Evolving Personal Finance » housing
Home Equity Is Funny Money
We closed on our house just about exactly a year ago for $700k, and Redfin now has our home value pegged at over $900k. Redfin’s estimate is not necessarily reliable, but it’s a data point. Before buying our home, I saw PF bloggers and other interested parties discuss their net worth calculations online, and they often accounted for their home equity/the value of their home in odd ways. These other people sometimes left their home’s value out entirely or omitted any equity above the mortgage amount or used a lower value for their home. This was totally puzzling to me. I thought I would have just grabbed a value from Redfin/Zillow and plugged in that number on a monthly basis. That seemed to be the most accurate/up-to-date. I still think it’s important … Read entire article »
Filed under: housing
Living in Someone Else’s Awesome
Last year I posted an explanation of why high cost-of-living cities are so expensive: a lot of people think they are awesome and want to live there. At that time, Kyle and I were living in a medium cost-of-living city that we thought was great but not ideal. Now, we have moved to not only a high cost-of-living city but a city that is rapidly expanding both in population and cost (Seattle). And for us, … Read entire article »
Filed under: housing
Apartment Search in Seattle
As soon as Kyle began interviewing for his current job, we started looking for a place to live in Seattle. From talking with friends who had recently moved there, we repeatedly heard the Seattle housing market be referred to as “hot” and “tight.” We knew to expect much less space and higher rents than we had experienced in Durham, but we did not anticipate that it would operate on a totally different schedule and set … Read entire article »
Filed under: housing
Moving Cross-Country with a Pod
In the last month, Kyle and I moved from a townhouse in Durham, NC to an apartment in Seattle, WA. While I initially had dreams of abandoning all our worldly possessions for this cross-country move, ultimately we decided to sell just our bulky furniture and move most of our stuff. We used UPack, a pod-based moving company, to move our things from Durham to Seattle, and took our car on a cross-country road trip to … Read entire article »
Filed under: housing, transitions
We’re Evolving!: Our Next Transition
When we founded EPF in 2011, a major component of is purpose was to keep us financially honest during our several anticipated life transitions. Well, it took until 2014 for the first one to occur, but now we seem to be on a roll. Transition #1: Kyle defended and became a postdoc in the same lab he did his PhD in. Essentially the only change was a salary bump. Transition #2: I defended and became funemployed. The major change … Read entire article »
Filed under: budgeting, career, funemployment, housing, income
Consider the Source
I think most of us like to think of ourselves as skeptical, or at least not gullible. It probably goes doubly so for me because I call myself a scientist. But I realized just in the last couple weeks that I was taking some financial advice at face value without considering the potential bias and motivation of the advisor! And I lost out on giving some advice to someone who likely has a more conflicted … Read entire article »
Filed under: choices, housing, retirement
What’s So Great About High Cost-of-Living Areas?
When I stepped out into the southern California sunshine on the first morning of our recent trip, I exclaimed to Kyle, “How are we not living here?!” I repeated this phrase multiple times throughout our long weekend in Los Angeles. All I wanted to do was spend time outside, which thankfully we were able to do for much of Friday and Saturday. The weather was beyond gorgeous, particularly warm and sunny for February, and a … Read entire article »
A One-Car Snow Day Adventure
On Wednesday, it snowed – kind of a lot, for the piedmont of North Carolina. We got about four inches of accumulation within a few hours. It’s thickest snowfall I’ve seen in the six years I’ve lived here. The Triangle was caught unprepared in a way that was reminiscent of Atlanta two weeks ago (though, from my understanding, not as extreme). I’ll tell you about the adventure we had getting home on Wednesday and then connect … Read entire article »
Our Best (Pain-Free) Money-Saving Moves
In this post I will detail how much money we have saved (that is, not-spent) by making simple, painless changes in our life. We really haven’t given up anything by making these choices, although sometimes the workarounds can get a bit creative! I’ve ranked our choices from most money saved per year to least. Moving Closer to Work While Reducing Our Rent Two years ago, Kyle and I were living in a luxury apartment and we really … Read entire article »
Filed under: choices, credit cards, frugality, housing, luxuries, spending
The Cost of an In-Town Move Part 2
Yesterday we finally received our refund from Time Warner, so our all expenses have been settled from our move in mid-September! (6-8 weeks to issue the refund and 3 weeks to have it mailed. Seriously??) I can finally report what our in-town move cost and compare it to what we spent last year. The two townhouse rentals are very similar – both about 1200 square feet, both 2 bedroom/2 bath, and about a mile apart off … Read entire article »
Filed under: housing
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