The Joys of Home Ownership

I have been thinking over this topic for quite some time now and have mixed feelings about home ownership. Actually the thoughts were more about owning things in general.

A bit of background: I've owned a condo/townhouse/house for about 15 years now and have finally settled into my (hopefully final) home which is large. It isn't insanely large, but at times a bit more than I and the Mrs. can handle without a housekeeper. We don't have one by the way, I'm too cheap to pay for one, although I do have a gardener. Go figure. Of course, the need to upgrade the house or fix appliances and fixtures around the house, upgrading the paint, floors, counters - are all driven by a sense of "Trying to keep up with the Joneses". Well maybe not, but things around the house need to work and they need to look good. If I were still in my twenties and single, the place would probably look like a shanty and things would be left broken all over the house. "Let's hang out at your place instead".

The last couple of weeks were rough for around the house and my checkbook. The roof above the porch was leaking, The AC/Heating Unit needs to be replaced, the dishwasher leaks from the overflow valve, Kaleo used a water spray bottle on my new Dell flatscreen, the thermistor in the Jacuzzi went out. Yikes, this was going cost some money!!!

As overwhelming as it was, the only way I could handle it sanely was just to make a short list and start knocking the repairs off one-by-one. The repairs turned out to be not-so-bad and not-so-expensive. First, a call to Dell support, where they shipped me a new monitor within two days, no questions asked. Second, a call to the Lake Forest Pool and Spa, where my spa heater was still under warranty -fixed the next day free of charge. A roofer came out and did a good/fast job fixing my roof although I still need to get through a heavy rain to see if it's all good. It was several hundred dollars less than expected.

Anyways, things turned out well, but they could have turned out expensive as several things usually tend to break around the same time. I guess there's always going to be something that needs to be fixed, but life was sure less complicated and less expensive when I was younger and had fewer possesions.

This is what I tell my wife whenever I reluctantly agree to buy something for the house: "The more we buy, the more we have that's going to break".

Actually we live pretty practically, I just hate it when things break.