Mission

Having said all the warm fuzzy stuff in my first post, I should now focus on what will probably be the more interesting challenge of the entire process. How do I buy, update, and live in this house on a razor thin budget?

Story time:
Well kids, we’re in a recession. The trend the last few years has been this: kids go to college, these same kids graduate from college, and get a job… Or so we thought.

Not that it’s impossible, but it’s definitely more challenging to find work than it has been in the recent past. So – if you’re like me – you keep the job you’ve had the last year of school even though you’re underpaid, underutilized, and ready to leave. You spend your evenings searching online job boards, following up on applications, and looking through house magazines..

Until one day you decide to get serious: Time to call in a favor. You talk to a well-connected friend back home in the hopes he or she knows someone (who knows someone) who knows about a job.

My friend says to me, "What are you doing next Wednesday? You should stop by and we can talk about what you’re looking for.”

“Sure, I was planning to come home Wednesday, anyway! See you then!”

OK, the part about me planning to drive 120 miles to be home for the afternoon in the middle of the week may have been a fib. A white lie, really. Harmless. But this sounded like the beginning of a nibble.

Long story short, I’m offered a position with a company that values its people, its customers, and its community and I love my work. Five years ago if you had asked if I would work in insurance, I would have laughed at you. Boring. No chance. Today, I see it through different eyes with a changed perspective. I get to work with small business owners every day – interesting people doing what they want and love to do. These people are in a position to make differences in the communities in which they live, and I get to help them along the way.

An unfortunate side effect of this and any other recession is this phenomenon people in the news media are now calling “Boomerang Children” – the kind that leave only to return after graduation to mess up your basement and eat all of your Dorito’s. Well, in that way, you could also say I am fairly typical for my generation; a boomerang man-child. (That just sounds gross, actually.. I’m sorry you had to read that.) I was fortunate enough to get a job, but rather than rent I decided to live at home for a short while to save up for the down payment I’d been waiting for. I find it to be slightly demoralizing, but financially it’s the right thing to do. Hence, BoomerangBungalow

So. As the boomeranging man-child, hippie insurance specialist that I am, I thought it would be nice to provide some insight to those in similar situations. I’ve never bought a house before, and I would bet many of you haven’t either. So, how do we make the final leap to claim our own independence? And how do we do so in a way that is responsible, practical, and affordable.

The point of this is not to be pessimistic or snarky, or complain in any way. I simply want to provide an honest account of what it takes to buy and renovate a house – and to provide a place for anyone else who knows about such things to teach all of us a thing or two.

For the sake of honesty going forward (and because I believe in full-disclosure), I should tell you I paid $27,000 for that cute little yellow house. If anyone outside of rural America should read this, yes THOUSAND. Even for Iowa, that’s ridiculously cheap. Slightly more expensive when you consider it needed a new roof 40 years ago, the plumbing has issues, the wiring is in need of review, the detached garage is leaning like Michael Jackson in “Smooth Criminal” from all the rot, along with all the typical updating things a person would do to make a home their own.

There is also the matter of the neighbor’s house. Or..lack of neighbor’s house – no one has lived there in five or six years.. and they left mid-renovations. Pictures to follow, though not pretty. It has become a neighborhood nuisance with broken windows and doors and aluminum siding waving in the wind. Lucky me, we share a driveway. However, at some point in the next year (or so) the city has plans to demolish the house to make way for a new home (or my own gigantic vegetable garden...we'll see!) In total I hope to spend less than the $50,000 I have taken out at my local bank.

This, my friends, is where the games begin!

I plan to do most of the work myself – and by "myself" I mean with an army of friends, family, and willing participants looking for free beer and/or pizza. This is (as anyone who has ever moved a sofa will tell you) where you find out who your true friends are J

Enough writing for one day. In the future, this will be much more entertaining – more pictures, videos, etc. but I haven’t taken possession yet, let alone started demolition. Have patience! In the meantime, have a great week!

Homework

I hate homework - most everything about it, actually. I hated homework so much while in college mostly because I hated what I was doing in college. (I graduated with degrees in Financial Management and Economics...needless to say, this guy was the life of the party.)

I did that to myself because I didn't want to be the guy who was 30 years old, who still wore sweatpants everyday, and referred to passers-by as "Bro" on his way to Personal Wellness. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with sweatpants (I am writing a blog, after all..). I'm just saying the seven year college track wasn't for me. College was fun. A blast. For me, though, moving on was always the purpose. I stuck with a major I disliked because deep down I knew I could pursue whatever it was I truly wanted once I had a degree, and I didn't want to spend any more time getting from 'Point A' to 'Point B' than I had to.
However, there was one thing I learned more than anything while in college: if there was something I didn't want to do, I wouldn't do it. Not in a 'kicking-and-screaming-on-the-floor-of-a-department-store" sort of way. I would do what needed done, but I definitely didn't put my heart into it. And I wanted desperately to put my heart into something.

It took some time before I put it together.

Why was I always more willing to finish my homework when I knew there was a copy of "Cottage Living" waiting for me? Why was 'This Old House' always more entertaining than 'Jersey Shore'? And why do I have this odd fascination with reading Martha Stewart's blog every day hoping for more musings from the vegetable gardens and butler's pantries of Bedford?

I now have a theory. Anytime I have a serious (read: wine-induced) conversation with a really good friend, I find that all any of us are really looking for is simplicity. We don't need to be media moguls, billionaires, or Super Bowl victors. We just need to be happy. We just want to live a life that is full and somehow rewarding - and if we leave the world a better place than it was? Bonus!
I want a house. Not a big house, but one with character and a story. Something I can restore and make even better. A place to call my own and to open up to everyone. I want to have dinner in my too-small dining room using vegetables I grew in my too-small yard. I want something simple. I want a home.

So now I begin the rest of my life - the life after school. The life of my own choosing. The kind of life that gets me involved in my small community. The kind of life where I take my own bags to the grocery store, and save food scraps in a bowl on the kitchen counter for the compost pile. My simple life.