2009-05-17 - 8:02 a.m.
Over a period of time, one comes to define themselves in a certain way. I've become used to being in debt, become comfortable with it really. It's not that heavy of a weight to carry; I pay my credit card bills every month, am able to afford what I need and some of what I want and I am at peace with that. My debt goes up or down as much as $1000 a month and it doesn't bother me except on occasion. I imagine it's like learning to live without a limb, it really bothers you at first but over time you accept it and find ways to compensate. My debt went from virtually nothing to tens of thousands of dollars when I was looking for work back in Philadelphia and living on credit cards over a period of ten months. It took me until a few years ago to get it to stabilize, and there it has sat until now. I recently started looking at buying a home. That was never an option for me, but for the first time ever, with low interest rates and bargain basement home prices it makes perfect sense. People say you throw your money away when you rent. I disagree with this. One thing renting gives you is flexibility. Having moved around as much as I have, until recently I wasn't sure that this was my last stop for a while. June will be three years of calling Minnesota home, yet that alone does not make me rooted here. And so apartment life has worked for me thus far. Another thing renting provides is lack of a commitment to upkeep of the property. I see people who spend all their money and time just getting their homes in order, doing chores in the yard and maintenance when things break, whereas in an apartment, there is no upkeep required, and when something breaks the solution only requires a quick phone call (I will admit I have lived in places that aren't kept up well, and when something breaks you have to plead for it to be fixed, but the more you pay, the more you can be assured that won't be the case). I do not want a high maintenance home; I want something I can move into that will require little fixing up, and something not so large that maintenance is a burden. And so the other day I found a place that just might be THE place for me. Nice sized but manageable yard with a relatively small but comfortable living space inside completely remodeled in the last year, everything from the pipes and floors to the windows, appliances, paint, and air conditioner. Perfect. A nice place that I would own, and it's all for a good deal less than I am paying in rent now. In owning, I would be actually better off than I am now. I could not have said that even as little as a year ago; home prices were still high and people still believed in the value they had purchased them at. Had I bought a year ago, I might very well be in worse shape than I am now, owning an overpriced home that might never reach the value I would have paid for it. But here it is, today, and my situation is a 180 degree flip: Money would be freed up, and though there would be more responsibility for upkeep, buying at the bottom of the market might very well benefit me over time. What does this mean to me? This debt that I have become very comfortable with, that has become a given and that I could not define myself without mentioning, could possibly go away. In a way, I feel like it is too easy; I feel I don't deserve such good fortune. I saw my options as limited for so long, and now, it might sound silly, but it puts tears in my eyes because I have hope for myself. I'm sad for all the people who can't escape. Friends and even family, people I am close to, who will always live like I have for the past 5 years. Here we are, at arguably the worst time since the Depression, and potentially worse, and yet I have more hope and opportunity now than I had when the economy was booming (albeit falsely). I remember reading that, while the Depression was bad for so many, there were people whose fortunes were reversed positively at the same time. My credit is perfect despite all I owe, and the mortgage department was shocked because they are used to just the opposite. Enter opportunity. Enter hope. Enter a new path to my future, and for the first time ever, I didn't have to move to a new state to find it...
