Thursday, August 23, 2007
There's no good reason to own a place of my own
My typical workday starts at 7:30 in the AM, which means I am up by 6:45 and out the door by 7:15. I am freed from subjugation around 4:30 or so and I head straight to the gym. I workout until 6:30 3-4 days a week, and usually get home by 7:00. Wednesday nights I ride down to Quaker Steak, and have been known to take a random ride out on occasion. Once or twice a week, I go directly from the gym to martial arts training, which starts at 7:00 and ends at 8:00, putting me home by 8:30. By the time I shower up, prep and consume the night's vegetarian food product, and read a few favorite interweb pages, it's midnight and time to try and sleep, so that I can do it all over again the next day.
When school is in session, things get even more congested. For instance, my Organizational Studies class started tonight. I went straight from work to St. Petersburg, where I stayed until 10:00. A reasonably fast ride home saw me dragging ass through the front door at 10:40. I ate, watched a few minutes of Dogfights! on History Channel, and started typing this blog entry. A month from now, I will have two courses going on in St. Pete. I hardly see the house, so what's the point? A house is little more than a place to store my stuff and sleep. Why would I possibly get excited about pumping thousands into something like that, particularly with the questionable value of a home as an investment. After you add up taxes, insurance, maintenance, utility bills, interest on financing, and every other cost associated with home ownership, the return at sale is often negligible, particularly if you are looking to purchase another home in the same market. In a market like this one, owning a home is downright painful for most people.
Obviously, given my plans to move away, there isn't much point in entertaining the idea. If you are not raising a family, there just isn't much value, unless you can afford to buy and hold, or have the good fortune of being in a bubbling market. These days, markets are deflating, especially in markets like Florida, so the value in investing here is highly questionable. CNN ran an head-to-head comparison a couple of months ago, pitting stocks against real estate. Stocks won out, despite the crashes and dips experienced during the 20th and 21st centuries.
Owning a house makes sense for families and the uber wealthy, but a single male like myself loses out in several ways. Two years on, I am glad that I did not get the house up the street. Instead of going to school, I'd be locked into my Nielsen salary, paying mortgage/tax/insurance/maintenance bills on a house I have little use for. If having money, going to school, and enjoying life makes me a loser, I'm a loser to the tenth degree. Let the enlightened do their thing. I'm still content with my special version of ignorance.
Speaking of ignorance and money, I got another salary increase this past week. It seems like word of my imminent departure has made its way around the office, though I doubt that had an direct impact on the decision to green light this raise. Year to date, I've accumulated more salary increases than I did in the previous 3 years. Too little too late? I'm afraid so. The most annoying factor in the entire situation is that I will now be taking a substantial pay cut to teach, which is discouraging. Once I have my Master's and a teaching gig at the collegiate level(very iffy, I'll admit), that won't be a problem, but in the immediate future, I might be in for a sting.
If nothing else, the bike will get paid off by next Summer and the car will probably get the motor I have been dreaming of for years sometime in late 2008, just in time to graduate Eckerd and move on to Savannah. Remaining debt free at that point is key, and entirely doable, that way paying rent on a part-time income becomes realistic. If nothing else, it makes me feel better to plan and day dream. Nothing ever goes exactly to schedule, so we'll see. Wish me luck!
Below is a random vid featuring a trained chimpanzee and some bulldogs. Brought a smile to my weary face, hope it does the same for you. :)
Labels: life
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