March 3, 2011
Deadbeat Diary, 2
Izabella arrived in July of 2008. Budgets were adjusted. 800 dollars a month was set aside for her daycare. We bought a second car. Our life didn’t just look good on paper, we were happy. This was the plan. We were in Hawaii in February of 2010 when we found out there would be a second baby.
Budgets were resistant to adjustment.
For six or seven months we calculated expenses and income. Expenditures were vetoed. We cut non-essential services and tallied the contents of our savings account. We decided to sell our house.
The decision wasn’t easy. It wasn’t just about the money. When all the debits and credits were added up and our final monthly budget was calculated, owning the home or not, we were in about the same place. The choice, for us, was about how we wanted to raise our kids. We could both work to pay a mortgage and $1600 in daycare expenses or we could rent and one of us could stay home with the kids.
By this time, September of 2010, our house was worth just over 50% of what we’d paid. A sale would mean a short sale and a short sale would be the end of our excellent credit scores and, more difficult for us, an adjustment to our values.
We talked to a Realtor and put the house on the market.
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This is painful but good. Please stay with this series.
Michael, one of the many things that interest me about your family’s story is that it feels like a really dramatic decision: to shift from owning a home to renting and for one parent to switch from earning wages or a salary to taking responsibility for day-time child care. For my entire adult life, it seems that the standard version of the American Dream has included both home ownership and the employment outside of that home of both members of a couple. But that’s hardly the only route to The Good Life, or even a good life, and sometimes it’s not even all that good.
I think it’s great that you and Alicia did the hard work both of looking at the numbers and talking about what is important to you. And I’m looking forward to reading more.
Also looking forward to more. People tend to be dishonest about the issues surrounding the decision to have children, or at least they leave out things. It is partly a superstition, I think, “I better not say anything negative, I’ll be punished.”
Thanks guys. This is something that, I think, we’re past the painful part of but that I’ve been wanting to talk about for some time.
House ownership is a chore. During my funemployment (from which I have so far “collected” about one-week’s salary in the past two-and-a-months, but I have been paid for snow-work, enough along the way as it turns out to keep the bills up-to-date, but Danny’s been working his ass off), I have filled my days with work on the house we haven’t been able to get done while we were both working. I could go for months longer, working on the long list, but I started back to work half-time this week, to ramp up for the season. Full-time, I imagine, in a couple weeks. I could be a stay-at-home handyman and not run out of work for a good long while.
Danny and I are ready for a Condo, or rental, if the market can correct to where houses can sell, at least for the balance owed and make it a “wash.” Don’t know if it will recover to that point, but…we’re holding out for now, I guess.
Michael, thank you for sharing your story. It is good to hear your voice.
Too many buts in my bit.
That’s better than too many bites in your butt.
Thank you, Cindy. You’re right. I think Danny’s butt’s more bit than mine (not bit by employers, because he “rocks” in the work he does. He has “covered” my floating ass the last couple months). And he’s got a butt-load he’s working on.
Oh, Rick. Covering for each other is what loved ones do. I’m sure Danny has been happy to do it and is thrilled with all you’ve been able to accomplish with the house.
I love you, Cindy. Give Daryl a hug for me.
Michael, thank you. Wow. I hadn’t realized that your decision to move involved so much …else. I suppose I figured you were moving because the housing market had finally restored, or because you’d landed the desired job in Monterey. This was admittedly naive of me. I can’t wait for what you share next.
Also, hearing y’all talk about Rick’s and Danny’s butts has me reminiscing about the number of great pictures we’ve captured of those rears. Which suddenly has me feeling grateful for Rick’s and Danny’s altogethers more than usual now.
Kelsey, you got the memo that we didn’t move to Monterey, right?
I figured it out when you stole the mayorship of the Sunflower Drive-In.
I do so love how we’ll all be talking and it ends in these immense feelings of love and gratitude for one another and the people we hold dear.
Yeah, we’re all kind of struck on one another, I think.
We’re struck, I know.
[...] it’s September and our house is on the market. There’s no pretending when your house was built in 2007 and [...]