4.03.2008

Sticker shock...

And we haven't even moved to CA yet. Michael and I are suffering from a little sticker shock for some things we need to do to get our house ready for the market. We had some anticipated expenses like the purchase of more paint, powerwashing our house, tiling our floor in the kitchen, refinishing the stairs and landing on the second floor... but then we've accumulated additional expenses like some electrical work that needs to be done to the tune of $1100. And our realtor suggested new counter tops in the kitchen (yeah, we're going with new laminate instead). Naturally all the stuff that needs to be done by a professional seems to cost something with 4 figures in it. Blarg.

We're fortunate that Michael's new employer has offered such a generous relocation package but it seems we're going to use an awful lot of that money just to get our house ready to be sold. We haven't even finished running the figures for moving and storing all of our belongings. Sigh...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Tell me about it. We got new counters, some paint, landscaping, and still have a few things on the to-do list. Even with my half of my paychecks going to the "home improvement/moving fund" and an unbelievably generous loan from my sister, I don't know how we're going to be able to get everything done.

Are you guys going to rent in California? We thought about moving to the San Jose area for Dave's job at some point, and talk about sticker shock. The real estate there is just unbelievable. I thought I was already in an overpriced market in Seattle, I had no idea what we'd be getting ourselves into down there. That was the main reason why we ended up deciding against it - the fact that we'd always be up to our eyeballs in debt, never be able to set up any sort of retirement, college fund for Catie, etc. It just wasn't worth it.