There are sometimes when I get it in my head/gut to really scrub down the kitchen. This time was sparked off by seeing a little silverfish dart for cover while I was thinking about getting lunch. Well, no longer. Two hours later the kitchen if not sparkling it is at least close to being in the state I found it in when we moved in here. That was the last time professional cleaners were brought in. This is a really stupid thing, but as I scrub my burner dishes(?) from the stove, I think that at least in this way I've done my dutch hertiage proud. I have no reason to believe dutch folk are more a)clensely (read:anal) or b)thrifty (read:cheap) than anyone else. I believe it has to do with this advertisment. The good news is that silverfish and ants are about the worse pests I've seen in the 3 years we have been here. High altitude means there are no roaches (and oddly no fireflies) which are the worse apt critter. We also don't have those awful (and stupid) many legged creepy-crawlies you get in pgh. Over all we are very lucky. I still find my self taking precautions (stuffing things into the fridge instead of leaving them out. Sealing up my flour and bake supplies up in air-sealed ziplock or tupperware) just in case we discover some "friends". Old habits die hard.
I also spent most of the morning going over the housing thing and came to the conclusion that, though we can only afford a small piece, it is better for us to own it than to never have owned anything at all. Housing in Denver really begins around $170,000 and then just goes up. Houses here are outrageously priced for what you get. We also have I think one of the highest rates of foreclosure, mainly because there wasn't any oversight of lenders until just this year (or something like that) so *anyone* could get a bad loan, buy a house and then file for bankrupcy.
Our target range is significantly lower than $170,000. But we can afford a townhouse/condo AND that still would be more economic for us in 5 years than paying rent. Rent, btw, starts at around $800 for the space we are looking for (2 bedroom). Guru, the farmboy, is a bit depressed about condos, but I don't actually mind them, especially since colorado built most of them recently with a tendency to put cathedral ceilings in them. Thye like their views here. So we contacted the realtor who was highly recommended and started talking about options, or the lack there of. We expect more of them to come on the market this spring as people realize they can't keep prices high since its now flipped over to being a buyers market.
The downside on all this is I don't think I'm going to make the one big purchase I was hoping for this year: a new bed. I was crunching some numbers and I think I could replace our current bed with a queen-size memory foam mattress on either this or this frame. It would take some time, but I could in theory save for it, which would be an amazing act of restraint on my part. Our bed then would turn into a guest bed and we could actually put people up if we have enough room or, it would go to someone who could use it from acme intl. But, if we are going to need every dime to swing a down payment this year, I think I might just have to stick with our current setup.
Well off to make a sandwich in my fresh-smelling kitchen.
1 comment:
Um, I can guarantee the Dutch are thriftier than most. Doug's favorite joke is "how was copper wire invented? Two Dutchmen fighting over a penny." And you know... I think he's right.
Bravo on the house decision, btw. You're in the best bargaining position going from apt. to abode - besides being the obvious buyers' market, you can move whenever you want. So if you find a foreclosure, you can jump on it. We have had to pass on 2 foreclosures that were available to us because we just couldn't justify the two mortgages. Sadly.
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