Brushes & Budgets

Sigh…This is more of a personal post with a financial aspect. It’ll help you understand what lead to the decision for me to begin budgeting though.

2016 was a very good year for me. I graduated from school for esthetics, I turned 30, I bought my first home, and most importantly, the start of my first long-term relationship began. Yes…30. Every relationship seems to start off great because your not looking for those apparent red flags and the person can do no wrong. I’m going to take things back to when I bought my first house.

I closed on my first house in June of 2016 for $113k. It was a 3 bedroom, 2 bath single family home that sat on almost a quarter of an acre of land. It was about 1,000 square feet but it didn’t feel small because it of the layout. It was absolutely perfect. Minus the lawn…I effing hated mowing the lawn but I was too broke to hire anyone. Anyhow. I was very close friends with my now ex before the relationship started. I came to the conclusion that I was in love with him in August of 2016. By October, we decided we should give a relationship a try after we both had a dream of us kissing. What was wild is both of us dreamed the kiss was extremely bad. I should’ve known…November 2016, right after Thanksgiving we went on our first official date and it was amazing. We became a couple right away because…what was the point of waiting right?! We wanted to get married…supposedly.

We were two freaking peas in a pod and at one point, I was spending more of my time at his house than I was at my own. He was much closer to my job and it made life easy. During a vacation we took in February 2017, he asked me to move in. Might I add, this wasn’t even 3 months into the relationship. I had heart eyes like a young girl in love, so I said yes. My only request was that I keep my home for a full year.

In May of 2017, I got a realtor. Got the comps for my property and it looked like I could make a profit even though I only had this place for less than a year. I signed the agreement and got to work making my house “show ready”. June 2017, my house went on the market. At this point, I was telling every new person that I met and liked, that they were invited to my wedding because obviously, things were progressing in my relationship.

I got multiple offers and went under contract with a seller on the 4th day on the market. My cute little ranch style home sold for $132k. While waiting to close I sold/gave away everything I owned and had a few things repaired on the house since it was 20 years old. The day after I signed the paperwork, I went on a trip to Puerto Rico because…hello?! Why not?! Thank God I didn’t get that closing money until I was headed back because I would’ve went ape sh*t crazy on all $10k of the money I got from closing. My house was officially sold on 7/31/2017.

What was left of my things, were in his space while I was on my trip. I had to drop and go because I was packing up until the last minute for both my trip and my house. He wasn’t much help during the process honestly. Once I got back and “settled”, our relationship started tanking. We never argued, but the newness was no longer new, and things got real. Some nights I couldn’t sleep because I could feel he resented me. Come September 2018, he decided to break up with me over a croissant. He did offer to let me stay as long as I needed but one thing I’ve learned, is I don’t have to stay where I’m not wanted. So I left the very next day and moved my things out of his home through the rest of September.

While I tried to pick up the pieces of the relationship that I expected to last, I got a new apartment in October, bought a new bed, and tried to get over what I experienced. December of 2018 is when I had an epiphany while I was recovering from bronchitis and a sinus infection. I wanted to buy a house again. I started researching and found, I could qualify for first time home buyers again 3 years from the date I sold my home…7/31/2020.

Mind you, I was only making $45,760 a year and I couldn’t afford that apartment and I was having to pinch off the proceeds from my home purchase, and there was no way to pay off all of the credit card debt I accumulated with all of that going on. That’s when I found the bedroom and bath with roommates for $465 for rent, utilities, and wifi on Realtor.com. Having roommates really helped me cope with the demise of my first relationship. Two of them really were great to chat with and it let me know that I was okay and would be okay.

Even though this post is not about my ex, I wouldn’t have started this journey if it weren’t for him. Or maybe I would? Who knows…

For anyone else out there, think really hard before deciding on what you should completely give up in a relationship when it comes to your assets. Assets come in more than just cash and property. Someone who wants you to sacrifice everything, while they sacrifice little to nothing in comparison, may not be worth the investment. Should you decide to proceed, talk with your partner about what you will do in the event the relationship is no longer benefitting either of you. That’s not to throw dirt on you relationship but to help you keep your eyes open even when the “love feelings” hit hard.

Or, if you see a friend about to make this mistake, gently ask them, what will they do if the relationship doesn’t last. I can guarantee they didn’t think about it and it could save them a few years of wandering aimlessly.

Photo Credit: https://drmosk.com/bias-and-flawed-decision-making-are-we-hard-wired-to-make-bad-decisions/