Since I can remember, people have told me that owning a home should be something I should achieve.
It was just one of many things that I didn't see the point of but would feel bad about not caring about nonetheless.
I grew up, got married WAY too young (partly because I was told it was something I should achieve), and at the age of 22 moved into the house my builder father built for me.
It was a fine house but it didn't take long until my misery kicked in. My then husband acted as if his life was complete because WE OWNED A HOME...and there was me spending way too much time staring out the window, dreaming about what was out there that was out of my reach because we were now
tethered to the HOUSE WE OWNED.
It should come as no surprise that we were divorced after a few years and he bought me out of my share of the house.
Au revoir, boring suffocating life.I lived in many places after that and rented every single one of them. Houses, not apartments, that I treated as if they were my own in that I planted flowers and mowed lawns and made other various improvements. My rented homes did not look any different than the owned homes around me. But I had something they didn't have and that was
the ability to leave each year when lease renewal time rolled around which is (mostly) why I rented instead of owned. For someone with a massive case of wanderlust (and claustrophobia), that freedom was worth every month of rent I paid. For the record, I stayed in one rented place for eight years, giving my daughter the stability she deserved during her school years. I didn't leave for all those years, but I could have. That made the difference.
But wait, people always say,
you are throwing your money away on rent.
It's such a waste, they would say. Nope, I countered.
A waste is a life being owned by what you own. Some people want that; some see it as a measure of success. I am not part of that tribe. My husband, though, is. And I like a happy husband so when he pushed to buy a house a year and a half ago, I caved. "As long as it doesn't alter our lifestyle," I said, which meant that we would still hit the road on a whim, off to whatever adventure was the mood du jour. For the record, too, I told him this when we first met.
"Of course it won't," he assured me sincerely. He knows how I am. He also always want me happy. His intentions - and heart - are consistently in the right place when it comes to me. Sometimes, though, even when we think we've looked at the thing over under sideways down, it still doesn't work out the way we were sure it would.
We've been together since 2005 and we've moved a lot thanks to job changes and bad economies. The proverbial dust has been settled for awhile now but still we were renting because we weren't sure where we wanted to...settle. Ugh, I even struggle with typing that word. He wanted his own house badly, I could tell, and like I said I always want him happy.
So we searched and searched and finally found an amazing house...
...and it probably took about six months before I started feeling the old familiar stirrings of panic.
We spent our first summer last year restoring the in-ground pool that came with the house. I don't really feel like talking about how much money that cost but, okay, it was a one-time expense so not a huge deal. The bonus is the gorgeous pool that is steps out of our back door.
You can see that the pool is surrounded by trees. In fact, our entire property is heavily treed. We have so many trees that there's only a few hours each afternoon when the sun is directly overhead that the sun shines on the pool.
Here are some more pictures of our treed property:
 |
That's D-Shark floating in the pool. We named it after someone who once asked me
"you've caught the shark, now what are you going to do with it?" Snort. |
Trees, lots and lots of trees. You know what that means, right? It means that the pool has to be vacuumed every single day and since we have a very complicated filter I can't do it which means that my husband has to. So every single evening instead of going out and doing fun things, I sit there drinking wine while I watch him clean the pool.
Not what I had planned for summertime.
Not what I had planned at this stage of my life.
But wait, there's more!
From these pictures you have a good idea of just how many trees are on our property. Do you know what that means when summer is over and we can finally stop spending every day cleaning the pool?
It means all the leaves on all the trees fall down and they have to be gathered up so that the township can come by and vacuum them all away.
Last fall we spent TWO SOLID MONTHS blowing leaves every day for hours. We had 6' tall leaf mountains all along our curb waiting to be vacuumed up. We have so many leaves to clear off our property that I had to go out and get my own leaf blower (you're jealous, aren't you?) so we could simultaneously blow leaves. Our electric bill literally tripled in November and December just from hours and hours of running two leaf blowers. You can't make this up. I wish I were kidding. I wish I were exaggerating.
To somewhat of a lesser degree, we continue with the leaf blowing in springtime to get the millions of stubborn leaves that decided not to fall until March.
Listen, we are not young people. I have no intention of breaking my back doing YARD WORK as I get older and older. This does not in any way, shape or form resemble the life I had in mind.
Last week my husband was going to spend $300
on rocks.
This week we have had two tree companies come out for estimates to cut the trees back some. One estimate was for $1200 and the other was for $1800.
The previous owners installed amazingly expensive kitchen floor tile...that looks like utter crap. It can't be cleaned properly and it turns out that's because they installed it wrong. It will cost a few grand to demolish it and put in something normal and cleanable...or I can shell out $400 for the tile guy to clean it and seal it like it should have been sealed in the first place.
The kitchen sink was installed wrong, too. The sprayer only sprays cold water and doesn't cut off the faucet flow when engaged.
The
white rugs (what the hell were they thinking?!) in the living room and master bedroom have to be replaced sometime very soon.
Did I mention that we had a new furnace/central AC unit/water heater installed for 10 grand a couple of months ago?
If we rented, not one of these expensive problems would be our problem.
Meanwhile, we go nowhere. We sit home now. Well, except for our weekend trips to Home Depot and Lowes. Aside from going to the home improvement stores, wine has replaced adventure, fun, experiences.
But, hey, at least we can tell people that
we're homeowners now and they can in turn tell us how lucky we are. Woo hoo!
And did I mention that no one comes to visit us because we live
a whole two hours away (or 80 miles) and, by God, that is just too too far for friends and family to travel. That's nothing really new, though...move ten miles away and people forget about you then, too. Our new neighborhood seemed like the perfect place to meet new friends...maybe have some dinner parties, barbeques...that sort of thing. But no, turns out this is a keep-to-yourself kinda neighborhood. After 18 months I have no idea who the people are whose house abuts my own backyard as they never seem to actually come outside. Sigh.
If you compared pictures of the adventure-having, wanderlust-fulfilling, renter me...
with the go-nowhere, couch potato, homeowner me,
Okay, I wouldn't spill wine on my furniture so this one is more accurate:
you would be shocked at the difference. It is significant. Significantly bad.
Wait, I'm a bit remiss here. We sit home only in the prime months and seasons. In winter, we're free as carefree little birds to flitter about. Oh, except for that
who the hell wants to go anywhere in winter thing.
Yet there are still people who will say that this is better than renting.
I won't tell you what I want to say to them.
They make medication for this kind of thing, don't they? Like a calm-down-so-you-can-like-what-everyone-else-likes pill? An cream or salve to rub vigorously into every square inch of you to remove all traces of wanderlust and the hunger for adventure and experiences?
No?
Fill up the wineglass, please...
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UPDATE
I have had time to digest and re-read this a dozen times since I wrote it. I probably should have expounded on the benefits of owning a home such as
it's yours and you can do to it what you want which is obviously a very real benefit. I am not convinced, though, that it outweighs the freedom of not owning. I shall explore this further in due time.
Also, my husband has read it, too, and he reminds me that there are significant tax benefits to owning vs. renting. He is, of course, right but no one should be surprised by that because he is the stable one in the relationship. ;-)
-Sharon
