Event Horizon

This week will likely represent a big turning point for us. We expect the new job offer to become 100% official sometime before the end of this week. I'll also need to give notice with my current employer by the first of next week. And to top it off, I'm driving down to the new location this weekend for a home inspection.

You see, we're doing something that's probably very foolish: We're buying a house in North Carolina, even though our Ohio house hasn't sold yet.

We know it's a move that doesn't make sense in this economy. We know it will make us quite poor in the short term. Or, more accurately, it'll make us poor for some undetermined amount of time.

Given the low interest rates, our downpayment, and other factors, the mortgage on the new house will be half as much as our current mortgage. HALF.

Doing this will solve a wide range of logistical problems, but of course the big downside is that until our Ohio house sells, we'll be paying half again as much in mortgage payments. Which by extension, means that our remaining income after housing will be cut in half. (I know, halves everywhere, huh?)

In essence, we'd be doing the financial version of one of my old favorites, The Half Project.

So we've been going over our budget with a fine-toothed comb. We've squeezed every penny we can find among our assets. We've investigated every expense and change we can think of: differences in property, income, and sales tax; differences in benefits and deductibles; differences in bills (and some bills in both places); differences in driving miles, fuel costs, grocery costs, and everything we can think of. Budget cuts of course. Or "austerity measures," as the headlines like to say.

And if the whole thing completely goes to hell, well, at least we'll get some good practice at being poor.

--