How We Prepared for a Layoff Part 2: A is for Apartment

You can read the first post in this series here.

I shared in my first post in this series, “How We Prepared for a Lay-off” that we survived a year and a half of uncertain income without going into debt. It was the choices that we made prior to the layoff that truly made the difference for us. Without realizing it, we were preparing for our lay-off since the first year of our marriage.

While there are thousands of ways to be frugal, we wouldn’t be where we are today if it weren’t for these five BASIC decisions that we made before the layoff:

The next topic in this series on BASIC lay-off survival prep is Apartment:

B – Budget
A – Apartment
S –
I –
C –

We lived in the same very reasonably priced apartment for the first 7 years of our marriage. We were very blessed to have landlords who treated us like family and our kids like they were their own grandkids. It was a great situation.

That’s not to say that there weren’t many occasions that we considered buying a home.

I tend to be more of a free spirit than Wes when it comes to finances. We would look at our budget and I would say, “Look – we have just enough money to buy that house!”

And Wes would say, “But what if the roof needs to be repaired or the heater needs to be replaced? We have no wiggle room.”

And as much as I hated to admit it, I knew he was right.

And when Wes was laid off, there was no greater evidence that he was right.

I shudder to think what would have happened if we had made the choice to buy a home before we knew we were ready.

Here are a few ways that we knew that we needed to continue to rent:

• Our future was uncertain. Throughout the first 7 years of marriage, we were on a journey of discovering what Wes was called to do in life. It’s another story in itself, but throughout that time, we were unsure what our income would look like in the future or where we would end up living. Buying a home would have tied us down in ways that we weren’t ready to accept.

• Renting allowed us to save money for our future home. We were blessed to have a low rent that allowed us to set aside a good percentage of our income for the future. If this were not so, then buying may have seemed like a reasonable thing to do. Reading real estate investing books is helping us to decide where to put our money when it comes to properties.

• We had enough room in our apartment. Granted, things got a little tight when our second son was born. (We are hoping that he will forgive us for making him sleep in the bathroom when he was first born!) But it wasn’t unbearable. Not to mention, there is a lot to be said for the simplicity of not being responsible for your own home repairs and maintenance!

If you follow me on Facebook, you may know that we are currently officially looking for our first home. It’s a very exciting time for us. We love the idea of settling down where we are and learning the ropes of homeownership. I look forward to decorating and painting my home exactly how I want it to be. Wes looks forward to learning more about the home repair (for now, anyway!). He’s done a lot of research in that area just in case something happens and it needs to be fixed right away! Like if we have a slab leak, it may seem isolated but it can travel through the house and damage the foundation, knowing who to contact in that area of expertise is very important. We can’t wait to make our home our own.

There is also a lot of peace knowing that we have saved and planned and prepared for this day. Sometimes, renting an apartment when you don’t need lots of space for a family can be the best thing to do. One of my friends recently started renting an apartment from thespacestation.co.uk, she seems to really like her apartment. More and more people seem to be renting recently, perhaps that’s because of the increase in housing prices. I am so grateful that we didn’t jump the gun and decide to purchase a home before we were ready. It’s made a world of difference for us.

And yes, Wes–you were right. (I may need to be reminded of that from time to time. Here is your permission.)

Note: Dave Ramsey has a calculator to compare the costs of buying vs. renting. This could be a great tool to help with any upcoming decisions about this.

How about you? Have you had to make a decision between buying and renting? What has helped you to decide?