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Life

My Advice for Future Home Owners

June 14 marked the 4 month mark of our living in our home and owning it. I can say, without a shred of doubt in my mind, that it was one of the best decisions that we have made and I would make it again … 100 times out of 100.

However, I do have some advice for future home owners from my short experience so far. Take everything with a grain (or two) of salt because I’m strange.

Do not purchase a home strictly for financial reasons. Owning a home is like adding a part time job to the mix. Things are going to break, stuff needs to be done, and you might just have a yard to take care of as well. Along with that, you never know how that “investment” you made in your house is going to actually pay off. Also there are a lot of taxes when purchasing a home, so you should also take in count to contact the best Metric Accountants. There were plenty of people who got caught with their proverbial pants down with the recession, and you never know when something is going to happen. Real estate might be the “safest bed” for investment, but there are other things you can do with that money.

Instead, take into considering the other benefits as well to round out your reasons. It IS a place to live in, after all, and you are going to be putting in some work as well so the sense of that place being “home” is quite great. It also connects you to the community in a way that renting cannot because it is a loud statement of “I’m planning on being here for a while, so we should really get along now.”

That’s the other part, make sure you are ready to settle down for a while. If you are moving every few months or even every couple of years, then owning a place is going to be one huge hassle. Want to move? Well, now you need to dump the house you just purchased not too long ago, which is going to add stress and make things all that much LESS pleasant.

So, when deciding, don’t just focus on the financial part of things but keep in mind the HUGE amount of other tangible and intangible benefits (and detriments) as well.

Get decent tools. Seriously, you might as well build it into your home budget if you don’t already have good tools because you are going to be using them. I was dumb and didn’t get a decent drill until very recently and already I’ve used it to put up curtains, hang a chalkboard and build some stilts for my desk downstairs. I should have done it a long time ago.

Also, get at least one corded drill to keep around just in case you forget to plug in your cordless drill. Just a nice insurance drill to have around.

I’m also a fan of doing the research and sticking with one brand of power tool as much as possible. This is especially true of cordless tools because you can often switch batteries between all of your tools (and then you also have multiple batteries).

Having the right tool for the MANY jobs you will have to do can make all of the projects easier and quicker to complete.

Go local for your loan. I only bring this up because of the great experience I have had with my local credit union. My loan officer was extremely professional and was from the area so he already had relationships with the local law firms and realtors. It made the whole experience that much better.

We also had the benefit of getting a great rate from them as well.

Paint as soon as you can. It will make the whole place feel like it is your own. Once that first wall is done, you can step back and marvel at how handy you are and smile because you are slowly changing someone else’s house into your home. It is an awesome feeling.

Also, don’t skimp on the paint. Getting a high quality paint can save you time, and even money because you will need less paint to get the job done.

This goes for any decorating. Just get to it and keep adding things as you want because each things will make the place more your own than it was before.

Beware of people bearing furniture. They’ll come because people came to them and offered them the furniture they “didn’t need” anymore. Mainly, you just want to start with the furniture you have and then slowly choose new pieces or replace old ones as you see fit. That way you won’t run into the problem of having too much furniture around and then looking for someone to  bring that stuff to yourself … it’s a vicious cycle.

Enjoy it. You just bought a house. You’ve decided to stick around in one place for a while with your family so enjoy it! Take some time to just walk around your property and dream big dreams about what you want to do, but always remember that you have TIME to do it. As someone who lived in seven places in just four years prior to moving into our house, I always need to remind myself that what I don’t do today … I can do tomorrow and some things need to wait.

That’s about it for right now.

Categories
Life

Choosing a Tool

When my brother-in-law helped me build my workbench, I didn’t have a drill. I was faced with the idea of spending $65 on a decent DEWALT corded drill, but balked and decided that a $25 Black & Decker from Target would work just fine. I learned a valuable lesson (again) about not being afraid to pay a little money for decent tools.

We built the workbench, but I quickly returned the Black & Decker drill and just this last week picked up the $65 DEWALT model and used it for a few projects around the house with no problems. I was stalling, hoping that I could find a MEGA DEAL to save myself a little money, but I just needed to get the drill and now I am satisfied (finally).

I should have spent the extra money and purchased the better tool. It would have saved me time and it would have made things easier (the trigger on the cheaper drill was terrible and it had almost no control over speed). Having decent tools is important not just with power tools or hand tools, but with your programming tools and technology as well (since technology is a tool as well).

There really isn’t much to this post, but I finally just bit the bullet and purchased the better tool and got work done. Now I at least don’t have to think about what tools to purchase, I’ll be sticking with DEWALT for the foreseeable future.

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Life

Missing “It”

I had an article at MinnPost.com this past week titleĀ ‘Too many people flee’: A dispatch from New Ulm. It was unexpected to get asked to have my response posted, but I was more than happy to have my experience and thoughts shared with more people. That is what the internet is all about, and it is also why I post here as well.

I want to first thank everyone for their kind words and comments since it was posted. I like knowing that people have read what I’ve written, whether they agree or not.

One thing that did come up in the comments is the same old tired arguments as to why people move away from rural communities. The sad part is that I know why it is done, I just think that people give up way to quickly and are worse for it. The article wasn’t about that at all. It was about my experience and why I am staying and that I feel that too many people “flee” the area (rural communities, New Ulm specifically). They missed it.

So, thanks again to everyone for reading and their comments. It happens to be a subject very near and dear to my heart and something I will be writing about more in the future.

Categories
Life Technology

Standing Desk – A Little Later

Well, the good news it that I still have my desk on top of banana boxes at the moment and I have not gone back to simply sitting.

The bad news is that I haven’t found anything better than the banana boxes to prop my desk up on. Add to that the fact that I haven’t been able to spend much time at my desk recently and I don’t have a definitive conclusion as to whether I like this better or not.

Next on my list is to find a way to make this a little more permanent, or at least sturdy. I have some stringers in my garage that I might hack up into stilts for the desk and then try and rig together a stand for the monitor so that I don’t have to look down at it.

I’ve also started just closing the MacBook and running with a single monitor so that I eliminate some of my head movement back-and-forth. A minor thing, but I like having just a single focus. Wish it was a 27″ Cinema Display … but what are you going to do.

There have been time when I wished I could have sat down, but the desk isn’t set up for that so I’ve stuck it out. Maybe that is the point of having it be stationary at the moment so that I don’t have an easy way out. I’m still thinking that a GeekDesk Max might be in my future, but I would need to greatly expand Deck78 and pay down some debt before that would happen.

While it has been inconclusive so far, I have enjoyed the standing more than I thought I would. Part of that might be that I sit at work all day, so the standing is a good change of pace.

Categories
Life

The Power of Bach

Nothing like some good Bach chorales to get your out of a funk.

I’ve had music as a major part of my life for a long time, but recently I have been putting it a little farther behind me in some ways. I’ve tried to pick up music that other people are listening to, thinking that maybe I’ve been missing something all of these years (and maybe I have). However, denying myself in the process hasn’t exactly been good for me.

As I’ve added other genres to my listening, I’ve tossed much of my classical listening aside because the three minute drive up to work (thank you MPR). I’m not saying that is what has been missing recently, but having “found” my Bach again, I can’t help but think that maybe I’ve been denying myself in the thoughts that the person of the past is not who I am anymore.

However, healthy that is not. I am still that same person, just with more experience and having made more decisions.

Time to bring back the power of Bach.