July 14, 2014
I’ve talked about Sibling’s dog before; I have hated leaving him there because I know he deserves better care and maintenance but couldn’t summon the strength to deal with:
1. the removal from one home,
2. installation into our home where we have breed restrictions,
3. while fighting an uphill battle with my Sibling over the removal,
4. acclimating New Dog into a small, yardless, abode.
That’s before you even consider all that he needs, aka, the reason we’d be taking him away in the first place.
Basic supplies: bed, leash, collar, food and water bowls, adequate food.
He’s either malnourished or underfed or both because he’s lost way too much weight.
Estimated cost: $300 to start, $45/month ongoing.
Medical supplies: he needs to be neutered, he’s got something going on with his skin that could be anything from a food allergy to … well, any number of things. But he’s breaking out and his poor enormous-dog paws are swollen and red and tender to the touch. The only thing he has got going for him is that his pearly whites are truly pearly white.
Estimated cost: $250 to start if I can book the animal shelter for the neutering, rabies vaccine, microchip, pre-surgery bloodwork if required due to age.
Then … $$$ for treating the skin issues if it’s not just food allergies or environmental causes.
Training: he’s been off-leash so long, he has to learn how to walk politely, on a lead, again.
Estimated cost: Time. Energy. Patience. Doggle’s patience.
Boarding: His rescue will happen before we have unchangeable plans to travel so we need to find a place that’ll board him for a reasonable amount. Brian suggested DogVacay.com which seemed really promising but it turns out most of them discriminate against certain breeds (and from at least one inquiry, based entirely on one bad incident which is preposterous considering the only bad encounters we’ve ever had at dog parks were with Golden Retrievers trying to kill Doggle, while none of the “aggressive” breeds were anything but lovely. This isn’t an isolated experience either, other dog owning friends have had the same experience, but you don’t hear us saying we can’t trust Goldens.)
***
Step One is still going to be horrible. I have to extract him safely and without triggering the Sibling in some way. I can stand him off on my own, I think, but what happens when we leave? What happens when he gets upset at how long the dog’s been gone? Does he try to come hunting us down and then I have a problem with an out of control sibling raging on our front step? Probably unlikely but not out of the question and what do I do then? Call the police and have him hauled off?
But I also can’t keep letting the possibility of his outrage or upset delay us any longer – the dog needs help and it’s clear to anyone else who looks at him.
We’re planning to make it happen this summer. We’re already going to be extremely busy and have our hands full but we’re doing our best to plan ahead to make it go as smoothly as possible. Do wish us luck – we’ll need it!
July 8, 2014
Doggle gets a very generous annual allowance in our budget, something of a reminder-to-self that it’s an expensive prospect having pets [just ask Funny About Money about her Ruby!]. At this point, I suppose you really could indeed put a price on all the hugs and kisses I force on the hapless, long-suffering Doggle.
We actually rarely spend the amount set aside for him, but overspending in other categories [ahem. food. lots of food. travel.] tends to eat into the unspent allowance so the annual spend sort of evens out. This year, however, we literally cannot afford to do that.
Our routine visit to the vet turned into anything but. I opted to do the full senior package: exam, bloodwork, urinalysis, fecal test. I normally would have passed on it but we needed the bloodwork anyway in anticipation of having his teeth cleaned, and we were a bit concerned about whether he had another issue going on. The senior package came with a 15% discount for follow-up labwork, and considering the possible follow-ups we’d need to do, I decided to go with it. $333 later, we found…
He didn’t have a chronic gland problem but instead we found an asymptomatic infection so we’ve been treating that to the tune of $317 for a two week supply of antibiotics. *faint* I immediately compared the clinic pharmacy price to the cost online and found that we weren’t being seriously overcharged, we would have paid very close to that price if I’d ordered from say, 1-800-petmeds.
Two weeks of exhausted Doggle on meds later, our follow-up labwork ($130) showed that he STILL had an infection. On the merest brighter side of the ledger, I insisted that the receptionist follow up with the vet to confirm that the 15% discount should have applied to that charge, so we scraped back a whole $19.50. Much good that’ll do us in the face of a second round of antibiotics ($150) and another lab test after that. At least we’ll save another $19.59 on the third test. *skeptical brow*
When we finally lick this infection, we’ll then fork over nearly $1000 for his dental. He’s in dire need of a really good cleaning, probably never having had one, as his teeth look dodgy, breath smells worse, and I am pretty sure there are broken teeth that need checking. He’s going to love that. And probably will have to have yet another round of antibiotics if the teeth have to come out.
Where are we, that’s about $2000? Well. Of course, that’s not the end of the story – why would it be?
But I think I’ll have to save that for another post. This one just takes the wind out of my sails as it is.
July 3, 2014
I’ve been seeing tweets about how whiners whining about the Hobby Lobby decision are stupid and then I saw: “you’re paid cash to go buy food, why can’t you also take that cash and pay for your own damn health insurance?”
And I’m even seeing PF bloggers apparently agree that these are equivalent. And it’s driving me a little crazy.
I don’t even know where to start with the ways this whole thing drives me crazy: financially, scientifically, medically, philosophically but I’m just throwing a few of them here so I can get back to work. I’ll grant this could be more polished but seriously, I need to get back to work.
1. Health insurance is vastly, VASTLY, more expensive than food. And plenty of people go without health insurance in order to pay for food. It’s a compromise that simply cannot go in the other direction. So given that you’re only paid X amount per month, one of the first things you’re going to pay for is FOOD. And shelter. And we all know that medical care is so expensive in this country that one or even two medical emergencies can bankrupt you. Food is not the same thing as healthcare.
2. You’re paid cash for your work, yes, but your health insurance is a part of your compensation package for work you do for them.
It is either offered as a competitive advantage over other employers or you’re paid more money because the smaller employers cannot afford to offer it as part of their benefits. And that’s if you’re working at a level or a place where benefits are even offered. But either way, they sure as shootin’ aren’t offering NON employees health insurance, so what the heck is with the the implication that you’re expecting free lunch? So I expect to be able to use my health insurance just like I use my cash: how-the-frak-ever way I choose.
As Greg Rucka said: Health insurance is not “free abortions” or “free contraception” or “government anything.” It is compensation. For work.
By the way, plenty of top companies ALSO tout their actual free lunch (and even dinners) as a benefit of working for them. But you have to ACTUALLY WORK FOR THEM. I should have thought that was obvious.
3. The audacity of any employer, or any layperson who is NOT my health care provider/professional, telling me what I can or cannot use in treating my medical condition because they decided it violates their personal beliefs is beyond the pale. Heck I don’t think the health care provider/professional’s personal beliefs should have any bearing on my medical care.
Where the hell do businesses get off redefining science and medicine for their employees? And why do so many people seem to think birth control is birth control is birth control and is ONLY used for birth control? Here’s a secret: It’s not.
A) One medication does NOT work just the same as any other for every single person. There’s a REASON we have to have alternatives. 20 pain medications prescribed to me do nothing but make me sicker. ONE of them makes me physically better and mentally a cracked up mess. If the 22nd medication worked for me, that’s the fricking one I’m going to use! And if an employer wanted to tell me that, well, they believe that 22nd medication is from the devil and so I should only use the 21st, I’d toast Satan while quaffing my meds and flip them off with the other hand.
That doesn’t even touch on my next point …
B) Cost. COST! I’m SOL on the point of controlling pain, I live in constant pain every day, but if there was an alternative that cost $1K a month and my employer-offered health insurance refused to cover it only because they philosophically disapproved so I should use the other cheaper and religious-belief approved options? Y’all would see Mount Vesuvius all over again.
C) Do you know what else birth control is used for? Just a few reasons it’s been prescribed to just the people I know:
To mitigate the crippling (literally crippling) effects of menstrual cycles. I’ve had more than one friend who had to be on birth control because they had passed out from the pain and the excessive blood loss.
To mitigate the crippling effects of, or even to treat, endometriosis.
To mitigate the side effects of the menstrual cycles in relation to other conditions. I had to stay on it for 3 years because that to allow me to remain mobile and productive because otherwise I’d lose weeks out of the month as it aggravated my fibro.
The day that Magic Elixer Snake Oil Ltd comes out with something that treats all of those conditions, problems, and all the other ones that birth control helps with? We’ll talk. Until then, non medical and science professionals need to take a BIG step back in declaring what exactly medications do or are.
4. This judgement offends my conservative nature to no end. I believe in small government and that the government should stay out of my bedroom, my shed, and get the hell off my lawn. I also believe in the health of the herd and I believe in health care; you want to prevent a huge financial burden on the nation due to aging and chronic preventable illnesses? You want to poor people to stop having so many babies that will need assistance? *points to healthcare* Hi, there’s a really good answer for that. I believe in personal responsibility and I believe there are times that common sense, not politics, is the answer.
And there’s not one ounce of my being that would think that my employer should have the right to hang out in my doctor’s waiting room dictating what science and medicine is or does or is acceptable according to their beliefs.
More specifically, saying that prevention of pregnancy is the same thing as aborting pregnancy doesn’t make it so and saying that any religious beliefs of ANY sort should dictate how I or any of my family or friends or fellow citizens can receive treatment based on the fact that they’re employed by someone holding those beliefs is beyond preposterous. I respect your religion, so you damn well better respect mine.
In short, this decision is poor on so many levels and sets a precedent that doesn’t bear thinking on but now we have to because the “narrow” ruling’s already being broadened from “only four” birth control methods to “for-profit employers who object to all twenty forms of birth control included in the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate, not just the four methods at issue in the two cases decided on Monday.”
Lastly, I was very interested to see religious leaders speaking out against this:
Although the owners of these for-profit corporations oppose the contraceptive requirement because of their pro-life religious beliefs, the requirement they oppose will dramatically reduce abortions. Imagine a million fewer unintended pregnancies. Imagine healthier babies, moms and families. Imagine up to 800,000 fewer abortions. No matter your faith or political beliefs, our hunch is that we can all agree that fewer unplanned pregnancies and fewer abortions would be a blessing.
Julia K. Stronks, evangelical Christian and political science professor together with Jeffrey F. Peipert, a Jewish family-planning physician
The New Testament never—not one time—applies the ‘Christian’ label to a business or even a government,” he writes. “The tag is applied only to individuals. If the Bible is your ultimate guide, the only organization one might rightly term ‘Christian’ is a church. And this is only because a church in the New Testament is not a building or a business, but a collection of Christian individuals who have repented, believed on Christ, and are pursuing a life of holiness.
Jonathan Merritt, an evangelical Christian writer and blogger for the Religion News Service
June 23, 2014
My short answers:
Credit cards first assuming it’s under 50K and not a long term recurring expense. Pay it off with….
1. Expenses checking account.
2. Savings specifically holding money for the expenses account.
3. Emergency cash fund.
4. Several CDs.
5. Sell off stock portfolio.
6. Retirement savings.
(How short is short??)
7. Sell the property if it’s that bad.
But of course that just triggered a bunch of questions. What are we talking about when we say, short?
If I “overspent” in any given month (wedding expenses, I guess are the only thing that has recently been in this category), it’d be on the credit card. Those are paid in full with cash in my our checking account specifically meant for paying bills. We put our paychecks in there, less our automated savings, so whatever’s in there is “fair game”. Of course, when that goes above a certain amount, I skim right off the top and put it in emergency savings too so that grows a little faster than generally planned. What? I LIKE SAVINGS.
(Shoot, I LOVE savings. Like I love donuts. And I love donuts.)
I still leave a healthy amount in there (up to several thousand) because nothing in the emergency fund comes out for anything short of a medical emergency, job loss or death in the family. At that, while we didn’t do anything extravagant so it wasn’t an unreasonable amount, Mom’s funeral was paid in full with a check the day of the arrangements. And before that, her major dental expenses went on my credit card, and was also paid off in full. So that checking account can bear up against a few strains pretty easily.
If we are talking job loss, though, that’s a different story. That’s ongoing expenses for an undetermined amount of time so I’d be looking at ways to mitigate the lack of income (unemployment income, freelancing, consulting – whatever) at the same time as tapping the emergency fund.
I spent almost a year unemployed. During that time, I worked the network HARD while freelancing and writing; back then the emergency fund wasn’t nearly as healthy but the expenses had also been trimmed back to a fare-thee-well, so the rate of withdrawal wasn’t truly atrocious. Scary, yes, because once I was tapped out, that was me AND my family on the street, but objectively, not that bad.
Our expenses now have grown: two households, two dependents, pets, long distance family to visit, etc. We CAN cut back in some ways but not a whole lot. So the list generally stays the same.
It’s both comforting to know that our savings could probably carry us at least a year based on our expenses not changing and assuming no emergencies (though c’mon, one bad turn tends to breed another), and scary to think it probably couldn’t last 2-3 years. My comfort zone lies in a much higher amount of savings.
:: Over to you! What’s your emergency money plan?
June 19, 2014
It’s a PF truism that we should always value experiences more than stuff. Mostly I agree because I love saving money and hate having too many things. Even now I’m having a bit of an allergic reaction to the excess stuff we have here at home, and can’t wait for a burst of energy that’ll help me organize a closet sorting things out for disposal or donations.
But only mostly. As much as I don’t like clutter – useful things? I LOVE THEM. Things that make my life easier, happier, or more comfortable are alright in my book. I have a terrible memory so while I do enjoy our occasional outings, weekending frequently would just leave me in an addled haze not recalling one special event or another. And PiC is pretty amazing at Things-Maintenance so if we choose something that fits us and our lifestyle, it’ll last us a long while. Things aren’t just disposable in this household.
Here are a few of my favorite things this year ….
These were a gift, and I use them every day. They’re great for: serving or mixing sauces, serving condiments, chopped ingredients like garlic and shallots, a real serving size of my favorite cookies, nuts or crackers and cheese, a dab of post-dinner ice cream …
How I’d never heard of these before, I’ll never know. But these are fabulous. And they have smiley faces underneath, so even better!
They really are soft and squishy which is wonderful for my generally aching hips and knees; the cloth bands are both snug and never pinch or dig into my ankles; they’re actually rather attractive. I never get compliments on my shoes because I typically choose really basic, boring shoes for their functionality. Here we have form AND function!
(6 Buttons, 3 DPI Adjustment Levels and 2000 DPI)
I work a LOT. Most waking hours of the day are spent on the computer. So it’s probably no surprise that my hand comfort is critical.
For years I used a lovely Microsoft mouse that a reader was kind enough to gift me because I couldn’t afford one at the time; that finally pooped out on me. This mouse is big in my hand, but that’s perfect because it allows my hand to relax while resting on it and mousing at the same time. The tiny USB connection is revolutionary after having struggled not to catch the huge-flash drive style connection of the old mouse, and best of all? This mouse works on any surface. I can sit anywhere and use the mouse on a relatively flat surface. Heck, I’ll confess to mousing on my belly when I’m using the laptop on the sofa and don’t feel like finding a pillow at the right height to rest my hand on!
I tentatively love this. Freedom from cable! It hiccups on occasion but that’s probably because we don’t have top notch internet. I don’t love the huge HDMI cable required but the Roku itself is tiny which is great.
:: What things are wonderful and delightful in your life?
NOTE: I have added Amazon affiliate links above if anyone wants to order through them, what pennies that brings in will go to keeping on the blog lights. 🙂
March 25, 2014
Hell yes.
Happiness is: peace of mind, freedom, security, joy.
I started blogging nearly a decade ago, in what now seems to be the early dawn of personal finance blogging. Many of the early blogs I got to know are gone now, those that remain have grown up and moved out, sold to PF conglomerates of one sort or another. A few are still chugging along steadily, big and small, populating the landscape like old neighbors. I like old neighbors. It suggests a homeyness and the coziness of people who understand boundaries and respect them, not expecting too much and not talking too much. I still read a variety of bloggers: life-money, wealth, debt bloggers; and their stories keep pushing me to do a little better today than I did yesterday.
One of those bloggers, Ramit (of I Will Teach You to Be Rich) who needs absolutely no publicity from me, sent around an email recently about how he was going to take off for a skiing weekend; his business would continue to rake in the cash orders of magnitude more than he spent. That, of course, set off one of my classic “If you give a mouse a cookie” moments:
I’d like to be able to send an email to my good friends suggesting a weekend away, and pay for it. But some of them have kids. They might have the flexibility to go on an all expenses paid trip but it’d be a pain for them to say, fly cross country, with kids and all their associated luggage. So it’d be awesomer to charter a plane. Oh even better? It’d be best to have my own plane that I didn’t have to pilot and … ok, this just got a whole lot more expensive.
That got me thinking: Based on my definition, quantitatively speaking, I would say that I am at least three times happier now than I was nearly ten years ago.
But I can always find a way to spend more money. Always. I don’t live profligately but my imagination has no shortage of ideas of how to do things “better” that just so happen to cost a few hundred thousand dollars. Or more. It’s not like I’m a hard-partier who believes in working hard = playing hard, but let’s be honest, I could certainly see myself positively wallowing in luxury should I manage to find a way to unbelievable wealth.
Wouldn’t it follow that it doesn’t matter how much money I have, I wouldn’t be happy?
It’s 2014 and most of my expectations haven’t come true.
- I didn’t save my parents from themselves. In fact, that was an epic fail as far as what I *thought* was going to happen: happy healthy parents living in the house I’d bought for them, able to travel the world a couple times a year, able to hang out with me and my chosen family.
- I don’t hold a Master’s degree in anything unless you can have a degree in Grit and Perseverance. You really can’t frame that. Over the years, no degree seemed worth the effort of juggling work and school simultaneously.
- I don’t have a pack of rescued dogs, in the house I bought before age 30. Nope.
These were just a few things on my 30 by 30 list if that had been a thing half a lifetime ago. I’d just started out in my first post-college job, making below the median salary for the field, fresh-minted in the professional world, if not the financial world. My parents were in dire financial straits, I was going to save them, and all was going to be well in the world.
If we were grading my life, using that list, I’d be transported back to those horrible days in high school when a B felt like the end of all things, good or ill. So why would I contend that money = happiness?
Take a step back
Life isn’t about a pre-determined list and checking off the boxes. In today’s society, that’s really easy to forget.
In no small part due to tripling my salary in the past decade, happiness isn’t some holy grail. It’s part of everyday life thanks to the things I didn’t see coming, not the stuff I so carefully planned.
I’m happily married….
Can’t say I saw that coming. Seriously, even though I spent the last many years in a long term relationship, marriage was still something that I supposed would or wouldn’t happen but I wasn’t focused on it as an end goal.
Instead I was all too aware of how tightly wound I was about every. single. penny. PiC would never admit it out loud (though, party trick: watch his eyes dilate a little if the subject ever comes up) but I was NOT easy to live with when he was privy to me in full-caretaking mode. I was worried ALL the time. I was worried day, night and twilight about whether I was making enough to make rent, to cover the cost of fixing Mom up again after her latest run-away and fall, how I was going to pay for nursing care, how I was going to pay for her and Dad’s continued costs of living. And was I working hard enough to make the case for a serious raise, was I performing at star levels, 24 hours a day? And my health was terrible. Stress, as it turns out, exacerbates the health problems so I was, as far as things go, a pretty awful partner to live with for a few years. Making a lot more money – surprise! – made huge difference.
We now enjoy some luxuries, we’re able to have both some things we want and all our needs are met.
Money didn’t save my mom….
but it gave my parents a place to live and stability that they wouldn’t have had if I wasn’t paying.
My health still sucks….
but I have an actual support network now. In the last few years, PiC and I have learned how to cope with it together. The first 15 years of living with fibro was incredibly lonely and isolating. With his support and help, I can afford to pay for alternative treatments to alleviate the pain. With friends who understand, I have people to talk to about something that’s both horrible and never-ending. Friends who have never been seriously sidelined have no understanding of what it’s like to live like this, and I’d never wish it on them obviously, but it’s still been incredibly isolating.
Freedom & Security
These go hand in hand. I haven’t reached the magic number or magic solution that would mean I could go without employment for months or years but I do have the beginnings of both. I have the ability to plan for them, not just dream of them.
Money can’t buy talent, “success”, brains. It sure as heck never bought me great health. I suppose it could buy some measure of beauty if I cared enough about that.
But money in the bank is how I sleep nights I’d otherwise spend sitting up working a few more hours of overtime, or trying to figure out how to cover this month’s bills. Money in the emergency fund is how I ward off a few more nightmares about how we’re going to survive. Money in the brokerage, and paying down the mortgage, is how we build our more secure future, brick by brick. Money is how I can help others: frees up time to volunteer, frees up resources for those who need it a little more.
Money may not buy the actual sense of happiness or satisfaction but it goes a LONG way to easing the road. Still, the experience of being broke was as enlightening, perhaps more educating, than having been born to it.
The fruit of being broke
A work ethic.
I probably never would have worked as hard as I did to pay down my family’s debts. I probably never would have learned the satisfaction of making it, on my own terms, making the best of anything that came our way.
Friends.
Believe it or not, any friends I still have are down to my sparkling personality, not my money. (chortles “sparkling”).
Pride.
This goes with a work ethic. What I have, I earned. And I can be proud of that. And I’ve learned to be proud of my work itself; forget being self effacing!
Values.
Some studies say that as wealth increases, empathy and compassion decrease. I can safely say that remembering where I came from, and knowing that you can always give someone a helping hand, will never be a problem. The challenge will be passing along that awareness to the next generation.
Priceless: having a value beyond any price
Naps.
A sense of style.
My dog’s love. (No seriously, I’ve tried bribing him with all manner of treats. I’m acceptable for survival purposes but that’s it.)
Depth perception. (Sure, you say “glasses” but I say: that’s how I first fell UP a flight of stairs.)
Common sense. Sure I have some, but a trip to the department store won’t get more.
Appreciation for the good things in life.
DO SHARE
:: What’s your take?
:: What are your flights of fancy?
Related posts: Miss Thrifty putting the emergency fund to good use.
June 6, 2013
This post about all the reasons a house is a terrible investment (via nicoleandmaggie) made me laugh a little. Most of these ring true as financial reasons my pocketbook doesn’t want a house just yet, even as we’re staring at homes in the area, and starting to save for a new down payment.
If it were a purely financial transaction, I’d really think about six more times about trying to buy a house given the real estate market here in the Bay Area. Everywhere I look: astronomical prices. Apparently this is the “Paradise Tax” according to @isobelcarr, but my heat-loving soul protests.
I grew up renting all our lives and I still think it was a relatively simple way to go considering my family didn’t have steady and at least a bit consistent income. They could manage rent but managing the costs of maintenance and ongoing property taxes probably wasn’t likely. So despite being good friends with people who were firm proponents of real estate as investments, I had trouble picking up that attitude.
I can’t think of my home as an investment, not the home that I live in.
It’s my home and retreat and I’d love it. But I wouldn’t be so enamored as to think we’d ever resell at a high enough price to recoup: down payment, all fees associated with the hunt and the purchase, all the interest (yes, it may be tax deductible but still), any fees associated with refinancing as we’d probably do at least once, and of course, principal payments, insurance.
Given the high unlikelihood that a home would reliably turn a profit, it’s a purchase, in my opinion. Unless it’s to be rented out, in which case you have a whole other set of calculations, but we’re talking about a home you live in for the sake of argument.
The case for buying?
There are certainly good reasons to buy. As a homebody, it’s the place I’d spend the most time. Owning would mean having general, if slightly limited, control over the routine monthly costs when I made the initial financial decisions: down payment, term of loan, interest rate (which is still ultimately determined by the market rate).
Assuming no HOA, I would have generally free rein to do with the house as I pleased, and most importantly, rescue any kind of dog I wanted. None of this stupid breedist crap you get from HOAs which assume that large dogs are dangerous when my experience shows that 80% of the small dogs owned by our neighbors are untrained, unsocialized panic or aggression-driven little craps that go for Doggle’s throat every time.
The case for renting?
There’s definitely something to be said for only being responsible for your own conduct in a rental, and not being responsible for routine or emergency maintenance. Having to fix your own EVERYTHING is expensive and exhausting according to multiple homeowning friends. I’m not greatly familiar with the rules outside of CA but landlords must respond to problems within a reasonable period of time, and if we preferred to handle calling in for services ourselves, our landlords tended to be fine with our deducting the bill from our rent.
A good renting and credit record tends to buy you leniency and cooperation from a hands-off landlord too: they don’t mind accommodating requests that might be slightly out of the ordinary.
Having the flexibility to pack up and move with a month of notice may be important if you’re a university student, a young adult starting out with a new job, an adult looking for new jobs in a tight job market, a retiree who doesn’t like to be tied down to a mortgage or a single place … in other words, the flexibility of renting could be important to just about anyone. There’s something incredibly stressful about, say, getting a new mortgage and then unexpectedly getting laid off in a recession or bad job market, even with the best of emergency funds.
The variables…
Cost effectiveness of renting v buying: Depending on where you are, the supply of rentals may be low, driving the cost of renting an equivalent home higher. Or it may be high, in which case you have lease incentives, and more expansive options to lure you as a renter. Toss-up.
Your living space: If you have a good and reasonable landlord, you may have relative freedom as to personalizing your home. Or not. Or your landlord may suck at doing repairs in a timely manner. Or you might, as a homeowner.
HOAs: There’s a bunch of stuff I hate about HOAs. It is nice not to have to worry about the long-term maintenance but I’m not sure it’s totally worth the trade-off. And we feel that much more tightly bound to our neighbors. The good ones, the horrible ones, the really horrible ones. It’s a crapshoot whether the people who run for a seat on the board will be competent as well.
Over to you: what are your priorities when it comes to your living arrangements? Are you a renter, buyer, both? (neither…?)
Confession: I always dreamed of buying a house outright with cash. I don’t think that’s going to happen soon.