We Don't Have to Commute

It's a darn good thing the fate of where we intend to buy a house and live for the next chunk of our lives didn't depend on me getting a new job. If it did I am not exactly sure how that would have turned out. But it just so happens the burden of such a task rested on Mj who thus far has never had any problem landing awesome jobs. He did it again. My little hot shot found a new job and just in the nick of time. Just when we really needed to figure out the work situation so that we could begin some serious house hunting.

The job he left when he went overseas for Eleven months is about 158 miles away. That is about a two hour and 10 minute commute without traffic. Which of course would never happen so it would probably take close to 3 hours. Impossible!! Crazy. I mean, how many years of your life will a commute like that take away? Not to mention the money spent on gas. We couldn't move way up there because the cost of living is way too high and then of course I would have to find another job. So, to compensate our original plan was to move about 45 miles North which would then mean we were both commuting although mine would not have been as far. We would have been closer to my family but further from both our friends and my work. We really love being where we are right now and it was a bummer to think we'd have to leave. We did NOT want to do that but there weren't really too many other options until Mj ran out and got himself another job.

We will both be working in the same area now. Close enough that we could even meet for lunch or carpool if we wanted to.

I was so excited and proud of him when he called me with the news yesterday. It pretty much solved all of our immediate problems and is allowing us to take the next step in house hunting. Turns out his company actually eliminated his position while he was gone. Worst case scenario he would have collected unemployment and job searched or taken this other independent contractor position he was offered. But the bottom line is no job, no mortgage loan, no house and now we don't have to worry about that. Win-win because provided the company doesn't find another position for him by Tuesday not only have they been paying him the whole time he's been gone but now they will have to pay a severance which is just fine because he already found a closer job.

To celebrate last night, I brought home Strawberries with Dolce Frutti chocolate sauce and champagne. The chocolate hardens as it sits so you can make your own Chocolate covered strawberries. We ate as we dipped them but you have to be careful because the chocolate gets too hard to dip. Next time we'll dip them all then eat.

He says the whole situation was stressing him out a bit. Not that I could even tell the cool cucumber that he is. Him stressing looks no different then usual while I am prone to mini breakdowns.  I so needed someone like him to balance me out.

While we jumped right into wedding planning when he came home we had to wait on the house hunting until this job thing was sorted out. We are getting that much closer to getting out of this tiny studio and Mj being able to get all of his things out of storage. In fact, we just got back from the home loan office not too long ago.

Everything seems to be falling into place. Exactly where we want it to be.

I Don't Wanna Commute

When I started my first job out of college I had to commute. I was still living in N. County and my job was in SD so I commuted about 45 miles each way for 6 months and I hated it. Since then the longest commute I've had is right now at about 30 minutes. Definitely doable. But going back to an hour? Grrrrrr. I am not happy about that at all. I've known for a while that there would be a possibility of me having to commute again and now that it is upon me I am already dreading it. When Mj comes back we are planning to start house hunting and because Mj's job is in LA we need to pick some place in between for us to live. Mj's commute will actually be even worse then mine but he has a really good job there. It would be perfect if he could find one down here but I am kind of thinking that won't happen with the job market the way it is.

I think I'm tired now? I can only imagine how I'm going to feel after adding 1 1/2 hours to my day on each end sitting in traffic. Not to mention the expense. I can only drive about 280 miles on a 16 gallon tank of gas before hitting empty. 80 miles a day means I will have to get gas about every other day and it's costing me about $55 to fill up at the current gas prices so I would end up spending about $450 minimum a month on gas. More than twice what I have to spend now. I really don't know if I can afford that. Not only will I be worn out but I will be really broke too!! I know there are people that commute even farther but so what. I don't want to do it at all.

Which leads me to my other fear. Having to rent out my condo that I absolutely can't sell because of the horrible market. My condo is a studio which is obviously too small for two people to live in long term so I am going to have to become a landlord. Which is something I never wanted to do. This is a very expensive city to live in. After my divorce I didn't want to move back home or rent out a room from a stranger. I wanted to live alone but not in another crappy apartment where the rent could go up at any time causing me to have to move. The price was right so I bought it after my divorce pretty much planning to live here alone for the rest of my life. Well, those plans have changed and I am going to have to change right along with it but I am scared. I worry about having to pay two mortgages. What if I can't get a renter? What if the renter trashes my place? How do I handle repairs? I don't have a huge amount of cash flow so this is a very scary venture for me to take on but I don't see any other option.

I've known that all of these things were going to have to happen since Mj and I got engaged, but now it's getting closer to actually happening. I am kind of freaking out about all of this already but hey, that's what I do.

The silver lining in this of course is that I get to live in a house which I haven't had the pleasure of doing since I moved out of the parents house after College. And I get to live with Mj. I have to try to focus on that instead.