Almost a month Married!
I know I run the risk of alienating a lot of people if I only blog about my wedding and being married, but its kind of what's happening in my life right now. It has been a busy 3 weeks since the wedding. The initial shock of having to open all the cards, the gifts and then open some joint bank accounts to deposit things in 3 days before going back to work was fast. Since then we have gotten more into a normal schedule not having to stay up till 2 am every night making sure people's names are spelled correctly on place cards and seating charts and making sure all the wedding vendor bills are paid.
We now stay up late trying to figure out what our finances will look like in a year or more and if we can afford to buy a house and get settled somewhere. We're a bit full in Steve's 2 br townhouse, and all my furniture is in his parent's basement, which we would like to get out of there as soon as we can. The bottom line is we can afford to buy some kind of house, but not quite what we would like. It is actually possible on 2 incomes, but on 1 income if we decide to have a kid or 2, my income goes down to 1/2 or less and all of that money goes back into child care when I would be working. So, its really a game of planning on one income. And we aren't rolling in it by any means since we both make a little more than the national average, and almost the same amount.
You would think buying a house at a discount would be easy right now, with all the home sales stagnant for the last year. And we could have gotten a deal if we would have been ready to buy a few months ago but now things are selling fast. The homes with the re-done kitchens and bathrooms are no longer sitting on the market and dropping their prices. 4 of the 9 houses I have tried to look at in the last week have sold. And that is just Naperville-Wheaton-Lisle, IL. There are plenty of old run down properties on the market that have 1960-70-80s kitchens and baths and need a ton of work, but they aren't really any cheaper than the ones that have been re-done so you just have to spend another 25K+ on top of buying those houses. So what's the point of buying one of those?
So, although I would like to wait to buy until 2010, I think prices will jump by then. We probably have to find something this fall and start looking at something soon. The good news is that between the 2 of us we can put down a sizeable down payment, even after paying all the wedding bills. (especially thanks to the generosity of both of our parents in their wedding gifts) So there is hope for having a low enough monthly payment that we can still handle it on one salary someday.
Everything else about being married is great. Its just this financial decision making that seems to keep us anxious. And we don't fight about it at all, it is just that the perspective we each bring to the table is different. Steve is more about finding something in the right location and that has a lot of space, I am more about having perfect kitchen/bath spaces and a low monthly payment. The 2.5x your salary rule isn't helping a lot either because what it says on 2 salaries is way different than on 1 and that isn't near the size of what Steve wants in a house.
The things that have been going well since the wedding are that our schedules are better and getting up in the morning is much easier when you actually get sleep. The cooking is good since we have some new pots and pans to try out and we actually have time to cook! I even did some cooking myself last night. We are finding places for everything from the wedding slowly, or it gets put in Steve's parent's basement. We are even visiting both sets of parents a bit more equally, since his mom has been fostering Kittens and we go to visit them too. We also started the process of making Steve's house more sell-able with installing a new dishwasher and a new lighting fixture in the bathroom. There are more lights and more things to come there in the next few months. Steve even squeezes in some TV every night since he really missed that when we were so busy. I'm not sure why he is so into his TV but it is important to him and harmless so its ok by me.
Everything else is really the same as before the wedding, the biggest change is trying to figure out how to merge finances. We really tackled a lot of the merging household stuff in February/March and it was a little bit stressfull sometimes then but we seem to have merged into a daily routine and know what eachother needs on that level now so it isn't much different except we both get to wear rings now. I still haven't done the official name change documents but hopefully I will in a few weeks when I can take a day off work. I am coming up on the beginning of the month with a ton of reports due so this probably won't be possible for a while yet.
We now stay up late trying to figure out what our finances will look like in a year or more and if we can afford to buy a house and get settled somewhere. We're a bit full in Steve's 2 br townhouse, and all my furniture is in his parent's basement, which we would like to get out of there as soon as we can. The bottom line is we can afford to buy some kind of house, but not quite what we would like. It is actually possible on 2 incomes, but on 1 income if we decide to have a kid or 2, my income goes down to 1/2 or less and all of that money goes back into child care when I would be working. So, its really a game of planning on one income. And we aren't rolling in it by any means since we both make a little more than the national average, and almost the same amount.
You would think buying a house at a discount would be easy right now, with all the home sales stagnant for the last year. And we could have gotten a deal if we would have been ready to buy a few months ago but now things are selling fast. The homes with the re-done kitchens and bathrooms are no longer sitting on the market and dropping their prices. 4 of the 9 houses I have tried to look at in the last week have sold. And that is just Naperville-Wheaton-Lisle, IL. There are plenty of old run down properties on the market that have 1960-70-80s kitchens and baths and need a ton of work, but they aren't really any cheaper than the ones that have been re-done so you just have to spend another 25K+ on top of buying those houses. So what's the point of buying one of those?
So, although I would like to wait to buy until 2010, I think prices will jump by then. We probably have to find something this fall and start looking at something soon. The good news is that between the 2 of us we can put down a sizeable down payment, even after paying all the wedding bills. (especially thanks to the generosity of both of our parents in their wedding gifts) So there is hope for having a low enough monthly payment that we can still handle it on one salary someday.
Everything else about being married is great. Its just this financial decision making that seems to keep us anxious. And we don't fight about it at all, it is just that the perspective we each bring to the table is different. Steve is more about finding something in the right location and that has a lot of space, I am more about having perfect kitchen/bath spaces and a low monthly payment. The 2.5x your salary rule isn't helping a lot either because what it says on 2 salaries is way different than on 1 and that isn't near the size of what Steve wants in a house.
The things that have been going well since the wedding are that our schedules are better and getting up in the morning is much easier when you actually get sleep. The cooking is good since we have some new pots and pans to try out and we actually have time to cook! I even did some cooking myself last night. We are finding places for everything from the wedding slowly, or it gets put in Steve's parent's basement. We are even visiting both sets of parents a bit more equally, since his mom has been fostering Kittens and we go to visit them too. We also started the process of making Steve's house more sell-able with installing a new dishwasher and a new lighting fixture in the bathroom. There are more lights and more things to come there in the next few months. Steve even squeezes in some TV every night since he really missed that when we were so busy. I'm not sure why he is so into his TV but it is important to him and harmless so its ok by me.
Everything else is really the same as before the wedding, the biggest change is trying to figure out how to merge finances. We really tackled a lot of the merging household stuff in February/March and it was a little bit stressfull sometimes then but we seem to have merged into a daily routine and know what eachother needs on that level now so it isn't much different except we both get to wear rings now. I still haven't done the official name change documents but hopefully I will in a few weeks when I can take a day off work. I am coming up on the beginning of the month with a ton of reports due so this probably won't be possible for a while yet.