We looked at two different two-bedroom apartments in our complex today. We were not impressed.
The first one was 170 more square feet than our current place, and the rent was $165 more per month. It hadn’t been cleaned yet, and man, did it need it. The walls were disgusting. In fact, everything was disgusting. It’s sickening how some people live. They have the mentality that they don’t own the place, so they think nothing of trashing it. I didn’t care for how the living room was laid out … but I did like the kitchen because it was identical to ours, just bigger. The layout of the master bedroom didn’t thrill me, though. It was too narrow and rectangular instead of square. You wouldn’t be able to have the bed come out from the wall and put the tv at the foot of the bed like we have now. I also didn’t like the full bath because it had those little tiles in the shower stall and around the sink like you’d find at a public pool. They were pretty dirty too. The half-bath in the master bedroom was nicer, once again because it was identical to our bathroom, only smaller. Don’t get me started on the storage space … or more like lack thereof. I already feel like we’re running out of places to put our stuff. So we nixed the idea on that one.
The second apartment we looked at was only 80 additional square feet than what we have now for $125 more per month. There really wasn’t anything thrilling about this place. The rooms were better laid out, but the space wasn’t that great. In order to provide an extra bedroom and half-bath, they really shrunk the master bedroom and reduced the closet space.
Looking at those places really made me appreciate our place even more. We have a storage area, hall closet, huge linen closet, and two closets in the bedroom. Our bathroom is huge, our bedroom is huge, and our kitchen isn’t bad either. The living room is the perfect size for our computer desks, bookshelf, entertainment center, and couch, and our dining room fits our little table nicely. I also like that our unit is at the back of the building because it’s much quieter. Both units we looked at today were facing the parking lot which means people would be passing by our windows all the time, probably looking into our place if the blinds were open like we do to other people when we walk by their place. :)
As much as we want the kids to have a bedroom when they’re here every other weekend, we just can’t justify the extra monthly expense when they don’t live here full-time. This becomes even more of a concern come the end of this month when Joe’s divorce, God-willing, becomes final. We’ll have even less “disposable” income since he’ll have to pay his ex maintenance every month for God knows how long.
I’m mostly concerned about storage space right now. Between our purchases, especially those that require retaining the original box, which makes it easier when moving, and the kids accumulating toys that their mom refuses to keep at her place (not that we care, but the kids would like to play with them more than once every other week), we’re running out of places to put things. I can only be so creative with the space we have … all 790 whopping square feet of it. It makes much more sense, at least financially speaking, to remain where we’re at and rent some storage space. I did some research and for as little as $21/month, we could get a 5×5 space to chuck all our empty boxes and assorted crap that we need to keep, but don’t need to look at on a daily basis. Plus if we were able to free up space in our designated storage area, when Spring comes along, we can keep our bikes there, instead of at Joe’s parents’ where they’re currently collecting dust.
I feel kinda bad that the kids aren’t going to have their own room for awhile, but it will be worth it in the long run. We just can’t afford to buy a house right now …. townhomes are just as pricey … and a condo is a glorified apartment. I’d rather save up for two more years and get the house that we want. Even with the places we could afford to buy right now, if you factor in all the little costs we don’t have right now, like water and gas bills, not to mention any “association fees”, we’d be scraping by. I honestly can’t understand how people afford it.
So for now we’ll keep on saving money so when we do have room for the kids, they’ll each have their own room and won’t have to share.
Or you could do what we’re going to do– rent an actual house until we can buy our own. We desperately need a fenced-in yard for the dog and another bedroom for my exercise crap. I’ve seen a few houses for rent around here that are cheaper than our goddamn apartment!