Apartments

The sweet joys of apartment living! No, seriously! You don’t really appreciate apartment living until you have owned a house. Going back to an apartment after owning a house is like living a vacation. You wake up on Saturday and no longer have to tackle yard work. When the AC isn’t working, you just call the maintenance number. You don’t have to care about how much something will cost to fix or what exactly is wrong with it. There is much less space to clean (assuming most apartments are smaller than most houses). We have the added benefit of living within walking distance to the grocery store, several restaurants, a pharmacy, and a bookstore. There are also two pools and a work out facility on site, plus trail access to a large green belt.

There is a lot of pressure in our society to own a home. I talked in a previous post about how owning a home is not always a great investment these days. It can be if you get lucky, but it can just as easily result in a net loss. Plus, even once it is paid off you are still stuck paying property taxes and paying for repairs. I am not anti home ownership; I just recommend taking a critical look at that path. Just because you can afford a house doesn’t mean you should buy it. Just because you can afford a larger place doesn’t mean you should move.

In other news, I recently made a baby mobile for a co-worker (mostly because he bugged me to make him one for 3 months after seeing a mobile I made for another co-worker's birthday). He is also into the buy domestic movement and told me about trying to find a crib that was made in the US. I had guessed he ended up with one made by the Amish and sure enough he did. It was pricey, but is solid wood and there are no worries about paint or sealant chemicals or unsafe parts.