How To Decide to Rent a Home or Buy - The Easy Way

This blog began as a way to capture what struggles you really have when you follow that sage debt-reduction advice "just down-size your life!"  From that beginning, it has morphed into a money blog for those of us who aren't money savvy, and aren't really sure we ever want to be!  We are English Majors in every sense of the word.

But the bigger story is still unfolding.  The key piece to living a debt-free bigger life was to sell the bigger house and downsize my living expenses -- from the monthly entergy bill to the rent.  It took a year, but I sold my Big House with the plan to Buy a Smaller One. Lessons learned about EBay, Craigs List, Renting and Moving are some of  the more popular posts.

Selling the Pool Table via Craig's List
Creating Stability with UPS Address
First Steps in Downsizing

The equity has been sitting in a nice Capitol One savings stash, earning 4% interest until recently, and I had figured I was saving money renting versus owning (quite a contrarian opinion!).   But I was living in a luxury condo and paying $5,000 a year less in expenses, so there was no impetus to buy.*

Each of these free internet calculators offered me the information I needed to make that decision to rent for 18 months.  Thanks to the New York Times, Michael Blue Jay's Awesome Calculator, BankRate.com, JD Roth, a devil's advocate opinion from Bargaineering, About.com's "Not Everyone Should Own a Home!", as well as a few surprises such as the calculator on Move.com. 

So...why am I two weeks away from closing on a townhome with the potential of saving $3,300 per year...and why should you consider doing the same?

New online PearBudget Makes Money Management Easy

JD Roth's Blog "Get Rich Slowly" is a constant source of fantastic money resources for English Majors.  Information on his blog inspired me to try the new online PearBudget money management software.  I have no idea what the Pear is all about, but the online version is the easiest envelope budgeting system I've ever used, and I've tried the top three or four.   They call it "really simple budgeting" and it's true.

With PearBudget, you have one category of expenses that are the same every month.  That group is separated from the expenses that you really can't predict, but can try to "set aside" a certain amount each month to be ready for them.  This is the trickiest part of monthly money management, in my opinion, and causes a lot of people to throw up their hands and just give up!  Don't do it...this problem can be solved