We're moving!

Vince and I get to move back into our old apartment, and I am SOOOO excited!

{Our house 2 winters ago. It's split up into 4 separate apartments.}

Some people don't like talking about money and think it's inappropriate, but I am not one of those people. I don't care if someone asks how much money I make, what I  paid for something, how much is in my savings...I really don't care. Growing up we talked about money, so it's not a taboo subject to me. So just to let you know, I'll be talking about money, in case that makes you uncomfortable!

Here's our situation, for those of you that don't know:

At our current 2 bedroom duplex we pay $975 a month, not including anything. When you account for internet/cable, trash/sewer, electricity, and gas, the total for the month comes out to about $1,275 a month just for rent. We also have a $360/month car payment and pay $160/month for insurance. So the total for all of our 'necessary' bills every month is $1,795, or rounded up: $1,800.

In our new house, everything but internet and cable is included, for only $800 a month. When we lived there before we split the internet with neighbors, so that was only $20 a month, and we paid $50 a month for cable. We'll obviously still have insurance and a car to pay for, so the grand total at our new house would be $1,390, or round up, $1,400.

That means that after every bill is paid, we'll get to save about $400/month in our new place! That is $4,800 a year that we can save.

The reason we moved into our current house was because I wanted more space. I wanted a room to do crafts in, Vince wanted space to put his bikes, and we also wanted to live close to the forest for Roxanne. Now that we have all of that, I'm not satisfied with it. I'm extremely happy that we took the opportunity to move, because now I have seen the grass on the other side.

When we move, we plan on doing a LOT with our little space. As much as I loved it, it is not going to be as cluttered as it used to be:

Right now we are accustomed to living on $0 extra a month just because all of our money went to bills and food. Now we will be able to put some money into building a great little space to live, and buy things that will make our lives simpler. I am already scouring the internet and magazines for space saving ideas and I'm getting really excited about making our small place extremely functional. The main thing I want to really work on is the kitchen! It is small, so it's hard to have a food storage, which I want. 

{It wasn't always this messy, this was when we were moving!}

I really really loved our old house, that will soon be our new house. It is over 100 years old and has great character, wood floors, high ceilings, rounded 'corners'...just beautiful. It really was the space that made us want to move, but now we are willing to work with it.

The only thing that sucks about this move is that we are going to pay rent at TWO places for a month. I'm totally not excited about that. Our lease is up at the end of July, but our new place is available now. We talked to our old landlord and he wants us to move in, so he said he would definitely hold it for us through July. He said that he would really like some money for July, but if we couldn't afford it, he would be fine waiting until August. I think it's amazing that he would even offer that, so I really want to give him the rent for July, and then give him the rest of our deposit in August.

This means that our bills for July will be $2,595!!!! I'm kind of freaking out, but luckily Vince gets 3 paychecks in June, and I get 3 in July! That is definitely our saving grace.

We originally talked to our current landlord about us finding someone to live here and to see if the new person could sign a 13 month lease, but she's making it super difficult. She said that she is going to raise rent again in August (which she didn't even tell us about!), but she wouldn't tell me what she was going to raise it to! So if I were to find someone, I would have to tell them that their rent would be $975 for July, but that I wouldn't know what it would be after...ya, so stupid. She said she had a super hard time renting out the place before we came around, so I don't understand why she would even raise the rent again! The place definitely is NOT worth more than $975 a month. She's crazy.

I also asked her what would happen to our deposit if we found someone to 'take over' our lease, and she said she's not sure what she would do about it....what the hell?! I would think that if we found someone to move in, we would be able to get it all back. So we decided to not do anything good for her, and we're going to move into our new place throughout the month of July and just go through with our lease. I also decided that if she asks to show the place while we're still paying rent there, I'm going to say NO. If she's not willing to help us out in any way, then I sure as hell won't help her. I'm a bitter person, I know.

So there you have it, our exciting news! Blogging may be sporadic throughout the month, but bear with me. I'm crazy excited and crazy busy! Some posts I plan on having are my savings plans, some goals I have for the new place, and other stuff like that.