Monday BF 2/26

jsnakehole

...I don't even want to tell y'all what houses cost in NYC. Even in the outer boroughs. 

melprop

BIL’s wife is basically a freeloader. BIL works a FT job, does a lot of the housework, takes care of their kids. She doesn’t work because she has “health issues” with no definite medical evidence or diagnosis. I’m 99% sure she’s addicted to Rx painkillers. Her doctors baby her for a year or so, then refuse to renew her pain prescriptions, and she switches doctors and health systems because “nobody understands her.” She has taught her 6yo & 9yo to take complete care of themselves - like how to cook macaroni & cheese on the stove so she doesn’t have to cook for them, how to scrub toilets and do laundry so she doesn’t have to do anything around the house. They drop their kids off with MIL & FIL all the time, but do almost nothing to help MIL & FIL so that’s all on us. Then they do shit like “please buy our kid this super expensive toy for his birthday because we can’t afford it after buying beer & cigarettes.” Um, no. Go without beer or smoke fewer cigarettes for a week. Or make an attempt to stop smoking & drinking, which would probably help her “health problems.” 

ecwk

The MA prices aren’t as bad as NYC or Cali but they’re up there. When I see what my friends/family down south (Texas, Florida, the Carolinas) get for their money it makes me want to move!!

derbysquirrel

DH is from SoCal, and loves it, but we'll never move back there because COL is so high! We own two 4 BR houses in two states (OR and CO), both with nice yards in nice cities, and paid about $400k for them COMBINED. Currently one is a rental, which has been a nice income boost. I can't imagine ever spending more than $300k on a house.

ssthomps

We are looking to buy a bigger house but South florida is crazy priced as well. Not as bad as Cali or NYC though. We are looking to get a 4 bedroom, 2 bath with a yard and pool and we are looking at the high 4 to 5. The benefit to us is that we bought our house during the recession so we have a decent amount of equity. We also have the best school district and our community is highly sought after. It definitely sucks to think of how much our bills will increase to buy a new home. 

neeraja_k

And here I thought house prices in Montana were insane at $200k for around what we're looking for. Our current home is around $180k and that's 3br 2ba on three wooded acres. lol

scottishlass1213

Yeah so we are around DC so our house prices are a tad high lol. We actually rent out our first townhouse we owned and moved to a single family home 2 years ago. It’s ridiculous but I suppose our wages for certain jobs are higher here too so it sort of balances...sort of haha

melbel0824

@scottishlass1213 I'm about an hour south of D.C. and some house prices aren't bad, but there's a huge range. We're on the high end because we like fancy things and we built our house two years ago. 

melissaf22

I’m in MD and I think the house prices here are crazy too, we have a 3 br townhouse with 2 car garage and no yard and we paid around $330k for it, I would love a single family home but in this area the lowest price is around $500k

hfooter

Housing in Portland is getting up there. We paid $530k for a 2700sf 5 bedroom house built in 1976 on a 10k lot. It’s mind boggling. If we hadn’t have bought our first house in 2011 and made $150k off it I don’t know how we’d do it. My BIL just spent $360k on a 1400sf house in an area that is not desirable. And it took them making four other offers on other houses to finally get one. Insane.

jsnakehole

Even the smallest house in our area will cost close to $1M. Minimum. If it weren't for the fact that my work is here and our families are here, we wouldn't be staying in NYC. 

ladygali

The sticker on the back of my car says “Cleveland: an affordable, decent place to live.” Lol because it’s true. Our 3 bed, 2 bath house, around 2k sq feet and a huge fenced in yard was $150k. We could have gotten something bigger but we knew I wanted to stay home for a few years and we needed something DH could cover on his income. 

My BF is my mil. I wish there was a way to tell her to stop f%#&ing interrupting me every other word. She’s the worst listener. 

ssthomps

jsnakehole said:

Even the smallest house in our area will cost close to $1M. Minimum. If it weren't for the fact that my work is here and our families are here, we wouldn't be staying in NYC. 

How is the pay for teachers out there? I always wonder how the working class manages in New York. It has the perception that if you are not famous you can’t afford to live there. 

nll0803

My BF is coworkers that are close talkers with horrible breath. I know I have spidey nose, but its so hard not to gag/make the eww face. 

jsnakehole

@ssthomps I'm five years in with a masters degree, and I make about $63K/year. When I get 30 credits past my masters and hit a certain number of years in, I can make around $120K. Almost every teacher I know (myself included) works multiple jobs, plus a summer job to make ends meet. At multiple points in my career I've worked three jobs, plus all the work I take home from school for grading and lesson plans. 

Living here is really tough, but my family has been here since the early 1900s. We've slowly crept out of poverty to somewhat middle-class. Like I said, we would consider leaving if it weren't for the fact that our whole support system is here, plus my pension I've been paying into for years. 

ssthomps

@jsnakehole Yea that’s tough. I was working two jobs and there were days I wanted to shoot myself. In my field alot of people work two or more jobs as well to make ends meet. 

hezzer78

I was beginning to think I wasn't going to have a BF today but this lady I know came through for me...

We announced the pregnancy on FB yesterday, and I went to dance class tonight. There's a lady in the class who's my friend on FB and she's nice and all, but jsut a little awkward and kind of a loud mouth. So I walk in (luckily before class started so not many people were there) and she goes real loudly "Hey there pregnant lady!" And I just flat out ignored her for a good 2 or 3 minutes while I talked to other people. And she was like "Well she announced it on FB!" First of all, not everyone in that room is my FB friend, and 2nd of all, that's not your news to tell - that's MY news to tell everyone how I want to tell them. 

I chatted with her in private later and let her know that not everyone at that studio is my friend, and I'd like to be able to tell people my own way - I was super nice about it, but jeezus. Literally three other dancers came up when they got there (after her big announcement) and whispered congrats to me and gave me a hug. That's the proper way to do it. 

scottishlass1213

melissaf22 said:

I’m in MD and I think the house prices here are crazy too, we have a 3 br townhouse with 2 car garage and no yard and we paid around $330k for it, I would love a single family home but in this area the lowest price is around $500k

Yay a fellow MD’er! I thought I was alone. I’m between Baltimore and DC. But we also chose to live in a town known for its high HOA’s for the schools. 

shri929

@jsnakehole are you in Manhattan or surrounding? I’m in westchester and teach in the Bronx 

elsieisamoocow

@jsnakehole Ugh I know. We lived in NYC before moving here. We had a studio apartment in Manhattan (Hudson Yards), 400sq feet, granted it was in nice and newish building, but the rent back when we moved hiked up to $2400 a month. 

Rent I would think should be more affordable than buying, but the price of rent for the size house we need here would be well over what the mortgage would be. It's just insane. And of course DH has worked himself into an awesome niche of a career, but that means he needs to be where the big theatre companies are - mostly LA and NYC. I love that he loves his job and gets really cool opportunities, but sometimes I really wish he had a more common profession so we could live near a more mid-sized city.