h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Haven't posted anything "newsworthy" for a while, so I guess it's about time. No idea why I haven't posted in a bit, other than sheer boredom (too much tacit support of facism and racism lately for my liking), but since this is one of the few places I can kill down time at work (so long as they don't ruin things by allowing embedded photos/videos/audio), I've still been lurking and following everyone's journals, if not always posting.

Anyway... the good news is that K found another job, which starts Tuesday. It's a good 40+ miles away, so he's looking at a 1 1/2 to 2 hour drive each way, but we'll see how he manages to route things. For the first few weeks, while he's training, he'll have to be there 8-5, but eventually he can switch to 7-4. So for a few weeks anyway, he won't be home till late.

The even better news about that whole situation is that between K's unemployment benefits, which were about 2/3 of his former salary, my salary and bonus, and his severance pay, not only did we not touch a single penny in our savings, but I think we may have come out a bit ahead. So we can resume house hunting immediately without having to worry about saving up again for down payment and remodeling.

On the subject of house hunting... my uncle has sweetened the deal as regards our potentially purchasing his (formerly my grandma's) house. He's willing to rent to own with no down payment, which means that aside from property tax and homeowner's insurance, anything we paid him would be applied directly to the principal. Sweet. It's certainly something to think about... we'll see how much he decides he wants for it, once he finds something to buy in Florida. If we decided to go this route (there are definite cons to moving to that area, whatever the pros, so we need to weigh it all out), we'd certainly have enough to pay for any remodeling before we moved in, and to manage both the payments and our current rent payments. It wouldn't be bad to be able to do it that way.

My dad seems to be coping OK without my mother, so far. My sister's kids have been around pretty much everyday; some days they behave and he enjoys the company, some days they drive him up the wall. My sister and her husband will have to figure out some other arrangements for getting them to and from their school, etc, now that my mother's not around to do it anymore.

As for me... I'm coping all right. I have some stuff to work through but I'll do that just fine. I appreciate those of you who've been here for me, even if I didn't need to dump on you (yet), if only for being extra kind to me over the last few months.

I've got a three day weekend coming up- after just having had a whole week off. The weather's supposed to be a bit too warm to do much of anything out and about, but we've got a couple new console games that released this week (Naughty Bear and Lego Harry Potter) which I look forward to having extra time to play.

What's new with all of you?

Good news about K and house hunting! It's always horrible when the savings take a hit so if that can be avoided it's a good thing.

Speaking of games - albeit ipad/iphone related - Angry Birds has taken up a lot of our time on holiday. Safe to say it's somewhat addictive - when our friends from Indy came down, at one point all 4 of us were playing it during down time!

Remind me - was it the location that was the con? How does that work now that K's in the new job? I'm assuming that a new commute for him means you'll have to reconsider routes and possible areas for both of you to minimise commute and spread it evenly... an hour each or so seems fair, if horrible.

We've been watching entirely too much HGTV and shaking our heads at the sheer bloody size of some of the houses looked at and then discarded as being too 'small'! by some of the very middle America participants on their shows. Some of those people need to go visit a trailer park (or even just Europe!) and count their blessings.

Of course, saying that, we're now toying with the idea of actually building our extension, finally...

Hiya hun! Glad to hear that K found a new job, even if the commute sounds a bit long. I've been baking oatmeal cookies, and cheddar and chive biscuits (all gluten free) and going to the gym.

New job? Good stuff!

I feel for your dad with the kids. I recently identified precisely why I'm not that keen on kids under about 8. We're just spatially incompatible. They constantly trip over me, and I'm always tripping over them, too.

Anyway, I hope things continue on the up and up.

Funny about house hunting and things being too small... I'm sure some of the ones I've ignored for being too small are larger than what a lot of folks have. We did confuse our realtor a few times by walking away from stuff that was too big in our opinion. Then we looked at some which she agreed were too big for two people. We're hoping for a minimum of 1200 sq ft of actual living space; off street parking/ garage and a basement would be nice. But I don't want anything HUGE.

Location of my uncle's house is an issue. It's in the suburb I grew up in. So lower property value (cheaper to buy) and property tax, no city sales tax (11%). Those are good things. On the other hand, small town politics, commuter rail instead of CTA, and we'd be further away from all of our friends and favorite stomping grounds and stuck in strip mall hell. It's about 8 miles west of here, so an extra 30 minutes.

It'd add maybe 20 minutes to K's commute now, and at least a half hour to mine (roughly 20 minutes now).

Cookies and biscuits sound good, only instead of gluten free mine would be dairy free.

And while I'm about the same height as most eight year olds (not really, but close), I'm not keen on most kids either. Most of my friends' kids are OK in small doses, but I could never be around kids all or even a lot of the time.

>>We're hoping for a minimum of 1200 sq ft of actual living space (...) But I don't want anything HUGE. <<

For two people, that *is* huge, in my European opinion! That's 110 square metres. More than twice the size of my old flat, which all my visitors were saying was huge...

I've got 1000 sq ft now, and we're stuck renting storage space for a lot of our stuff. You've been here, but probably don't remember... but we're at critical mass.

1200 sq ft should manage two decent sized bedrooms, which we need, kitchen, dining room, living room and 1 1/2 baths plus sufficient storage space. I don't want much more living space than that, though.

Mind, my fist apartment was the size of my current kitchen. But I didn't have stuff then. Where do you Europeans put all your stuff?

The house I bought is small by local standards, but as I'm usually the only person in it I think I'll manage. If I've done the conversion right I think it might be somewhere between 900 and 1000 sq ft (just over 90sq m). Not counting the garage and greenhouse, of course. So anyway - if I imagine this place with a larger living room and an extra bedroom, it would be about the size you want and it doesn't seem huge or anything.

The way you're talking about the suburban option, I'd say you're not really convinced by it. Is that a fair, if blunt, summary?

I'm semi-convinced.

Since I have something I want to avoid doing when I get in to the office, I'll compose my thoughts on it while on my ride in, and post back when I get there in about an hour. Then you all can help me pick apart my arguments for and against. It'll do me good!

I'm wondering if the square footage for this house includes garage and basement space? Need to ask.

And now I wonder if this place here isn't perhaps bigger than 1000 sq ft. We looked at a nice condo, which I absolutely loved, and we'd have bought it if it weren't that it were only 900 sq ft and no storage space other than closet space. It seemed a lot smaller than this, not just a little bit smaller.

Mala, your old place was big for someone young without all the baggage that goes... (hmm, I'd like that for me, actually) but for someone my age (on their own) I'd think it a bit small.

German houses are pretty big and tend to have cellars, most of the Americans round here rent mansions for two people then complain they're poky. What I've established is that they just want space rather than things in the space. But what I really don't understand is where British people put their stuff. Houses in the UK are miniscule.

Hi PC, glad to see things are on the up
Re; K's job - good news - 40mile commute is about what I do (and have done for 10yrs now - eeek!) like anything you get used to it. Yeah you lose a lot of time in the week, but on the other hand you have a job...

I think he'll live with the commute. It'd seem easier, of course, if the position paid a bit more. Not that it's bad- his salary here will be a little more than the old place paid after all the overtime, so it's an improvement. Though now that he'll be driving more miles each day, his car insurance rates will increase (we've been getting a discount because he doesn't put a lot of miles on).

At least he's working again- I know not working has been driving him nuts.

House related thoughts coming in a separate post...

Oh, and my dad emailed me this morning (we've trained him how to use the computer and email so far) to let me know he's too much of a Luddite to put my mother's laptop to any use, so he's going to give it to me. How nice- we'd been planning to pick up a netbook or something, sooner or later, for a couple of months now.

OK, thoughts on the house in question.

The good points:

It's a nice house (brick Georgian) in good repair, with two good-sized bedrooms and 1 1/2 baths
Rent to own means no down payment, no interest and no PMI
No down payment would mean starting out with a lot more money available for remodeling, emergencies, etc
Nice-sized yard with plenty of flower beds and a vegetable garden
Two car garage and full, finished (and separately heated) basement with lots of storage
Hardwood floors under the carpet, so we wouldn't have the expense of putting down hard flooring; we could just tear up the carpet and have the existing floors refinished
Lower property values means lower taxes; also no city sales tax (11%)
While it's out of the city (ugh) it's not *that* far
Garage means no more driving around for a half hour looking for non-metered street parking within walking distance of home
Renting to own would give us an escape clause- if we didn't like it there, we could find something else and all we'd be out was the rent we'd be out anyway, and the effort of helping my uncle sell the place

The bad points:

It's not in the city and we realy wanted to stay in the city; also, it's about 8 miles further west than we'd really prefer
Suburban location means more homogenous culture; strip mall hell, more chain restaurants and shops as opposed to ethnic and independent places
Additional 30 minutes minimum travel time to get to our favorite restaurants, shops, K's band practices and DJ gigs, etc... not earth-shattering, but something to consider, I think
While by my estimates, it'd only add maybe 15 minutes to K's drive, given he'd be taking an expressway regardless, it'd easily add a good 30 minutes each way to my (now about 20 minutes) trip using commuter rail instead of CTA
Limited CTA access and fewer places within walking distance means more driving in general

I can't think of any others right now but I'm sure there are more for both categories... and I'm sure you all will help me think of them.

Sigh. My 3 bed semi is about 750 sq ft, not counting the garage which is to be demolished anyway. If we build the extension we'll basically double the house, but that would incorporate a new garage, so only about 2/3s would be additional living space. How do we do it? Smaller furniture, fewer things (which is fine as the UK is kinda expensive anyways). Did I mention that DT works from home? So what would be the largest bedroom is in fact his office.

I suppose you could always try the place out, see how it works for you, location-wise.
Like you say, you won't actually lose anything by doing it..

I wouldn't be that annoyed at some of the tv people if they didn't say silly things like 'but there's no fridge' or 'I'd need to buy new window treatments' in the same tone I reserve for doing major structural work, like replacing the roof, and then used those as their reason for not buying something..

I will admit that, since selling a home without the major appliances (fridge and stove at least, preferably laundry as well) unless it's a repo is very uncommon, that I'd rather buy that way. But I'd probably try to negotiate that into the selling price rather than walking away.

I've no problem with getting my own window treatments, as I figure most people have different tastes when it comes to that kind of thing. Surely it's not reason enough to walk away. Hell, the one we *really* wanted did in fact need major structural work and we wanted it anyway. I'd rather buy something reasonably priced and do some work or buy a fridge, than be stuck paying over $1M for a new construction with brand new appliances already installed. If I'm getting *new* appliances, I want to pick my own, and not some fancy stainless steel stuff that'll wind up with a zillion fingerprints on it all the time.

The thing about the stuff is I really don't think we have that much. There are a few furnishings (and an organ) my uncle plans to leave behind that I'd like and we don't have room for. Most of what's in our storage space is sentimental stuff we can't part with, extra furniture we don't have room for but hate to have to buy again later, flower pots, and papers from our school days. We do have lots of books and CDs and stuff like that, but so do lots of other people (some have more), and if we owned our space as opposed to renting, I could have built-in storage to accommodate them.

I'll ask my uncle how big the house is, and post back, just for curiosity's sake.

My place in the States was probably roughly the same size as your old place in Germany, Mal. Although my bedroom seemed *massive*. They did some really clever space arrangement when they designed the layout. It was a great place. If only it hadn't been so damn cold in winter.

So, that being the case...Is it possible that westerners (in the USA) are used to being less thrifty with space than easterners?

In general, probably (though obviously I'm generalizing broadly).

It isn't always necessarily a matter of economy, either. A lot of rural homes are huge and sprawling. I've lived in a couple of fairly tiny apartments. And in the city, a lot of homes have been converted to two or three unit dwellings, they're closer together, etc, and these cost a LOT more than homes in the suburbs with huge lots and more rooms.

But in general, I'd guess that a lot of folks in the US have grown up with more space than most Europeans.

I've never had more space than I know what to do with, though with two packrats for parents I surely have had more stuff than I know what to do with. When I moved in here I got rid of a lot, and when my mom made me clear my stuff out of their storage a couple years ago I had to get rid of half of that. It pains me now, a bit, because a lot of it was stuff my mom made for me, and not having had the closest of relationships, that stuff was about all I had. But I just didn't have the space, and we can't afford to rent a storage room as big as an apartment. Some people do, you know.

So I think some people have simply Too Much Stuff. I think some people want big houses for the same reason some middle-aged men want flashy cars- they think it makes them look "better" or something.

I think I have Too Much Stuff. Most of it is books, really. I ended up cutting a big hole in my bedroom wall, fitting a door on it, and now it's a kind of Chamber of Secrets full of boxes of books.

books are exempt from the 'too many' category.
It is not possible to have too many books.