Adult things

[e90m3]

I want to spend my money on fun things like watches and cars, but no I have to be responsible and buy a house.

So the potential fun fund is going to decrease significantly; not that the money was earmarked for anything other than a down payment. Still, in my hypothetical world I could've gotten a sweet W204 C63 AMG and another watch.

In actuality, this was always going to be an eventuality. We were going to eventually buy a house, so there was always going to be a large egress of money. That doesn't mean I can't wish I'd rather spend the money on superfluous luxury items instead. Being an adult means I have to do the adult thing and be wise with my money, and now just blow it. Even if this is me right now:

All joking aside, I am ready for a house. Apartment living has been nice, but I'm ready for more space and not sharing a wall or having people above me. I'm just lacking desire to deal with yard work or home maintenance.

[Old Busted Hotness]

@e90m3 Yard work and maintenance is a PITA for sure, but you're working on your own stuff, instead of hoping the repair crew is sober and gives a shit today. And anything that's half-assed, you know because you're the one that half-assed it.

Plus if you stay put long enough, you'll own the joint free and clear. We're getting close to that point; savings exceeds mortgage balance with a healthy chunk left over. It's tempting.

[Italia]

@e90m3 it's been a solid ten years since I've been in an apartment one place I rented was a duplex that shared a garage wall and that was fine. My current place shares a wall but it is two staircases against each other so I'm yet to hear anything through the wall. We always have the windows open and you just hear everything that happens on the street through the windows. Anyway hope you locked in an interest rate six months ago!

[dejock]

@e90m3 the countdown is on! as an apartment dweller, my envy of those buying homes right now is a slightly darker shade of green than the rollie, but hey, my rents cheap so

hope everything goes smoothly for you. hire movers!

[Roundbadge]

@e90m3
I had a fairly sizeable (for me, anyway) stack set aside for investment/fun Honda parts/cool watches as well, but my AC decided to give up earlier this month. I mean...whatever...I guess it is 30 years old...along with my furnace. So, that money is now going to replacing my home's HVAC. Guess I'll try again in a couple of years.

[pip bip]

@e90m3 i've never rented or lived in an apartment

[e90m3]

@Old-Busted-Hotness said in Adult things:

Plus if you stay put long enough, you'll own the joint free and clear.

That would be the goal someday, but probably not this house. We will have to see though. It fits what we need now, but give it 5-10 years and we'll probably want and will be able to afford something different.

[e90m3]

@Italia said in Adult things:

Anyway hope you locked in an interest rate six months ago!

Sadly no, but we did get in right before the most recent rate increase, so we still got a decent rate.

We did refinance her student loans and made out really well.

[e90m3]

@pip-bip If housing is cheap and plentiful, or if you don't move every year like I did for 5.

[Old Busted Hotness]

@e90m3 One of the best things about staying put is that your mortgage payment stays the same, while rent (and new homes) keeps going up. You can't get a decent apartment for what we're paying monthly.

IMHO, the "get a bigger house because can afford it" thing is a trap. The economy is so fucky you can't rely on being able to afford your new house forever. Unless you're going to breed your own football team, a small house is all you need. Get one with two bathrooms, though.

[BicycleBuck]

@Roundbadge

Our set-aside is our kids' college fund. It's rapidly depleting as we speak. At least the kids will graduate with minimal student loan debt. Make it better for the next generation, right?

[SilentbutnotreallyDeadly]

@e90m3
The faster you pay it off then the faster you can use it to leverage all the cars and watches you are allowed to have. That's been my experience*.

*Haven't owned a watch in over two decades but do own two tractors, three cars, one motorbike and a highly strung Italian lawnmower. There's another mower and a Subaru as well...but they are M'lady's (just don't tell her about the mower).

[pip bip]

@e90m3 in the last 25 years i've shifted only twice. bought a house each time. first one was cheap, second one less so.

[e90m3]

@Old-Busted-Hotness said in Adult things:

IMHO, the "get a bigger house because can afford it" thing is a trap. The economy is so fucky you can't rely on being able to afford your new house forever. Unless you're going to breed your own football team, a small house is all you need. Get one with two bathrooms, though.

In this case, different isn't bigger, it's location. We're a little further out than we'd ideally like, but we're well within our means and we got a 5 bed/3 bath, so we wouldn't be forced to move. Our 1344 square foot apartment was ok for the two of us, but once we start adding kids to the mix, we'd want more space.

[Roundbadge]

@BicycleBuck We're 47 and 44 with no kids. One of us is far better at saving than the other, which is its own fight. We should have far more saved than we do...but it's where we are.

Good on you though! Absolutely make it better for them!

[BicycleBuck]

@pip-bip said in Adult things:

@e90m3 in the last 25 years i've shifted only twice. bought a house each time. first one was cheap, second one less so.

I lived in 17 different places before finally buying a house. I'm not sure where my next move will be, but we will probably wait until my son graduates from college to make the move.

[e90m3]

@BicycleBuck said in Adult things:

Our set-aside is our kids' college fund. It's rapidly depleting as we speak. At least the kids will graduate with minimal student loan debt. Make it better for the next generation, right?

Yes because instead of paying for student loans, they can buy an M3 at 24. Not that I would know anything about that.

[pip bip]

@BicycleBuck bloody hell. i hope to never move again.

[BicycleBuck]

@pip-bip said in Adult things:

@BicycleBuck bloody hell. i hope to never move again.

I'm looking forward to the next move. We moved to a fairly rural area when we came to Louisiana. Now it's being built up and the traffic is becoming annoying. I'm ready to go fully remote so I can move further out and get away from people.

[ash78]

I can't totally relate, since we bought a house right after marriage when it was still a financial stretch for us to make that commitment. But at the time, it was a numerical no-brainer. Apart from a modest down payment, we were both paying $700/mo in apartments and could move to a house for....$700/mo! Even with taxes and maintenance and all that, we're still well below the $1,400/mo we had been paying for apartments, and that rent was going up every 6-12 months...the beauty of mortgages is they stay the same.

We never had the income and housing combination to do much frivolous stuff as a younger married couple, and now that we have more disposable income 17 years later, we have stuff like college funds and the market crash and aging parents to worry more about. So there's never really a good time to do any of it, in most cases.

TL;DR -- consider yourself lucky to have had that combination, and also I doubt that a newly built home on a small lot is going to be as much maintenance and hassle as you're worrying about You just net IMPROVED your living situation substantially. Congrats again!

[krustywantout]

@e90m3 I think the opportunity to buy that Rolex at a discount in the next 2 to 5 years is high. While housing prices will probably stabilize but not decline in the future. Adulting is hard but you still have an awesome M3 and a Rolex so a house is the next logical step. Congrats!

[e90m3]

@ash78 We signed an 18 month lease as we didn't know if we'd be able to stay after her residency. We didn't want to buy a house then have to move and the bottom fall out of the market. So it made more sense to wait. Hindsight is that we should have bought back then, but that's hindsight. We did at least learn what the smallest place we could live in together was.

We are flying to Germany on the 1st, so I guess this really isn't going to hamper our lifestyle. If anything, it's what we'd be paying in rent, if we'd stayed, but the down payment was in an investment account, so it wasn't in the account until very recently, so it wasn't ever really disposable.

[e90m3]

@krustywantout I really hope so, ironically, I still have my watch fund, it's just I can't buy the OP now at current market prices. I'm just hoping they don't discontinue them. Knowing what I know now, I'd have bought one in early 2021 at a slight premium. And thanks, I'm not excited yet, but getting there. We're just so busy right now, I just don't want to think about moving.

[krustywantout]

@e90m3 I'm going to Saint John in July. I've heard you can find Rolexs at normal prices down there. I'm going to keep an eye out for one. A green face Rolex would be cool.

[e90m3]

@krustywantout If you find a green OP in 36 mm buy it and I'll buy it from you for $8k. I'm very serious, unless I find one in Switzerland in July myself.