The start of our neighborhood's annual 4th of July parade. Fun in the summer, why not winter?Other bloggers complained about the "February Funk" but here in Minnesota, if we get too funky in February we'd be in real trouble in March. March is the longest month here. This morning when I woke up it was only 2 degrees F. Now at noon it's about 5 degrees. Yuck! We are so sick of cold weather by this point. And the ground is still covered with a foot of snow.
This is spring break week. I imagine some people have taken advantage of this to go somewhere warm. I had a few friends who just got back from Florida. Lucky them!
Not so, us. Mainly, we don't have the money for a vacation. We never do. We are usually house poor, because of some improvement we've recently made. In our current home, most of the work was done two years ago and we've subsequently been too broke to do anything else. The furnace became a fire hazard and had to be replaced immediately, said our heating inspector guy one frosty October morning. Then our bathroom plumbing had some major problems and we needed a new tub and surround fast. So after the first mortgage we took out a second mortgage of 15k to pay for the 5k furnace, 4k of bathroom work and another 6k to replace old storm windows and a few other minor repairs. We did things "right" because we felt we'd be in this house for 20 years or so, and it's a great investment, right?
We even have "politicians" in our parade, running for Neighborhood Mayor! Go Ricky!And maybe we will be here 20 years. But the house as investment potential seems less and less promising every day, what with home values just down 9% recently and most likely set to fall even further. Would we have gotten the fancy tub and surround if we could look back in hindsight? No. Would we have shopped around for a cheaper furnace contractor if we could do it over? Yes. Would we have been more frugal overall? Way, yes! That's because now, with rising health insurance, fuel and food costs, we are really struggling just to buy the basics.
I think this is happening to a lot of people. We got into home debt at the top of the market. Our house, 3.5 years after buying, is not worth what we paid for it (luckily, we stayed within our means, though at the top of them, when we bought the house--we are generally conservative that way and didn't go for the A.R.M. loan either). Our net income is now down due to my husband not seeing any raise this year because his teacher's contract has not been settled, and our health insurance premium went up 25%.
A patriotically-dressed George tries to hitch a ride with the Wicked Witch of 12th Avenue...I do work part-time and my income has now become 90-100% necessity money and not "extra" or "fun" money as it started out. Of course, I could work more hours or even full time but I already see myself as having one full-time job in the home so the idea of me working more outside the home does not appeal to me (or George). This might be a hot-button issue for a lot of people, as so many other families are working two full-time jobs, but really we've thought about it a lot and as long as we can we are choosing not to put both of us in full-time jobs. Besides, a second income doesn't always add up to much when it means buying more convenience foods, work clothes, more gas for commuting, etc.
So, I'm not here whining or complaining about our lack of money. I'm mainly trying to put our situation out there. I think a lot of people can relate to it right now. And I don't think it's going to get better any time soon.
Even if George's teaching contract gets settled, he'll see a raise of maybe 1-3% (the school board is offering 1.35% and the union wants closer to 3%--so far it's been many months of negotiations, all of which have completely broken down at this point). That small raise, in either case, will not cover our increased health insurance costs. Our income will still be less than last year. And with rising prices for the basics of food and fuel, our future doesn't hold any fun vacations any time soon!
Probably okay, since air travel uses lots and lots of fuel. And it's probably safe to say that with the downturn in the US and world economy, most of us should get a lot more used to hanging out at home.
And here our beautiful Miss 11th Avenue, Miss Junior 11th Avenue and Miss Pre-teen 11th Avenue (because we couldn't leave any Princess behind!)
Luckily, we have great neighbors and wonderful friends in our community. Neither George nor I are "from here", but in the 10 years we've been in this area we've come to think of it as home. My family is just an hour away, and we enjoy this small city in Central Minnesota. At times we get restless, sometimes for the bigger city with all it has to offer but other times for the country with the peace, quiet, starlight and property it might offer. But for the most part, we're choosing to stay put.
As I said, our neighbors and nearby friends are wonderful. Unfortunately, we all seem to hibernate a lot in winter and we hardly see the neighbors. None of us just hang out in our yards as in summer. So, perhaps March is the time to build some community by inviting them over to our house. We like to host pot-lucks.
We used to have a group of friends that met monthly for pot-lucks. But as the kids got older, it got to be too rowdy a crowd. The family potluck group turned into a mom's group, which I've written about before, my W.E.T. group. We get together once a month, which is awesome. But I'm wanting more right now. And the husbands need a get-together. And the kids could use a little cabin fever curing.
So a potluck it shall be! Do you do pot-lucks? Have you ever thought about inviting your friends over for the casual free-for-all which is a potluck? I'd love to see more of these going on around the country.
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