5 Tips for Buying a House as a Single Parent

It's no secret that buying a house as a single parent is daunting. Not only are you investing in a home on a one-person salary but you're also supporting your kids on that same budget. Fortunately, you're not alone if you're a single parent dreaming of buying a house. Every year, about 39% of marriages in the U.S. end in divorce, leaving many newly-single parents looking to settle down to give their kids a sense of security. While saving for a down payment on a house can be a struggle for anyone, there are a few ways single parents can get the help they need to overcome the financial challenges involved in the home buying process. Here are a few tips you can use to make buying a house as a single parent a little less overwhelming. Look into homeownership programs About 78% of recent … [Read more...]

Our Deep, Dark and Dank Secret

Enter the unfinished part of our basement and you will find a colossal mess. It's a maze of soon to be used baby gear, tools, random household objects and where many things go to die. It's also the place you can typically find my husband if you cannot find him anywhere else in the house. When all attempts to call him go unheard all you have to do is descend the steps, open the partly broken door and there he is in all his hidden attempt at a man-cave glory. Typically, there is only the eerie glow of the computer screen and the blinking lights of the router to light the way. All else is encased in darkness. Here you will find H pouring through his emails, downloading such classic tunes as Vanilla Ice's 'Ice, Ice, Baby' from iTunes and reading page after page of Fantasy Sports … [Read more...]

Edgar Allan Poe and Warren G Collide. In my basement.

I am crouched in a corner of the house, my laptop balanced on my knee caps. I figure if I stay in this spot and type quietly enough everyone will forget I exist and I can escape the onslaught of January cleaning that is H.Days. Days have gone by and my house has systematically grown more chaotic and messier with each passing second. Mix tapes from 1993 have been unearthed and dear God must I admit it... they have been played. Cathy Dennis anyone? Plastic margarita glasses from parties that were eons ago rolled along the basement floor as H lugged bag after bag of detritus out of the room. Somehow we still have too much stuff. Do we really own all those board games? When did we acquire that many DVDs and brands of car wash soap? Is that Diet Coke from the party four years ago? Because that … [Read more...]

A Typical $900 Sunday Afternoon

Our house was pretty quiet yesterday until just after my post-run shower. See, there was this leak in the tub. The faucet. It leaked. Non-stop. All day, everyday. I would walk by it in the morning and find that H had stuffed towels around it to stop the drip, drip, drip, drip sound that was apparently driving him mad. It was like weevils in the brain to him. He could not abide it. It kept him up at night. It drove him to distraction. Me? I never heard a thing. He casually mentioned to me over breakfast yesterday that he would be going to the hardware store to fix this leak. "A $5 or $10 job." he said. I agreed and off he went. Then as I was about to blow dry my hair I heard it. The first bit that would be a string of swear words. He was cussing out the pipes. I went back to diverting … [Read more...]

The Heaven’s Sing!

Alleluia!!! My bathroom is caulked. The floor is done. The nasty old shower curtain is down! All is fixed! The new hardware has been installed. What we thought was a weekend project turned into a month long one. The toilet sat for a week or more on the floor, hardware, screws and other assorted home renovation tools lay about all over our upstairs driving me slowly batty. Ok, not slowly. Now though, it is Finished! All I have to do is clean it. And you know what? I'm damn excited about that fact too. A NEW bathroom and it will be clean. No more tile grout dust, dry wall patch dust, and just dust in general. Fresh towels on the the new racks. New bins for tip top organization. The only thing missing are H-proof towels. Does anyone else's husband destroy towels in record time? H … [Read more...]

House Flipper Fantasy

H and I flip houses. We find real estate a fascinating affair. It took me a bit, but I can get just as a excited as he can when it comes down to it. I love the idea of picking out cabinets, flooring, and paint for a house that I will never live in. Seeing how a putrid piece of property shakily standing on its last leg can almost overnight come together into something beautiful makes me proud. We really think of it as a service we are doing for the community not just a job. A beautification of sorts. Though sometimes we get obsessed. We talk about houses and various properties continuously. What's the deal with this one or that one? Have you heard back from the so and so. What custom home builder are we going with for such a major overhaul and so on. Sometimes we fear that we bit more … [Read more...]