As you are already aware, Girl Ninja and I made the move to Seattle this last summer (We miss all you beautiful peeps in San Diego). We found a great little mother-in-law apartment above a beautiful home in a suburb north of Seattle. It’s the perfect place for us right now; clean, cute, and cheap.
A few months ago, I got a phone call from my aunt who recently bought an incredible four bedroom house. only fifteen minutes away from where Girl Ninja and I currently live.
Here are a few pictures of her new place (click any one to make larger)…
As you can see the house is freakin’ sick and has insane views of the Puget Sound.
Now here comes the interesting part…
My aunt lives in Southern California and bought this house for when she retires…in a few years. Since the 2,600 sqft abode will be pretty much vacant until that time, she proposed an incredibly generous offer to us. She said Girl Ninja and I could move in to her house and live there for free (of course we’d pay utilities).
Our current rent runs $1,1175/month, or for the math-nerds $14,100 a year. Wow never really thought about my rent as an annual expense. It’s kinda depressing. If we moved in to my aunt’s place we’d essentially be saving most, if not all, of that $14,000. We’d be stupid to not accept such an amazing gift right?
Well, Girl Ninja and I apparently hate saving money because we did just that. Yup, we turned down the beautiful waterfront home and decided to stay in our small little apartment.
Why you ask? Well, hopefully my “pros and cons” list will help make that clear…
Pros of Aunts Place:
Almost 2,000 square feet bigger than our current place.
We’d have a garage for our cars, and plenty of room for storage.
Three extra bedrooms.
Super sick panoramic water views.
We’d be living in a house and, for the first time in our marriage, wouldn’t have any shared walls with neighbors
It’s an 80,000sqft lot.
We save almost $14,000 each year we live there.
We get a good idea of the maintenance and upkeep of a house before we actually buy one.
Did you see those views from the Master bedroom?!
Cons of Aunt’s Place:
Although it’s LITERALLY only four miles away from our current place, it can take two hours (or longer) to get there.
Bet ya didn’t see that one coming, did ya? My aunt’s new house is located on one of the many islands in the Puget Sound. The only way to get from our place to hers is by taking a short 15 minute ferry ride (you can walk or drive on). No big deal right? Hop on the ferry, and fifteen minutes later you are on the mainland. Not so fast.
If it were really that simple, we’d be fools not to accept my aunt’s offer. In reality, we would both have to commute via the ferry to get to and from work each day and, although the ferry rides last no longer than 15 minutes, it is not uncommon to have to wait one or two hours to actually get on the ferry. The backups are insane during normal commuting hours and are impossible on holiday weekends. I would never accept a job that’s two hours away from where I currently live, and living on the island could be asking me to do just that.
Lastly, ferry rides aren’t necessarily cheap ($7/vehicle plus $4.50/passenger). We knew this would severely limit the number of visits we got from friends. We didn’t really like the idea of asking our friends to fork out $15 each time they wanted to come visit us. We just couldn’t get over the idea of isolating ourselves on the island (no malls, friends, family, large grocery stores, etc over there).
You know me. I LOVE SAVING MONEY. It was really generous of my aunt to offer up her place, and it absolutely kills me to turn it down. I’d love living rent free, but at the end of the day, an easy/predictable commute and proximity to friends, family, and entertainment is more important to us than an extra $14,000 in our bank account.
AHHHH, grown up decisions suck!
