We're Going Housing...

My dad laughs at me. Why does he laugh at me? Because I like making spreadsheets. For everything. Why do I like making spreadsheets so? Because it's my thing. And they're just about useful for any scenario you need to analyze. Such as figuring out a downpayment for a house, and how much you could save by having "investors" loan you enough to cover a 20% downpayment versus paying a 10% downpayment by yourself. Why do I keep asking myself questions? Because yes, I am a quintessential nerd.

I've been throwing around the idea of buying a house the last couple of weeks. My reasoning is that I am happy with Dow and want to stay with the company, and with my career aspirations, I need production experience, and the best place for me to be getting production experience currently is...Midland. Which puts me here for about another 3 years. Which I've started coming to terms with instead of dreading. And with all of the incentives out there this year for first-time buyers ($8000 tax credit from fed, $7500 interest-free loan, <5% fixed interest rates, and basically the crash of the entire housing market...), it is just a bit too logical of an option to not consider. I'm giving myself until May before I actually contact a realtor, but I've already started looking at finances and houses that are actually on the market around here currently. The biggest downsides of owning a home: I have to maintain it, I have to take care of it, I have to fix it. No one to fix the furnace if it breaks (without spending lots of money at least), no one to shovel for me or mow my currently non-existent lawn. And if I don't have a roommate, no one in the same building besides Loki and I (and Loki is a scaredy cat!). So it's still up for debate currently...

Speaking of moving and houses though, it seems like everyone else is moving OUT. Jeanette and Dylan both announced within a week that they have put their houses on the market so that they could move as quickly as the market would let them. Dylan even had his house staged and everything (which meant that he now has lots of flowers and fake plants taking over his house). This means I am currently also holding his cats hostage on top of Mona, putting my current number of cats up to 5. Wait, did that math not add up? That's because I'm also watching 2 cats for other friends, however they live in the same apartment building, so I just walk down and take care of those ones... I think I would have to move out of my apartment if there were 5 cats living in there, too much!

Oh, and I'm going to a Pistons playoff game on Friday. Apparently they're going to lose, which I could care less about..it'll just be a fun experience =) And thanks to Dow perks, the tickets were only $10 each, so I really don't have to care how the game goes!