One day
in October I saw a bunch of people walking around the neighborhood dressed up
in costumes. Seeing these costumes, I
became slightly giddy, as I usually do on Halloween. Then I looked at my watch. It wasn't Halloween, it was October 17th, and
those weren't Halloween costumes, those were costumes worn by people robbing
the check cashing place/loan shark place just around the corner. This had been happening with some frequency
in the area that I live in, but bandits never ran through my neighborhood when
I was at home. That is when I decided I
needed to move.
The
following January, because I am a lazy fuck, I started my search. I used various iPad apps, found some decent
places, and went looked around. There
were a couple of places that I thought were nice, moderately priced, and were
in neighborhoods where I would likely not get stabbed. I looked over the rent amounts of these
places, then ran these rent amounts against my current budget.
It's not
that I was broke at the time, but if I had moved to any of the places I was
looking at, I would have been. So I put
getting a new apartment on the shelf for a while. However, I still felt like I needed to
move. This was due to more loan shark
places being robbed in my area. Also I
was bored.
In March
I started looking for condos. I figured
that a condo would be more affordable for me, plus I'd eventually pay off a
mortgage, as opposed to rent which would only go up over time. I hooked up with a realtor/well meaning white
dude, and looked at some places.
Previous
to this, I thought I lived in the bad part of the Salt Lake
ValleyMetroComplexVille. I was
wrong. One of the condos I looked at was
in the Rose Park section of Salt Lake.
Due to the large iron gates secured with a magnetized fence, I couldn't
just walk onto the property. This should
have been my first sign. As I was
waiting in my car for the well meaning white dude to show up, a Salt Lake City
police office came screaming past me with it's lights on and siren full
blast. Then another screamed past. Then another.
And another. This was another
sign. This is when I left. I realize now I shouldn't have left the well
meaning white dude there alone waiting for me, but I had to get me and my big
fucking SUV out of the area.
There
were several other condos that I looked at in parts of the valley that were not
heavily crime ridden. A couple of them
were actually pretty nice. I looked at
the price of these condos, figured out what my monthly payment would be,
including HOA, taxes, and other expenses, then ran this amount against my
budget.
Again I
found that if I were to buy a condo at the prices I was looking at, I would be
making myself broke. Rather than putting
the entire idea of buying a house on the shelf, I decided to go about reducing
my expenses.
In the
past in the past ten month, I have been putting more of my money into paying
off debt and less of my money into things that are fun. This has sucked. Hard.
There were times throughout this process that I questioned whether this
was all worth it. Then the loan sharks
would get robbed again, and suddenly my resolve would return.
Have I
accomplished my goal yet? Is this the
blog post where I brag about finally doing this thing that I've been working on
for over a year, and post pics of my brand spanking new house?
No, it
isn't, but I'm getting there. I can feel
myself getting closer everyday.
Frustration still gets at me some times.
If you follow me on Twitter, you know how fervently I want to buy a new
iPhone and chuck the thing I'm currently using as a phone into a fucking
field. I'd also like to chuck my CenturyLink DSFuckingL out the window, but other internet service providers either cost more or have substantially slower speeds. Neither of those things are things that I like or are even okay with, but both of those things make me more resolute in accomplishing my goal. I know that if I keep at
it, eventually this will all pay off.
Every day that I continue pursuing my goal is another day that I get
closer to it. This is the same way I
feel about my sex life.
One day,
one day.
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