lives with her 5 dogs in a small town in NE Georgia and prefers the mountains to the beaches any day. She struggles with the travel bug and is doing her best to help each of her kids as their finish schooling and become independent (but it’s hard!) She has run her own consulting company for almost twenty years! Hope began sharing her journey with the BAD community in the Spring of 2015 and feels like she has finally in a place to really focus on making wise financial decisions.
Your resolve to wait on the housing until you have the “right” solution, not a temporary one is fantastic. Props to you on having the determination to stick it out a while longer in your small space.
Since you’re likely to be saving money for the eventual downpayment on a house, it might make sense to report on your savings balance. My theory is that after you pay off the Yukon, you’re left with extremely low interest debt. There’s zero point in paying off the braces early and 2.875% on the student loans is likely less than what you’ll eventually borrow at for the mortgage. This leads to a conclusion that having a fairly cushy house savings/student loan payment fund might make sense.
Maybe you’ll set a goal that says you want the student loans paid off in two years. Run the calculations and figure out exactly what payment that would take and make it your new minimum payment. Perhaps you also have the objective of having $10,000 saved up toward the purchase of a new home in April. Run the calculations and make that a minimum payment to yourself as well. Continue to run these scenarios until the amount budgeted makes sense to you.
If there’s a little extra left over at the end of the month, then you’ll have the fun option of whether to throw a little more toward student loans or a little more toward future housing. I think an important metric to share with us readers though is the house savings balance. It is very challenging to purchase a home when you have very little cash in the bank because you’ve been throwing every available dollar to the student loan debt.
One final question I have is if your student loan balance is all lumped into one loan or if it is actually made up of a number of smaller loans. If it’s a bunch of small loans, it might be rewarding to break your debt summary up and then eat away at a bunch of small balances versus just the one larger balance.
Proud of you and this decision! I think it is so smart to stay put knowing it’s just until May – what a relief – mentally, physically and financially!
And I agree with Walnut (and have changed my mind since my last comment earlier today). Pay off the Yukon, then start socking money away for housing. Having that money available will give you more options when you’re ready to make a housing decision in the spring. And if you happen to save more than you need for housing, you can then send the surplus to your student loan.
Really good call on staying put. You’d have spent so much money/time/energy on moving — it just would not have been worth it for slightly more room in the same apartment complex. Sticking it out for another year might create some tense moments, but it’ll be well worth it financially.
It must be a relief to have a final decision! Now you can plan! Without the stress of moving (for now)!
For Option #4, is it possible to move to a lower cost town that’s close by so you’re not leaving the area completely?
Keep your head up Hope! Im sure you’ll know what the right decision is when the time comes! Im guessing you numbered the list in order of importance so i hope you can find an affordable house in the same area. I have kids too and i know they’d have a heart attack if we moved before they finish school.
Not sure where you have your savings but I highly recommend Barclays Bank US or Ally. Both are at 1% interest (or .99% for Ally). Much better than what a brick and mortar and offer.
P.S. Assuming you find a home around $100-150K that you like: where’s the down payment coming from? Do you have savings towards that already, or are you starting from $0 there?
Logistics send up a warning flag for me on your choice of date. I don’t care what decision you make but the date seems unreasonable. How do you finish up the school year and pack simultaneously? It would seem to me the move will be a difficult distraction while the kids are writing tests and preparing the end-of-class work.
I’d either make it a few months earlier or a month later (or even 2 weeks) later.
I realize you have more flexibility because you home-school but you also have to have space to actually do the schooling and the resources available, not packed away.