How do I live?

If you're a 90's baby, you are familiar with the Trisha Yearwood and/or LeAnn Rimes rendition of this tune. How do I live without you? In the modern day, the 'you' in question would be marginally low rates of inflation and shrinkflation. Living within the boundaries of a sane money supply is hard to imagine anymore. But, it's fruitless to throw shade at either one of the two more popular letters of the alphabet when all parties seem on board with stuffing cash into the economic hot air balloon to keep things afloat. Hashtag, popular vote.

The result is, of course, a systematic dismantling of the value of your income. From housing to cars to groceries, all the common costs and big time purchases rocket upward. Of course, it's the "other" people that refuse to stop spending until the pain really starts to pinch them. You and I are the responsible ones. But rates are low! You can't hardly afford not to spend the money! This is the premise for our journey to home ownership that nearly every other millennial is struggling to attain.

Cheap rates resulted in the most impressive bidding wars on housing. All cash offers, home inspections waived, leave the furniture in place, bid 10-20% and more over list price. It was really something to behold. We somehow got approval to spend $600,000 ('08 ring a bell?), and scheduled a tour of a half million dollar home for 24 hours after it had been listed. We never got to go look at it because the home brought $60,000 over list price that evening. Straight cash offer, no inspection, leave the couch.

Now this was not an isolated incident. Many people got in the habit of offering to waive the inspection to make their offer more attractive. If I were selling a home, no matter how immaculate, getting a signature from a buyer legally releasing me from any issues the home might have would be a dream come true. Especially since no one was taking a lower offer for doing so. Get paid more to avoid any further arbitration and close immediately? What a deal! But like all markets, if you sell high, you either have to park your cash, buy back in right along with everyone else at the highs, or go to a different market to reinvest your cash.

Some older folks sold their monster homes for insane numbers, then bit the bullet in the equipment market and took a brand new dually pickup and 5th wheel mansion to warmer climes at 0% for 72 months. Many downsized. Some people bought a chunk of dirt and tried to build something. Anecdotally, I heard of some dreams that caught fire in the face of all labor and construction supply prices going right past the moon and on to Mars. Construction loans were much less forgiving about not having a big pile of cash and/or equity before buying $72/sheet 7/16ths OSB. Oh, and this was on the Colorado front range, so your well and septic require the blood of a firstborn for surety. Point being, so what if you cleared 100k on your home sale, it was already blown if you thought about an upgrade.

Everyone in my world, including those who would likely say they wholeheartedly agree with the advice dished by Ramsey and Co., were leaning on us to grab that 3% rate and buy a home, come what may. Now, speaking of Ramseyisms, I've got more stupid with 0's under my belt than the average kid. Pickups, livestock, and purebred horses have taken a lot of my free cash over the years. Almost all those transactions were cash money I had saved from hard summers or sharp trades, but sometimes you have to watch your sweat equity evaporate to finally learn the value a dollar represents. All those painful financial follies made me cautious about shucking out an extra 30 or 40 grand up front just for opportunity to buy a house at what amounted to the highest prices in recorded history.

Eventually, the personal in personal finance does more to move the needle on spending than math. And personally, we needed our own home. I'll spare the details, but living with your parents at 30 is one thing. Being 30 with a wife and 4 kids is another. So we were searching hard, but the numbers only started making sense when you left the state of Colorado. Or, at least, got close to the borders. So that's where the Zillow searches got refined, and eventually, we found a newly remodeled flip that seemed right up our alley.

Now came the tough questions. Where will we work? How will we afford it? What are the amenities like? We needed access to medical care on the front range for our oldest, I'm picky about dental care, and of course we wanted opportunities for our children to be engaged in all the usual activities like swimming and sports and such. Fortunately, the small community we now call home had all the bells and whistles. It reminds me of that tongue in cheek comment. "People can't believe we have such a big moon for such a small town."

People have long known that moving to less populated areas is often more cost effective in terms of housing. But groceries, gasoline, and the new definitions of 'just up the road a piece' can eat on the income that is often less impressive than what you can earn in the larger population centers. There is no perfect solution in my mind, but we are very fortunate in most of these categories, and we've accepted that putting miles on the vehicles is the cost of business out here. A new motor for my pickup is about $3000, and that's what we were looking at for a monthly mortgage payment on a 30 year term at the height of the insanity. 3% or not, barely being able to pay the mortgage every month seems like a stressful way to live.

Given those caveats, we purchased "late" in the game. But we had a much more impressive down payment thanks to our patience and negotiating the sticker price down on a house with below average curb appeal. We were also able to take advantage of all the benefits of a conventional mortgage, buy down our rate up front, and get the lower payment on a 30 year loan with no penalties for paying it off early. That isn't the 15 year payoff plan from the Total Money Makeover, but it does offer a lot of cushion for things like losing a job or flooding a basement. And there was a job change and sewage in the basement both in our first 6 months of home "borrowership."

I certainly cannot point to a multi-million USD portfolio to indicate my financial prowess. I am also paying 2.5 points more on a house that cost roughly $250,000 less. Plus, I did sink a lot of ass ache and about $15,000 into the making the basement like brand new after the sewer blockage. So who knows. I've heard new build homes over a half million never have any issues with the sewer or water leaks. Imagine I quickly closed and opened my right eyelid after making that statement.

Bottom line, I have yet to find my own personal worldview quote to be inaccurate. "Life sucks, then you die." No matter where you live or what you do, you have to be disciplined in your spending, you will endure injury, aging, and tooth decay, and the house and cars will never be 'finally fixed.' It's enough to cause even the most high energy folks to pause and think, what even is all this for? They may never admit that thought darkens the brainwaves at night before they fall asleep, but I sure as snot will. People will wring their hands about the young men who exit this life early by saying, "he had it all!" But one needs to consider that often having it "all" means the person in question is under ALL the stress and demands that go with those possessions and responsibilities. It can prove overwhelming.

I've been a perfectionist for as long as I can remember. If you are going to do something, do it right and do it well. That was drilled in from day one. Unfortunately, when you put children's emotions and lack of perspective into the mix, the result is someone who would rather trash a project 95% complete than turn it in with 5% rushed and half assed. When you grow up and somehow get through all the self loathing about what a massive failure you are, because frankly, employers in the real world don't care much about your feelings, you can understand that things just don't get done perfect. But it bothers you every time something falls a hair short. So you begin to think, I'd rather not try at all than try and fail.

That's a subject for another post. This blog is for me, and if it helps you, that's just icing. So buckle in, and let's give this a shot! Because I'm willing to try and fail on this. Finally.

Peace and goodwill. -C