Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Growing up sucks. Like this, but much more.

T. and I are getting close to buying a house, and it's intimidating, and a lot of work. By the numbers: I've received 24 and sent 10 e-mails today as of now about inspections or the loan. For comparison, I have received only nine unrelated e-mails so far today and sent none. This is probably peak e-mail day, both because we're into really-really-final financial stuff (unless we back out!) and because we're trying to schedule two inspections, so I admit the process isn't usually this bad, but still, it's boggling.

The house in question might be a money pit. We had an inspection, it found a bunch of problems, and we're now trying to schedule two follow-ups to see exactly how bad two particular issues are. I think we've decided that if the following reviews find any new or worse problems at all then we want to walk away. If we actually don't find any new problems and those two remaining issues are in great shape, then we'll probably buy it. That's just the start of the fun: I'll have to borrow money from my parents just to cover my half of the down payment. And we already know the place needs some work, and we'd want to do some of that before moving in (which costs even more money up front) and some more of it eventually (which is disruptive to live with). And even if we don't buy this specific house, we're still planning to have a lot more money-spending-and-borrowing and tied-down-being in our future. And all of that apparently needs to be figured out this week.

Also, I apparently have bad credit. I had known for a while that my credit rating wasn't all that great, partly because I've missed a payment on my credit card now and then, but mostly because I don't have much of a credit record one way or the other. I only have one credit card and I don't use it much because a debit card is just as good (except for establishing credit...), and my college education was paid for from my grandmother's estate. But now, bad credit matters. And now that I actually look closely at the report, I realize that my credit isn't just bad compared to T., whose credit report was unusually good, but compared to the average. Damn. In addition to the practical problems - our interest rate is a bit higher than it would be if we both had T.'s rating - I also feel guilty for inflicting my bad credit on her.

And the crazy thing is, home-buying is just the start. There are also two other big, grown-up issues I'm dealing with that weren't even on the radar a year ago and have got much bigger and more serious over the past two weeks. This is just the least private issue, but take my word for it, I feel like I'm going from 25 to 35 in a month or so.

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