Determining Financial Priorities
I feel like I’m in a whirlpool of financial directions, every thing has it’s own individual course and nothing is overlapping, just spiraling instead. With the purchase of the house comes many new options, needs, and priorities. Where, what, and how will we approach these, consolidate them, make them work.
Not everything is a real need, merely wants dressed up and vying for attention. Most of them are my own constructs and I’m not sure where the partner stands on these issues. It seems that the house has been our decision, but everything beyond that is just individual assumptions not communicated. It is as though all of our shared energy ends at the contract negotiations and we’re too drained to talk about what will happen afterwards.
The issues/wants/needs that I’ve been mulling over:
- I stop working. When I decided to leave my full-time job and take a part-time position, I thought that it would be a temporary position. I figured that I’d work the part-time position until we moved into the new house and then just stop. What was I thinking?
I was thinking that we’d buy less house and actually spend less per month on our mortgage than we’re paying in rent. Well, that isn’t happening and I’m okay with that, except quitting work isn’t as possible now.
- Build a Workshop. I’ve mentioned that we need a workshop. Buying a house without a garage really puts us in a jam. There are two small sheds on the property, one is quite cute, but neither can hold the weight of the partners “stuff!”. I want to just get one built, but it’ll be some serious cash. I’ve pushed the partner to find out how much cash, but we’re both unsure of where to even start in looking up that stuff.
- Expand the family. Having another child has been really pushing on my mind lately. It’s an on-again-off-again feeling of a couple of intense months wanting a kid and a few more refusing the thought of another kid. Since I’m on the upswing of desire, I want to add this to not working. But, babies cost money — or at least thats what some people want you to believe (another post on this another time).
- Repairs/Updates/Furniture: The house will need a variety of repairs and many of them fall within the restoration range. We could go about doing restoration work on this house, but that does increase costs in some places. There are some tax incentives for doing restoration on an old house, but I’ve not read up on more recent laws and the book I’m currently reading only talks about restoration of commercial properties. Perhaps this only applies to commercial/income-producing properties still.
The partner and I need to talk about these things, but we are too tired to add more to our day. So much going on, not enough time to deal with it all.