You Should Buy A Home

At least once a week, someone will ask me when I'm going to buy a home.  It started in residency, and it has increased in frequency with every year that I continue to "throw my money away" on rent.  In residency, it was easy to justify not buying a home, because I had over $200,000 in debt and I had no time for home maintenance.  People could understand those reasons.  But as soon as I became an attending, paid off a lot of my debt, and stopped doing 28 hour-plus call shifts, those reasons disappeared.  And suddenly, my renting instead of owning became some sort of personal affront to people who own their homes.

These zealous home owners seem to have made it their personal mission to get me to buy a home too.  They will send me listings in my favourite areas, along with messages about how perfect the living room would be for a games night or how much I would love the granite counter tops.  Any time an article is published that extols the virtues of home ownership, I can expect at least two or three of these people to send it to me.  And if I dare say anything even remotely critical of my apartment, I am immediately subjected to a tirade about how much better owning is and how ridiculous it is that I'm still renting.

But you know what?  I like renting.  For a lot of reasons.

I am not throwing away my money:  I have used various calculators to compare the cost of renting and owning in my situation, and based on the home I would likely buy, renting comes out a few hundred dollars a month ahead of owning.  So contrary to popular belief, I am actually saving money by renting.  People immediately respond by saying "Well...paying a mortgage is forced savings.  No one actually has the discipline to invest the money they save by renting."  To which I just laugh.

I like putting almost zero effort into my home:  This summer, while we were out for dinner with friends, I got a phone call that my kitchen sink had overflowed and was flooding the apartment below it.  My (now ex-) partner had to run home to shop vac up the mess, but otherwise the building took care of everything, including paying a plumber premium rates to come out on a Friday evening.  The cost to us was zero, and the time involved to deal with it was minimal.  As has been the case for anything else that has gone wrong with the apartment.  The only maintenance I'm responsible for is replacing the light bulbs!  There is no snow to shovel, no leaves to rake, no grass to mow.  And I love it.

I love my location:  The ex and I started looking at homes earlier this year, and when we talked about where we wanted to live, we both decided that we were already living in the perfect neighbourhood.  It generally takes me 15 minutes or less to drive to and from work, which gives me so much more free time than the crazy people who drive 45 minutes or more to the suburbs.  My apartment is in mature area with old houses and lots of trees, so it's a beautiful place to walk when the weather is nice.  I'm within walking distance of two major restaurant areas, so I can have a drink or two without worrying about driving home.  I can even walk to the library!  Because it's a very desirable and popular neighbourhood, the housing prices here are high.  So I'd be paying even more than a few hundred dollars a month extra to have a nice house or condo in the area where I'm already happily living*.

My apartment is nearly perfect:  In addition to location, there are a lot of things I love about my apartment.  I have huge balconies (plural) to sit on; there are two washing machines and two dryers just down the hall; there is an exercise room that I use on occasion; there's an indoor hot tub; and I have heated indoor parking.  The size of my apartment is pretty perfect for a single person with minimalist tendencies.  My building is also filled with dogs who love to visit, which means I get the pleasure of enjoying other people's dogs without ever having to pick up their poop. 

I hate the idea of taking on more debt:  Although all the other reasons are valid, this is probably at the heart of why I am not looking to buy a home right now.  I still have a six-figure debt, and on my current repayment schedule I'm four years away from paying it off.  The idea of adding a six-figure mortgage to that makes me want to vomit.  "But it's good debt," people say.  Gaaaaahhhhh.  No.  It's still debt.  It's still money that I would owe to someone else, which would limit my choices and almost guarantee that I would have to stay at my current job until the debt is gone.

I may buy a home someday.  Once the debt is gone and I've saved a bigger nest egg for retirement, I can see myself being interested in buying a place.  Something with a bigger kitchen and more space to entertain and hardwood floors, because carpets are gross when you have cats.  But at the current moment, renting works for me.

Which ties into one of the most important (and cliché) things I've learned about personal finances:  it's personal.  Everyone has their own unique circumstances, preferences, and neuroses, so there is no one perfect formula for life happiness and financial success.  Lots of people want to buy a home, and it makes sense to them, so great!  Buy a home.

Just stop telling me that I should too.

*I looked at an apartment condo a few buildings down from where I'm living, and the condo was over half a million dollars with condo fees that were only slightly less than my rent.  It was a really nice condo, but OMG talk about throwing money away.

Weekend Progress

Remember how my living room looked on Friday?

This is how it looks at the end of the weekend:

The after photo doesn't quite do it justice, as everything that is currently on the table is waiting for someone to pick it up and take it away.  There will be a lot of empty space once it's finally done.  Including space for games nights!

A few more before and afters:

The desk:

The bookshelf:

The light in the photos is terrible, but you get the idea.  I have gotten rid of a lot of clutter.  So far I think I've done a reasonable job of not getting rid of important things, with two notable exceptions.  First, I gave away some chargers that I thought were old and not in use anymore, but which turned out to be for my bike lights.  So I'll need to get a new charger before bike season next year*.  And second, I gave away a tea set to one of my friends, and a few hours later, she texted me to say "You didn't look in the teapot before you gave it to me, did you?"

Turns out I had stashed $130 in cash in it at some point in the past.  (Years and years ago, perhaps?)  I'm really glad I gave that one to a friend instead of putting it in the lobby of my building.

Anyone else decluttering right now?  How is it going?

*Also a new bike, as I had previously been using the ex-girlfriend's bike.  Sigh.

Dialing It In

It is late at night and I've just returned from drinking two glasses of wine at a friend's house.  I had many ideas for a post earlier tonight, but none of them can be written in under 15 minutes with the amount of mental capacity I have remaining.

It was a good day.  I slept in a bit; did important life maintenance tasks like dishes and laundry; purged a few cupboards in the kitchen; went to dinner and a play with my nieces; and then ended my day with friends.  I totally did not follow through on my plan to finish minimalizing the kitchen, but sometimes when a friend texts you with a photo of the bottle she is about to open, the right thing to do is leave the overflowing cupboard of Tupperware for tomorrow.

It is not always a linear process, but I feel as if I'm starting to settle into the next phase of my life.  Freed from the need to accommodate someone else, I am figuring out what I most want to do, and I am doing it.  And it feels right.

Why Are You Getting Rid of Your Christmas Tree?

A few nights ago, I called my Mom up to ask her if she wanted any of the Christmas decorations that I was getting rid of, and she asked me what I was going to use to decorate my tree this year.

"Oh, I'm getting rid of my tree," I responded.

Long pause.  Followed by my Mom going through all five Kubler Ross stages of grief while she adjusted to this news.

"Noooooo.....you're not actually getting rid of your tree.  Your Christmas tree?  You're getting rid of your Christmas tree?

"I didn't raise you to not have a Christmas tree!  No daughter of mine is allowed to not have a Christmas tree!"

"What if I come over and put up the tree?  I can bring egg nog!  You have to put up a tree."

"Well...I guess Christmas is ruined again this year.  I'm just going to lie on the floor feeling sad about how treeless your Christmas is."

"Unnnnngggghhhhh.....fine.....maybe this isn't the biggest crisis to ever hit mankind.  I suppose someday I can forgive you for getting rid of your tree.  Maybe."

(I exaggerate only in the slightest.)

I should have expected this kind of reaction, but despite knowing my Mom for over four decades, she still has the capacity to surprise me.  And I was surprised by the intensity of her reaction to me getting rid of my tree.  Because I wasn't trying to ruin the holiday or make some sort of anti-Christmas statement.  I actually really like Christmas!  I just don't want to put up a tree anymore.

My dislike of Christmas trees (or, more accurately, of my former Christmas tree) stems in part from living in a not very big one-bedroom apartment.  As you can see from yesterday's picture, my living room doesn't really have space to put up a tree, so it was always crammed into a corner where I could barely see it.  And when it wasn't up, it was in my storage space (or in its box in the living room), blocking my access to my non-perishable food supply.

More than that, I hated taking the time to set up a tree at Christmas.  I am usually on call for at least part of the holiday*, leaving me constantly short on time, and I started to resent spending any of that time putting up and taking down a tree.  It stopped being an activity that "sparked joy" and started being yet another thing on a too-long to-do list.

So I got rid of my tree.  I moved it from my living room floor to the free giveaway area in my lobby, and it has now been adopted by my building caretaker**.  With the tree and the Rubbermaid containers and the really crappy chair that didn't work gone, I feel like I can breathe in this room again.  And when the holiday comes, I can spend time with the people I love, instead of decorating a tree that I had come to hate.

*But not this year!!!!!

**He is going to put it up in the lobby, meaning that I will be able to enjoy my tree without storing or decorating it.  I feel like I won.

My Exciting Friday Evening

Although I have enjoyed the resultant comments and conversations, I have had enough writing about controversial things for one week.  It is the beginning of the long weekend, and I am going to stop thinking and writing about "big things" for a while.

So that I can move on to this:

This is my living room.  At some point in the not too distant past, it was reasonably well organized and uncluttered.  And then.

Stuff.

Stuff happened.  Christmas* and the Women's March and music festivals and camping and all kinds of other things that we never quite cleaned up from.  Where once we used to eat meals and entertain, now I just store things.

A few weeks ago, I was thinking about the things I want to do in my post-breakup life, and one of the things that kept coming up was games night.  I don't love games quite as much as Creampuff and Katr, but I do love games for their combination of competition and buffer against awkward social interactions.  Playing a game is a great thing for an introvert such as myself who sometimes gets overwhelmed by the need to maintain a conversation the whole time someone is in my home. 

The only problem is, there is no game playing happening in the living room shown above.  People and games just don't fit into it.  The initial solution I had to this problem was to buy a house, which in retrospect is a slightly extreme solution to the "my living room is a pigsty" dilemma.  Thankfully, the second solution I came up with was to actually organize my living room.

Which I have been doing for the past few weeks.  Before tonight, I had:

1)  Organized my memory box, two boxes of children's toys, and one box of Christmas ornaments;
2)  Gotten rid of three bags of books, one of my two Cabbage Patch Kids, and multiple bags of Christmas things;
3)  Recycled the Women's March posters; and 
4)  Decided to get rid of the desk.

And then tonight, because I am one of the cool kids who spends my Friday nights going minimalist, I:

1)  Organized another box of Christmas ornaments;
2)  Went through every single item on the tall bookshelf;
3)  Put all my (now organized) boxes away in the storage space;
4)  Started a pile of things to sell or give to the thrift store; and
5)  Got rid of the proofs for my med school grad photos, every single note I took during residency, my ridiculously uncomfortable chair that has never quite worked, printable labels that I bought for medical school applications (in 2005!), and my Christmas tree.

There is space!  Everything to the left of and behind the table is now put away, gotten rid of, or on its way to being gotten rid of.  And the rest of it will be tackled this weekend.  I am ready to use my space again.

*Yes, I am blaming a holiday that happened almost a year ago for the state of my living room, because until earlier this evening the tree was still on the living room floor.

Packing my Minimalist Suitcase

My ex-partner was the antithesis of a minimalist.  Any time I would clear out a space, it would almost instantaneously be filled with something of hers.  Living with her was like the principle of nature abhors a vacuum manifested hoarder-style.

Since she moved out, I have been slowly returning to my preferred state of being a semi-minimalist.  I've taken four large bags of books to my Little Free Library; I've thrown out the three-year-old bottles of condiments that we never used; and I've even gone through my memory box and gotten rid of the awards and report cards that dated back to elementary school.  In this new stage of life, I am focusing on being lighter.

In the spirit of minimalism, when I started packing for my current trip, I decided to limit myself to one carry on bag and one camera bag (which has some extra space for books/a jacket/a water bottle).  I didn't need to do this, as I could have easily brought one of my larger suitcases, but I wanted to see whether I could fit my life into a small space for a week.

It was a lot easier than I thought.  My suitcase easily held two pairs of jeans, a warm sweater, two pairs of pajamas, and more than enough socks, underwear, and t-shirts.  There was room for five books, my french workbooks*, and a notebook.  My computer, my cell phone, and my camera with an extra lens.  Everything I will need.

But the constraints of space did force me to leave a few things behind, like my ex's long-sleeved t-shirt.  The cozy one that I bought her while at a conference in Boston, which was always a favourite of mine, and which she returned to me after the breakup.  The one I've been putting on every evening when I arrive home from work.  The most tangible reminder I have of what we were, and what was lost.  I am not usually one to assign emotions to physical things, but somehow lately it has felt as if all of my grief is contained within this piece of cotton.

So I left it at home. 

*I'm going to Quebec to practice my French for a week!  Je pense que ce sera plus dur que je pensais.

My Anti-Consumerism Christmas

I've written before about how much I dislike gifts.  It's not that I intentionally want to be a Scrooge, it's simply that I don't have a lot of material wants and needs (by privileged North American standards), and those that I have are easily met on my physician salary.  What I want far more than a sweater that someone else picked for me or another gadget for our overflowing kitchen drawers is time.  Time to rest, time to read, time to do the 1000-piece puzzle that I ordered from Amazon.

For years, I've been trying to convince my family members to simplify Christmas by giving fewer gifts.  And for years, I've been met with a desire to maintain the status quo of everyone giving gifts to everyone else.  This year, however, possibly as a result of my years of wearing down rationally discussing my views with my family members, people have finally agreed to cut back on gift giving.  Success!

Here (in case this is interesting to you) is how it is all working out:

Girlfriend (M):  M is the one person I enjoy giving gifts to, because she has a long running list of things that she wants, which makes her really easy to buy for.  And, unlike me, she loves getting gifts.  Last year I took this way too far, to the point where it was awkward for me to give her gift after gift in front of her family members.  This year, we are giving just one larger gift and one "stocking stuffer" to each other.  Our cluttered apartment will appreciate the (relative) self restraint.

Mom:  Normally my Mom gives everyone multiple gifts, many of which end up being returned or donated to the thrift store because she bought them months earlier to "save money" and they can no longer be returned.  This year, she is planning on one physical gift for each person (maximum ~$30) and one gift card to a preferred store.  Some of the physical gifts are still of questionable quality (sorry M), but at least they are smaller, and at least the gift cards will get used.

Because I hate shopping, I once again bought my Mom season's tickets to our local theatre.  We go to the theatre six times per year, and it's a great way for us to spend some dedicated time together and to do something we both enjoy.  Way more valuable than anything I could find in a mall.

Brother and Sister-In-Law:  I consider this my biggest win of the year!  My brother and sister-in-law have crazy busy lives, which have gotten even busier since bringing home a new puppy, so I managed to sell them on the idea of no gifts between couples.  I'm far happier to spend an hour or two more with them than I would be running around trying to find them a half decent gift.

Nieces:  When I suggested to my brother that we not exchange gifts, his first reaction was "But you'll still get the girls something, right?"  To which I sighed.  Because my nieces have everything.  There is literally nothing in the world that either of them needs.  Clothes, makeup, music, movies, ski equipment, a new puppy.  They have everything.  For their birthdays this year, I copied my idea for my Mom and gave them both season's tickets to our local children's theatre.  But for Christmas?

One of the things that makes me sad about my nieces is that neither of them really reads for fun.  When I was a kid, my single favourite thing was to visit the bookmobile that would come to our neighbourhood once a week.  I would return home with shopping bags full of books, which I would then proceed to binge-read until my parents forced me to turn out the bedroom light and go to sleep.  (Sadly, I didn't own a flashlight for reading under the covers.)  I really want to get my nieces more into reading, so once again I decided to get them books for Christmas.  I was very successful with Chris Colfer's book last year, so they will probably always get books from me.  Whether they want to or not.

 And that's it.  Christmas shopping done with only two trips to the mall.  Success!

If you celebrate Christmas, how are you doing with your shopping?

Edited to add:  Ummm...or Hanukkah.  Of course.