From what I’ve read there’s too little supply in many areas compared to the demand. It may be more intense in NOLA if the hurricane reduced supply due to units being damaged but demand is still the same (few people deciding to leave the area because of the hurricane).
In your situation, you ultimately get to decide what’s most important to you. If it’s owning a house, @JanetJackson has posted quite a few very affordable homes in Ohio on her journal and I think there are other affordable areas in the US. I’ve heard there are small towns paying people who can work remotely to come and work there. But those areas may have other attributes you find less appealing, and then it’s decision time about what’s most important. I wish there was an easier answer.
Did you ever get one of these? I’ve just located my health insurance spreadsheet (since our open enrollment materials just came out), but it’s in Excel so I can’t just link you to a Google sheet.
I have been noodling over your inquiry and I don’t have any really good answers for you.
I think it’s been two months since the move. If she’s a really people-oriented cat she may be missing all of your old roommates. If you are gone more now (day care commute, etc.) she may be missing you too.
Most cats need to purred, sometimes daily. Lil Bug can be upset with me if she feels she’s not getting enough snuggle time. Five minutes of lap time may be all she needs. I find most cats have a low tolerance for a lot of petting and snuggles, a lot of them are done after a short time and leave of their own volition or at least move out of reach.
Lil Bug also used to wake me up at first light because she wanted to go outside and the rule is she can’t go outside until it’s light. Now that she’s older, it’s not as urgent and she’ll sleep in with me. But she may have been 11 before that started to change? That’s a really discouraging number if you have a young cat.
I forget if it is you or @Meowmalade who has the three cats. If she is an only cat, adopting another cat may give her a companion to follow around instead of you. But in general it is not an easy transition! I’d expect at least six weeks of needing a lot of intervention from you, and you already sound so busy, I’m not sure that’s a practical solution.
Do you feed her wet food at certain times? The one wet food meal Lil Bug cares about the most is Bedtime Snack. It usually doesn’t get eaten until the middle of the night or just before dawn. She starts lobbying for it around 7 some nights even though it’s not scheduled until 9, because she knows she has an absent-minded owner and of all the things I might forget to do, that one matters the most to her! It’s bought me untold hours of sleep.
As for a trip to the vet, how far out is she from her annual check-up? I probably wouldn’t if she eating well and there are no other obvious symptoms.
Yeah, that’s all valid. If we wanted to own property that badly, we could move to FIL’s small town downstate and get some really cute property for less than 100k - but we don’t want to. I guess what I’m wondering is, is this the new normal, in which case we either have to adjust our expectations about where to live or get comfy with being forever renters? Or is this something to just wait out because these bidding wars aren’t sustainable and prices will go down?
Like, if we’d waited 2 years to buy our condo, we could have gotten it for a little over half of what we paid. (Based on what the identical unit below us sold for.)
I really dunno. Many suburbs here are above crash prices (not sure if they are with inflation adjustment though) but my neighborhood has fully remodeled houses going for less $/sqft than we paid for an incredibly dated house in 2006. Even the somewhat trendy suburb just to my south has plenty of houses for under 2006 level pricing.
Does it matter? IIRC, buying right now is not an option.
Let’s say you knew prices would drop in 2 years. What would you do? Move to NOLA?
Let’s say you knew prices would never drop. Would you still go to NOLA, or would you choose a different destination?
If you’d move to NOLA regardless, it’s not worth spending any energy on.
It’s interesting that your neighborhood has not recovered from the crash even though people have been upgrading the houses (full remodels you’ve mentioned). If no one was investing in their properties that would be different. The real estate market seems so irrational to me!
We too bought before the crash. It’s only in the past couple years that our house (likely) caught back up to what we paid and only with the crazy recent market finally surpassed what we paid. On an inflation adjusted basis we are not ahead, especially since we have also put substantial money into our place. Thankfully we have never thought of our home as an investment because it definitely was not a good one LOL. It is a fine shelter though and I’m glad to call it home!
You’re right, it doesn’t impact the moving decision one way or the other. However: I would save more aggressively for a down payment if I thought homeownership might be in reach. It’s less about where to move in the short term and more about what to do with my money, I guess.
If this is the new normal and regular people with average salaries who do not already own will always be priced out… well, then I am probably better off throwing money into my 401k.
But of course no one can know that so it is probably not worth spending energy trying to outsmart whatever the hell is or is not going on with the markets.
You could check if your employer gives you access to aRoth 401k. If so you could throw money in there but could take out the contributions any time, just not the gains.
We don’t have that, but I do have a Roth IRA on my own.
I am a buckets person though - taking money out of “retirement bucket” or “how I pay rent if I lose my job bucket” or “1 year of deductible + OOP max bucket” does not go to a down payment!
I realize folks think that’s insane but that’s how my brain works and it makes me feel a little more secure.
I have thought about putting money into my Roth and then, I don’t know, keeping some sort of record offline about how much is for retirement and how much is for down payment. I need to think more on whether that would work for me. It might!
Here’s another thought, from the tax course I’m taking (2020 laws, not sure if it changes in 2021) about taking an IRA distribution and not having to pay the 10% penalty for withdrawing before age 59 1/2:
Code 09: The distribution (up to $10,000 lifetime limit) was made from an IRA to pay qualified first-time homebuyer expenses. Note: This exception only applies to IRAs. Qualified first-time homebuying expenses, for the purpose of exception 09, are any costs of acquiring or constructing a principal residence for a first-time homebuyer. The term “first-time homebuyer” is misleading; what it really means is someone who has not owned a home during the two-year period prior to the date of acquisition of the home to which this exception applies (up to $10,000).
Even if you participate in an employer plan, you can deduct your IRA contribution completely if your MAGI is below $65K filing single, so this may be another pre-tax way of saving that doesn’t require you to decide “retirement or down payment” right now.
I would add that research on dogs shows a relationship between dietary pea proteins (and legumes) and dilated cardiomyopathy (dcm), which is a serious type of heart disease that mostly affects large breed dogs.
That is what most people are hearing about when they hear that ‘grain-free’ diets are bad. The problem is not that the food is grain-free, but rather what is being substituted for the grain in some of these foods - legumes in too high a concentration (predominantly peas and lentils).
The other big issue is whether a taurine deficiency is also contributing to DCM or other health issues, especially in breeds like Golden Retrievers (who may not be as easily able to synthesize taurine from other amino acids in these foods).
Dogs can have a healthy and nutritionally complete diet, with or without grains.
Sorry for the interjection on dogs, everyone. Feel free to resume your usual cat discourse…
I feel like that’s such a good question for any nutrition science- if there’s a variable of elimination, the next immediate question should be “what is filling that gap?” It might seem pedantic, what is missing versus what is added, but it can totally obscure findings.
ETA and to make this about personal finance, this ties in really nicely to the money mindset journal where we’ve been discussing trying to eliminate or cut down on certain comfort purchases, and what moves to fill that gap instead. Tricky tricky.
Would you have any idea what the f hydrolyzed protein dog food is then? That’s what my dog is on. I buy it because that’s what the vet said to do and she doesn’t have the gastro problems nearly as frequently or as badly as before, but I have no idea why it what treats I might be able to offer her besides the specific hydrolyzed protein treats.
