Serious Apartment Hunt (sans Ego)

I've been saying I want to move so I can save more money for forever, but I don't move. Not moving is nice. Why should I really move?

My apartment is secure, and clean, and my neighbors aren't too awful, though sometimes I wish they would spontaneously combust (yesterday morning the two lovebirds next door woke me up singing an off-key duet. Note: these are not actually birds, but mid to late 30-something humans). I also have this great shower with a smooth surface that is so easy to clean. It has a nice low-flow showerhead that still offers pressure, too. I have had some plumbing issues, but maintenance here is great--super quick. I have garage space that I pay a small fortune for, but it's already prevented my car from taking a hail beating and now that I have a new bike, I can put that bike in the garage.

In other words, my life is peachy, but my budget is kind of tight to manage. When I selected this place, I was a single person with no obligations. Now I have committed to a tall awkward other that's 5 hours away, which means budgeting gas to visit and eating out (or buying fancy things to cook fancy at home). This has been a strain, but I manage, mostly by paying off the credit card debt accumulated during unemployment much more slowly than planned. Then yesterday, I committed 5% of my income to a 401k because my employers match the most at that rate, and I'm finally eligible to contribute. I kept doing my budget and thinking, 3% is all I can afford and then I input 5% on the enrollment form anyway. I'll make it work, I said to myself.

So my next step after committing myself to serious retirement savings was to cancel the automatic transfer I have scheduled to my pre-existing IRA. I will re-institute it if I find an adequate place with adequate savings. I also kind of hope to increase what I auto-transfer to my regular savings account and to increase monthly transfer to paying of my credit card. The sooner I pay off my credit card, the sooner I can pay extra on my student loans, which I will be paying off forever, so I don't even imagine life without it as a bill, but I do often dream a few years out when my car will be paid off. It's such an exciting thought.

I've had all of these goals all along, but I rented a secure downtown apartment with codes to get in, and cameras in the halls, and a deadbolt on my door. It's hard to give that up. Lately though, I think to myself, what would I do if I made what I did at my last job? I wouldn't have a choice. I would have to live in one of these other less desirable places that are available. A less secure place where I would watch my back as I walk from my car to my door and probably clutch pepper spray in my hand, mostly out of paranoia, but also because it's better to be safe than sorry.

I had those habits during my undergraduate college career, and I've already moved so far beyond that lifestyle into a land of privilege that I turn my nose up at such living and the people who live in those places, but there are plenty of nice people in poorer neighborhoods. In fact, I miss my old neighbors from my last apartment. They were nicer, and friendlier, and quieter--in interaction they behaved more like people and there was a sort of unspoken pact that we watched out for eachother because there were some unsavory types around. Other than a nod in the elevator, my current apartment is full of people who are just too busy and wrapped up in themselves. Of course, they don't have to worry about me, and I don't have to worry about them, so there isn't a whole lot of necessity for such elements of humanity.

So I've reminded myself that I am not too good to live cheap. People do it every day, and if they're smart about it, they're fine. I do kind of wish I could get a dog for an extra sense of security. I remember one summer living alone in a basement apartment with no roommate, and I used to worry someone would come in through a window in the unused room or something, so I kept a frying pan by my bed and counted on my cockatiel to squawk the alarm from the hallway. Maybe a new cockatiel would be more feasible than a dog?