Onto my story...
Nix & I had a solid talk on the way home from work on Friday. I had a lunch meeting about my 401k and jazz, and that got me thinking about the rest of our finances. And so he figured out how much is left in his student loans. It's a startling number. I know I got very lucky to have a grandfather who was able to pay for it for me, (thanks for always, Grandpa!) and I know that we are lucky to have jobs where we will be able to pay off his student loan debt.
Years ago, as in, basically after graduation in 2011, we talked about setting a goal to have student loans paid off by the time we turn 30. All of a sudden that's 3 years from now. A year ago, there was no hope of getting those loans paid off ever, since it's at this point last year that I had just lost my job & hadn't found a new one yet. Then again, I kind of moped about for two months before I made the effort to find one. My own issue, I know, but I got my shit together (eventually) and got the part time gig at the animal hospital.
Nix picked up a 2nd retail job and we made ends meet. Barely. We weren't ever late with rent/bills, but we accrued a smidge of credit card debt, on top of his seemingly never-ending student loans. Luckily we were able to defer those payments so we didn't get in trouble for not paying them. Yay, loopholes!
However... now we are here, living in his home state. Near-ish to family, but not so close they can sneak up on us. We have "real life adult" jobs, no, scratch that, careers. This fact alone is just so mind blowing to me still. I've been at my job for over a month. Hubs has been at his job for about 3 weeks. I think. I forget what day he officially started... Whoops! (Update: It's now been about 2 1/2 months at my job and 6-8ish weeks for him. I asked him not too long ago when his actual start date was. He doesn't remember either...
)So everything seems to be falling in place, right? Well. Sort of. With both of us having jobs that pay a real-people salary, we can do things. As in, we can pay off his student loans.
Which led to our Friday afternoon conversation where I may or may not have gotten emotional.
---I started this blog a month ago. I guess I'll continue it...--- We had been talking about possibly buying a house instead of renewing our lease in our current apt. Which is like the dream, let's be honest. A house! I could paint and tear things down/up (like wallpaper or carpeting) if I wanted to and there would be a yard to mow and plant things in! I know, I'm twisted, I'm looking forward to home maintenance and what-not.
On that fateful afternoon, we were talking about finances. We had started to get settled into our jobs and we've kind of figured out how to live on just my salary. But then he said, "well, what if we don't buy a house?"
Me: "What?"
Nix: "Right now. I was thinking we could wait a couple more years before we buy a house, and then I can pay off my student loans."
Me: "Would we save any of your salary for a house payment?"
Nix: "If we do that, it will take longer to pay off my loans. If I put everything towards my loans I can pay them off in about 2 years."
Me: "But... then we wouldn't be putting anything towards our house down payment."
Nix: "Well, no, but once I'm student loan free, we could put my paychecks towards that."
Me: "But that means our house fund won't be getting bigger. And right now, we don't have enough for a 20% down payment on a nice house."
Nix: "Maybe not, but it won't take long once my loans are paid off..."
Me: *getting emotional* "So what, now we're not going to buy a house until I'm 30?"
Nix: *silence* (more angry/upset things came from me, and very few words from him, but for blog's sake, I'll skip to the next bit)
Me: "Look," *sniffles* "I get it. You're being so damn logical and I'm not. I'm upset because I want a house now - not in 3 years. I don't want to stay in our apartment for another 3 years. I want a house. I want to paint all of the walls and tear up the carpeting and put down nice flooring. I know your thought process is probably the most logical, but I don't like it. You're going to have to give me a while to adjust to this - because up until right now, I was not planning on living in this apartment for more than a year."
Fast forward to now. I'm still not really okay with living in the place we're at for another 2+ years.But, he's agreed to let me paint a couple walls (as long as we prime over them before we move out, the complex doesn't care), and I have a few projects that I'm working on. We went to a local antique store and bought a cedar chest and a wood table/shelf thing for our entry way. The cedar chest will go in our dining room once I've refinished it - it will be for our coffee stuff. (We got an espresso machine from a friend of mine! All we have to do is replace the pump - waaaaaaaay cheaper than a new machine.)
The downside to these projects: they're at his parents' house, in the garage. I knew it would take me longer than a weekend to do these pieces - because I'm doing them on my own - and I didn't want to worry about them getting rained on. So I'm going to look at paint and stain this weekend and hopefully make some significant progress on them. We still only have 1 car, and so that's a struggle because he works on Saturday afternoons and Sunday mornings. So on Saturday I'll have to get up at a reasonable hour to go buy paint and stain (he doesn't want to come with me), and then I'll have to take him to work, and then drive across town to work on the projects for a few hours, then drive back and pick him up from work. I really want to be able to spend a full Saturday on these pieces - that's the only way I'll be able to get them really done. Instead, it's going to take me 3-4 times as long because I can only work on them for an hour or two at a time. I really want the pieces to get done before his brother's wedding in July - I figure if they're not done by then they're probably not going to be finished this summer.
So, that's how I'm coping. I have an art project I'm working on for our bedroom since we don't have a headboard and I want one and he doesn't really care, the wood pieces for our first floor, I am still looking for a storage bench/chest for the foot of our bed. I want to paint our room and a wall in the living room. I need to get a French horn hanger for our blue French horn so we can hang that up, and last night I bought material to make another skirt!
Basically I know I'm going to be unhappy in our apartment if it's permanently in a state of "ick". So, I'm trying to make it as "homey" as I can. I'm going to see if I can figure out a way to frame our bathroom mirrors without putting holes in the walls, maybe put a vinyl "backsplash" behind the kitchen sink that we can remove when we leave, and then I also want to get a fire pit and 2 more chairs for our patio. And make a little garden! I have ideas for all of these things, but I need to get my current projects done first.
I should probably make a project list and write down some of the things I still have left to do on each of the projects... I like check lists. They give me a sense of accomplishment. (Yes, I occasionally write a task on a list just so I can check it off.) So, off to find an app for my checklist(s)! (I'll probably use Google Keep. Handy little thing.)
Have fun with your home improvement projects, though and post pics!
Also for first time buying, get a starter home, like a townhouse or whatever to build equity, then move if you have a family and need something bigger. It would make entering the buying market a bit easier.
And yea, there's no way we'd buy our forever home right away. Chances are we'll have a kiddo when we do buy a house, so we'll want to make sure we have room to expand to have another one while we're in that house, since we're planning on staying in the first house for 5-10 years. We'll get there... eventually...