We had to move this summer. After five
years in an on-campus house, the college kicked us out. (The rule was
that professors could only stay in on-campus housing three years, so
they'd been more than generous.) We found another house just
off-campus and moved everything over.
It's been hard. While the rent is 25%
higher than our on-campus house, the square footage is 33% less. We
were already feeling like we needed more space, so, despite getting
rid of some furniture, we feel even more squeezed, and that's not
even considering that we recently added a new member to our family.
To top it off, it's in the neighborhood of the house my parents just
sold. Every morning I walk out the front door of my house to see the
house I grew up in – but can no longer enter.
We've kept up our search for a house to
buy (closing in on the two-year anniversary of starting our search).
One house we had been keeping our eye on suddenly dropped $15k in
asking price, so after looking it over, we made an offer, which was
accepted. We were sky-high. Then, I did some careful
number-crunching, and realized that our expenses had increased (with
a new child and all) to the point where, although we could “afford”
this house, we wouldn't be able to pay more than the minimum payment
on our student loans each month.
Getting out of debt is a high priority
for us, and if we didn't buy the house, we would be able to pay off
all our loans within a year or so. With minimum payments, it'll take
another 15-20 years. After many tears, we both decided to back out
of the house purchase and commit to paying off our student loans
before we buy a house.
This has made us all the more aware of
the limitations of our current residence, and the let-down from not
getting to buy the “house of our dreams” has given us especially
low spirits.
