Saw a question about the most friendly and it got me thinking about the most un-friendly. In my opinion, it’s where I live now - DC metro area.
My husband and I are moving to Arizona from Virginia in the fall, and are trying to decide if we should rent out vs sell our house. We’re in a hot market (northern Va) with great schools, safe area, etc. It’s a good rental market but we’re not sure that our house would be good to rent out.
I’ve used online calculators and the numbers are not much different at a 5 year hold. The only reason we are considering renting it is because we may want to return to the area in 5 or 10 years, but we’re not sure if we even want to come back to this particular house. If we don’t keep the house, we will likely be priced out of the area if we do choose to return. However, the land and pool require significant upkeep and we’d prefer something smaller.
Numbers:
House value: 800k
Remaining mortgage: 460k
Interest rate: 2.7%
Monthly payment (with escrow): 3100
Rental amount: 3600/month
Other considerations:
pool upkeep/service costs 5k per year, and we’re worried about liability with renters
Septic and well are both 30 years old and those could easily cost us 50k + in the next few years
Large property (2 acres) which easily gets overgrown if not maintained properly
Virginia rental laws are changing to be less landlord-friendly
We will be renting in AZ either way so a down payment for a new house is not a factor. The equity from the house would be saved and invested.
Would love your thoughts on if you’d rent or sell this property
Curious about this. I always hear about how crazy the cost of living is here, but when I go other places, I don’t notice a dramatic drop in prices for things like food, hotels, or event/concert tickets.
I know housing is expensive here, so I’m not referring to that. I’m thinking about other things - for example: groceries, eating out, utilities, transportation, home services like pest control or hvac repair, hair appointments, etc.
We (30M, 32F) have been married for 7 years, together 11. We are both in tech, but he makes 2x what I make. He invested really heavily in his career when we first got married. He worked late nights and weekends and I picked up the slack by doing absolutely everything around the house (while working full time and changing careers) so he could do that. I didn’t mind because it felt like we were a team. But I didn’t prioritize my career at the same level because I was handling everything at home (laundry, cooking, vet appointments, lawn work etc)
7 years later, he makes 2x what I make and told me the other day that he wants to go 50/50 on finances. In the past, all of our money has been deposited into a joint account and everything was just “our money.”He is an impulsive spender and we have 100k in debt we are trying to dig ourselves out from, from some of his choices (for example - bought an RV on a whim that I was very against and we are now trying to sell).
He doesn’t think it’s fair that he makes so much money and can’t do everything he wants to do. But he also wouldn’t be willing to downgrade our lifestyle so that it would be a more fair expense burden on me.
Part of the reason he makes so much money is that I was supporting him the entire way. I feel really betrayed. If we go 50/50 right now, I will basically have no spending money left to myself, but he’ll have the equivalent of my entire salary as fun money.
Am I selfish to think that’s unfair? Or if I’m not, how can I communicate this imbalance to him? I have tried and he’s not really seeing it from my perspective
Edit to add that this came up as a result of me asking for a more equal split around the house, since at this point we work somewhat similar hours but I do 4x the domestic labor
I have two outdoor kitties that I picked up from a stray litter last year. They are 11 months old and have a great life here - friends with our neighbors kids and pets, have acres of rural land to roam, and love my dog/family. They’re really friendly and hang out with technicians and delivery people.
Unfortunately we are looking at a work move from VA -> AZ later this year. We will have to downsize to a townhouse with a lot less property. My husband is severely allergic, so we cannot keep them inside at all. The drive will be about 4 days, so I don’t even know how we can do that with the kitties and him being so allergic. There’s also the change in climate and scenery, and the kitties will have no room to roam safely.
Has anyone else done a similar move successfully? Or, would you suggest rehoming as the best option in this scenario? I have a few people with land who would probably be willing to take them in.
My vet is closed, and I’m trying to figure out how I can keep my rescue pup comfortable until Monday or if I should take him to the emergency vet. I’ve never had this issue with a dog before so I’m looking for advice
He started having diarrhea last Wednesday night - normal soft serve. Then Thursday, he started straining, only liquid coming out, and needing to go out every hour or so. He just strains a lot and mostly foamy liquid comes out, with occasional clumps. He has thrown up twice.
I thought he just had a stomach bug, but he is eating and drinking normally, and seems pretty normal energy levels. He is scooting and biting his bum a LOT. His bum is swollen but not extremely so. I learned about anal gland expression last night and tried it gently but nothing happened. I am worried that I’ve let this go on too long and it could escalate into an infection, or something more serious might be going on.
He has been on a bland diet of chicken and rice with a little pumpkin for 4 days and I’ve also been giving him probiotics and some bone broth for hydration.
I called the emergency vet near me and they said that if he’s still eating/drinking normally, he’s ok to wait until Monday when my normal vet is open. But given that he’s not had a normal bowel movement in 5 days, I’m worried it could escalate quickly and I want him to be comfortable. I feel terrible brushing it off as a stomach bug and for not doing anything for him late last week.
What can I do to keep him comfortable if I wait until Monday?
OR, do you think I should call another vet ER and take him in?
Edit to add that I do not know any medical history for him because he was picked up by animal control with no chip. He was 10-15 lbs overweight when I got him, he has been on a diet for 8 months and eats farmers dog normally, and is normally very regular with no issues. He scoots occasionally other times. DNA test says he is a mix of 15 different breeds but most dominant are beagle and border collie
We have some debt (RV, cars, etc). My husband can be an impulsive spender and is a high earner. I make about half of what he does. We’ve been married 7 years and the whole time, our money has been deposited in a joint account with investments and savings under his name. It’s never been an issue other than both of us living above our means.
We’ve worked really hard on our finances and reduced living expenses for the last year. A few months ago, we finally reached our goal of using his income for living expenses and using mine to pay off debt/invest money. We decided to live off of his income because we can’t afford to live off mine. The eventual goal is to downsize and move to be able to afford to live off my income, and swap to invest/save his.
Because we aren’t historically the best with money, we decided to separate my paycheck into a high yield savings account so it stays completely separate. I opened a new savings and just direct deposit my money there, then we make debt payments from that account. I sent him an invite to be a joint account member, but something went wrong when he tried to sign up and he never followed up on it.
I thought this was working fine and I am very happy with where we are financially, and I thought he was too. We’re making great progress on our debt.
Then the other day, I started a conversation asking for more intimacy (whole different issue). Somehow that turned into an argument about how I “control all the extra money” and he doesn’t get to spend any of his income on fun stuff. To be clear, I don’t spend a cent of the money on myself. We have “money Mondays” each time I get paid where we strategize on the debt and make payments together. There’s no money slippage or any of that from my account. It just goes directly to debt.
If I see it from his perspective, yeah, it must be a little disheartening to see his money disappear to bills every month with not much left over. But on my end, money isn’t sitting in my account (because we immediately make debt payments when I get paid) either so I’m in the same boat. So I’m really not understanding where this is coming from. I’ve been depositing my paychecks into his accounts for years, money that I’ve earned is in savings under his name, invested under his name, etc. so it’s confusing to me why he’s hung up on the account being under my name. Like we agreed to the whole debt payoff strategy and suddenly it’s a problem because the account is under my name? When I invited him to become a joint member and he didn’t bother signing up?
Is this controlling behavior? I don’t want to overthink it but I’m a little worried that he has such a problem with me having a bank account.
My husband (30m) and I (32F) kiss about once a month - pretty much exclusively during sex, if we have it. We really don’t touch, make out or kiss anymore outside of that. We’ve been married 7 years and I’m wondering if this is a normal thing in marriages over time