I live, write, and garden in the PNW with my husband of 27 years, disabled daughter, college-aged son, and my 84-year-old mother. We have paid off $250,000.00 worth of debt (if you include the interest) in the last fifteen years and as of 6/12/2020 are 100% DEBT FREE!!!!I spent a good portion of the day looking at houses online yesterday. We're a good two years from being able to buy, but I wanted to get an idea of what was out there in our price range. I was kind of flabbergasted by the number of short sales and foreclosures I kept finding though. Our price range is going to be a maximum of $350,000. We plan to have a downpayment of at least $100,000 so we won't be crippled by the mortgage.
But just because $350,000 is our max (not the max which the bank would loan us, which is closer to $600,000), doesn't mean I want to have to spend that much. So I was looking at houses under $300,000 to see what was out there. We want 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, or 3 bedrooms, 2 baths and an office or extra great room or a dining room that can be converted to an office if the kitchen table can fit in the kitchen. And we want at least 1800 square feet.
I was shocked at what was available. I thought it would be a really impossible ask. But I was finding houses under $200,000 with hardwood floors and new roofs and remodeled kitchens in nice, if older, neighborhoods. One place I found was just gorgeous. It had everything I wanted except for just having one bathroom and it was $175,000. For that price we could add a second bathroom.
I don't know what the market will be like in two more years, but it was encouraging to see that there are good possibilities in decent neighborhoods.
I blue booked our 1992 Ford Crown Victoria, which is in really good condition, and has around 132,000 miles I think, just to see what the growing rate is for it. It's almost $2,000 for good condition. I kind of fell over. I figured it was only worth about $500 or something. It might be worth a little bit more because we put in a nice digital MP3/CD player (it originally came with a casette deck). Anyway, it's definitely worth getting it detailed and trying to sell it. It needs some cleaning work. Normally I'd clean it myself but since the knee surgery I can't get down on my knees and get to all those hard to reach places and I've been waiting at least a year for DH to do it.
We had been talking about just taking it to salvage, but I hated to do that considering the fact that there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. We just don't drive it anymore and my mother is getting sick of seeing it parked in her driveway when no one uses it. It's such a good, safe reliable car, it would make a great first car for a high school kid. I keep thinking, too, about the fact that in 18 months my daughter will be sixteen and then we might actually want to have two cars. I'm not a big fan of driving her to school at 7 a.m.
Still, if we did sell it, that $2000 could go on the car loan and we'd be one step closer to having it paid off. I really wish we'd traded it in when we got the Toyota. I can't even remember why we didn't do that. Probably because we didn't think it was worth anything. If we do sell it then we will probably end up keeping the Matrix (which will be paid off) when we buy the Sienna. It would be good for DD to drive, but it's just gotten uncomfortably small for our growing children to be in back on long trips.
Part of me just says trade in the Matrix. The Sienna is going to be expensive even if we'll be getting a 2011 in 2013 so it'll be used and not quite so much as a new one. We can always find a second much more inexpensive car for DD to use. Or a Vespa or iScooter. I'm probably overthinking it. I tend to do that.
The house smells delicious right now. I've got a picnic ham in the crockpot and it's almost done. And I've got a nice recipe via Tightwad Kitty for making soup with the ham bone tomorrow and I'll make a breakfast casserole and be able to make sandwiches off the leftover meat. An $18 ham is not as economical to stretch as a $5 chicken, but it's still going to go a long ways.
House and Car Talk and a Ham for Dinner
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