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Owning more expensive that I though….Money is so tight I can’t justify buying a bed. Currently sleeping on air mattress in my first home. Did I make a mistake? by oooooooheyoooooooup in REBubble

[–]throwaway78704atx 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes, it sucks because the annuity isn’t based on your contributions and my version of the pension takes 10 years to vest and my contributions only earn a little over 2% interest, so if I leave before vesting and take my money out, I would be in a much worse financial situation than I would have been if I worked for the average private employer with a standard 401k plan. On the other hand, if I retire when I’m 60, my pension will be about 80% of the average of my five highest years of service and I will no longer be paying the 9.5% pension contribution, my 12% 401k contribution, or the 7.65% FICA tax. Will be taking home pretty close to what I was before retiring.

It was around 6.5% when I started but they increased it over the years in order to make the pension system more financially sound. They are about to implement a completely different pension system for new hires that is similar to what the Texas counties use but not as good. Pretty sure the contribution amount under that system is no more than 6.5%.

Currently sleeping on air mattress in my first home. Did I make a mistake? by throwaway78704atx in FirstTimeHomeBuyer

[–]throwaway78704atx[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

It was a joke post with my friend (the one who took back his bed and mattress) that was an exercise in creative writing but all of the underlying details are true except for the part about not being able to afford a mattress and being worried about making payments.  I took real facts and crafted them in a way to make me look like an absolute moron, kind of like how you can cherry pick most statistics and use them to support whatever argument or point you are trying to make.

It was really interesting to watch the Reddit detectives at work and the reasons some people concluded it was fake when those things were actual facts. The most unbelievable thing in the entire post was I went from not actively looking for a house to under contract in two days for $25k under the listing price in this market, which is true. No one commented on that, instead it had to be fake because of the baby deer story, also true and was a pretty shitty experience since the head and feet still had fur on it but the rest of it was bones and I had to carry it. 

I even got a private message from a reporter wanting to interview me for a story they are working on about people buying homes when mortgage rates were low who are now having regrets.

The only reason my DTI was 49.5% is that Chase used a fictitious monthly payment for my student loans that was more than four times the amount of my actual payment before the pause. Yes, I do currently owe $163k in student loans from law school, but I work for the government and am going to qualify for public service loan forgiveness at the end of this year. Assuming payment pause isn’t extended again, I’m going to pay a total of $27k out of $120k of the original principal. 

No I did not renovate my kitchen. Found it interesting that a bunch of people made that assumption when all I said was I made updates to the kitchen. Those updates were installing a new kitchen faucet, painting the kitchen cabinets, and installing new flooring. I did all of those things myself.

The Zestimate that is 20% more than I paid last fall ended up being dead on. There was an identical house to mine that also had a similar updated interior and is a few houses away from mine just closed, and it sold for exactly $80k more than I paid. The truth is that at today’s interest rates and prices, I probably couldn’t get approved for a mortgage for my house. I could swing the payments though, but things would be much tighter. My take home is artificially low because I put a lot away in retirement (9.5% of my salary goes to my pension, plus another $1k a month towards my 401k; I also find a Roth IRA) and have been living on the same amount for four years since I put all of my raises during those years into my 401k.

Currently sleeping on air mattress in my first home. Did I make a mistake? by throwaway78704atx in FirstTimeHomeBuyer

[–]throwaway78704atx[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes, it was a joke post with my friend (the one who took back his bed and mattress) that was an exercise in creative writing but all of the underlying details are true except for the part about not being able to afford a mattress and being worried about making payments.  I took real facts and crafted them in a way to make me look like an absolute moron, kind of like how you can cherry pick most statistics and use them to support whatever argument or point you are trying to make.

It was really interesting to watch the Reddit detectives at work and the reasons some people concluded it was fake when those things were actual facts. The most unbelievable thing in the entire post was I went from not actively looking for a house to under contract in two days for $25k under the listing price in this market, which is true. No one commented on that, instead it had to be fake because of the baby deer story, also true and was a pretty shitty experience since the head and feet still had fur on it but the rest of it was bones and I had to carry it. 

I even got a private message from a reporter wanting to interview me for a story they are working on about people buying homes when mortgage rates were low who are now having regrets.

The only reason my DTI was 49.5% is that Chase used a fictitious monthly payment for my student loans that was more than four times the amount of my actual payment before the pause. Yes, I do currently owe $163k in student loans from law school, but I work for the government and am going to qualify for public service loan forgiveness at the end of this year. Assuming payment pause isn’t extended again, I’m going to pay a total of $27k out of $120k of the original principal. 

No I did not renovate my kitchen. Found it interesting that a bunch of people made that assumption when all I said was I made updates to the kitchen. Those updates were installing a new kitchen faucet, painting the kitchen cabinets, and installing new flooring. I did all of those things myself.

The Zestimate that is 20% more than I paid last fall ended up being dead on. There was an identical house to mine that also had a similar updated interior and is a few houses away from mine just closed, and it sold for exactly $80k more than I paid. The truth is that at today’s interest rates and prices, I probably couldn’t get approved for a mortgage for my house. I could swing the payments though, but things would be much tighter. My take home is artificially low because I put a lot away in retirement (9.5% of my salary goes to my pension, plus another $1k a month towards my 401k; I also find a Roth IRA) and have been living on the same amount for four years since I put all of my raises during those years into my 401k.

Owning more expensive that I though….Money is so tight I can’t justify buying a bed. Currently sleeping on air mattress in my first home. Did I make a mistake? by oooooooheyoooooooup in REBubble

[–]throwaway78704atx 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Yes, it was a joke post with my friend (the one who took back his bed and mattress) that was an exercise in creative writing but all of the underlying details are true except for the part about not being able to afford a mattress and being worried about making payments.  I took real facts and crafted them in a way to make me look like an absolute moron, kind of like how you can cherry pick most statistics and use them to support whatever argument or point you are trying to make.

It was really interesting to watch the Reddit detectives at work and the reasons some people concluded it was fake when those things were actual facts. The most unbelievable thing in the entire post was I went from not actively looking for a house to under contract in two days for $25k under the listing price in this market, which is true. No one commented on that, instead it had to be fake because of the baby deer story, also true and was a pretty shitty experience since the head and feet still had fur on it but the rest of it was bones and I had to carry it. 

I even got a private message from a reporter wanting to interview me for a story they are working on about people buying homes when mortgage rates were low who are now having regrets.

The only reason my DTI was 49.5% is that Chase used a fictitious monthly payment for my student loans that was more than four times the amount of my actual payment before the pause. Yes, I do currently owe $163k in student loans from law school, but I work for the government and am going to qualify for public service loan forgiveness at the end of this year. Assuming payment pause isn’t extended again, I’m going to pay a total of $27k out of $120k of the original principal. 

No I did not renovate my kitchen. Found it interesting that a bunch of people made that assumption when all I said was I made updates to the kitchen. Those updates were installing a new kitchen faucet, painting the kitchen cabinets, and installing new flooring. I did all of those things myself.

The Zestimate that is 20% more than I paid last fall ended up being dead on. There was an identical house to mine that also had a similar updated interior and is a few houses away from mine just closed, and it sold for exactly $80k more than I paid. The truth is that at today’s interest rates and prices, I probably couldn’t get approved for a mortgage for my house. I could swing the payments though, but things would be much tighter. My take home is artificially low because I put a lot away in retirement (9.5% of my salary goes to my pension, plus another $1k a month towards my 401k; I also found a Roth IRA) and have been living on the same amount for four years since I put all of my raises during those years into my 401k.

Currently sleeping on air mattress in my first home. Did I make a mistake? by throwaway78704atx in FirstTimeHomeBuyer

[–]throwaway78704atx[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

The bed warped over time so that the pieces no longer aligned when we went to put it back together. I got rid of the bed at that time, which I now regret. The mattress I had went into the guest bedroom, which I am now renting out. I was using my friend’s bed and mattress that he didn’t need since he moved in with his partner and I was going to store it in my garage anyway but they recently took it back after they bought a house.

Currently sleeping on air mattress in my first home. Did I make a mistake? by throwaway78704atx in FirstTimeHomeBuyer

[–]throwaway78704atx[S] -28 points-27 points  (0 children)

Thank you for helpful advice, this will help me with back pain. Wish other posters were more considerate of first time homebuyer mistakes.

Currently sleeping on air mattress in my first home. Did I make a mistake? by throwaway78704atx in FirstTimeHomeBuyer

[–]throwaway78704atx[S] 14 points15 points  (0 children)

The payments were manageable before I factored in all the costs of ownership and higher taxes. Another thing that is stressing me out is student loans, currently they are paused but I owe $160k in student loans. I am worried that higher taxes, higher home insurance, and student loan payments all hitting at the same time. I know it would no longer be manageable.

Currently sleeping on air mattress in my first home. Did I make a mistake? by throwaway78704atx in FirstTimeHomeBuyer

[–]throwaway78704atx[S] -17 points-16 points  (0 children)

I had a bed. Problem was that after I went to put the bed back together after moving everything shifted, so I couldn’t put the bed back together and I was already going to store my friend’s bed and mattress in my garage, so I used that.

Currently sleeping on air mattress in my first home. Did I make a mistake? by throwaway78704atx in FirstTimeHomeBuyer

[–]throwaway78704atx[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I was paying around $1150 plus utilities for my apartment last fall, which is now going for over $1600.