Boo's Tattoos and Other Stories

a lesson learned... reluctantly

I had an interesting experience today. Actually its been going on for quite some time but today it reached the pinnacle.

We’ve been looking at land and such for a while, planning to build a cottage and eventually a permanent home. It commenced with the troubles at the trailer. I was (and am) just so fed up with the neighbours that I want out. Thing is, there’s no way I want to give up having a place like that to escape to.

So we discovered in our search, that waterfront acreage which seems a fair price, is always a swamp. If you want decent waterfront, you’ve got to hand over your first born and maybe a leg or arm. So we decided to see if we could find a decent cottage somewhere, on a small piece of land.

Well, we did. I can’t even begin to describe the place we found. When we turned onto the road, there was a doe standing there. She casually crossed the road and then stood there looking at us. I swear she wasn’t more than 15 feet from me. Stepping into the cottage, I could remember my childhood vacations with my parents to such places and see way into my future, all at once. Its perfect.

The seller lives next door, in a beautiful home (appraised at 390K!!). He’s an artist ("So am I!" I said). Very laid back, quiet, looking for a quiet couple to buy - he really felt he’d found in us just what he was looking for.

Our biggest problem was that the finance company would only mortgage 90%. And we don’t have enough saved up for that big a down payment. My broker tried to find enough equity in our current home to cover it but we just haven’t been here long enough. We thought of a few places to borrow it from, the seller even wanted to try to help, but for the lender, it has to be gifted to us. Otherwise, I’d just put the whole she-bang on the visa. So it would have been "gifted" for the bank, with a contract to pay back hidden on the side, therefore adding another monthly payment to the new mortgage, insurance, and taxes, etc.

When we got home I decided to go over some bank statements to see where we stand. Well, we can afford it, but we wouldn’t be able to save very much. And at our age, we need to start some heavy duty loading of the RRSPs. The saying goes: "I’m financially set for life, as long as I die next week". Not to mention student loans, the new car, blah, blah, blah.

So, with an equal mix of reluctance and relief, we decided not to buy. I called the seller right away; he was holding the place for us (there have been about 14,000 hits to his on-line ad). He understood. Offered again to try to help us, but could see my point that its just not a good time. We will stay in touch, and I plan to visit his studio.

I hung up the phone and burst into tears.

Hubby said: "I have to ask, have you been taking your medication?"

This almost earned him a kick in the teeth, but he’s just worried and was really surprised at my reaction. I don’t think he realized how moved I was by the place.

Then he said: "Jeez, if you love it that much, maybe we should buy it."

Another kick in the teeth. Fuck.

A little compassion surfaced after that and I pulled myself together. So I guess I’ve learned that doubling your current debt load isn’t a great idea - perhaps unless you’re bringing in about 4 times what’s going out. So we’ll stick with the trailer, for now, get a grip on frivolous spending, hammer some debt down, send some more cash to our financial advisor, and go back to shopping for a home theater. Maybe for Xmas. Fuck - after all this, we gotta buy something.

posted by Boo @ 9:00 PM