August 8th marks the day of a new era for me… the day my Roommate officially is out of my house that I purchased back in September 2011. Some may think that doing that was crazy of me and that it’s nice to have a bulk of the monthly payment on my house paid for, but here is why I had to have him move out.
When I bought my house, as I showed in my fixed monthly expense post, it was in September 2011. I traveled quite a bit when I first moved in and never had a chance to “settle” into my house, decorate and organize the inside the way I wanted and I had all of these “visions” when I first moved in. Visions such as “oh this would be a great office area to focus, work on projects, stock analyses” or “oh my basement – put the comfortable couch in there, a nice screen to watch movies and bring people together, it would be great!” – all of a sudden didn’t happen. These visions never happened when November 2011 occurred.
November 2011 was my 5 year reunion for high school and my classmate had talked to me about her older brother moving to my area for work and was looking for a place to live in that area. I thought, okay – my payment is roughly $800/month, with him at $400 it would cut my cost in half! How amazing is that? $4,800 coming in, not too shabby. Cut my utilities in half? Sure, would love that! Now her brother is about 3 years older than we are, so I also figured – perfect, he’s a professional, more mature, clean, knows how to be social, etc. Also – he could watch the house while I was away? Secured feeling there.
June 2012 – 6 months in. Wow. He was the messiest kid I have ever met. He had clothes all over the place (family room, kitchen), never did dishes, stacked plates on both sides of the sink, and this smell.. Gosh this smell. Regardless, after 6 months I learned he was not the clean person I thought an upper 20 professional would be. I increased the price by $15 to go with the increase in property taxes I had, along with all the cleaning I did. Thought okay, maybe this would help, an extra $180 a year would make it better… or so I thought.
April 2013 – 1 year and 4 months in. All of a sudden I realized much more. He smelled, he wasn’t clean, but given this – we just did not gel socially either. Just different lifestyles on all fronts and I was not happy. This was the point I realized that I truly wanted the place to myself. A few months later in June 2013 – I increased the price another $50 – for all of the work that I was doing at the house – the costs of unclogging drains from his balding hair that was causing the issue, the hair everywhere, his girlfriend practically living there and essentially – me feeling like the house wasn’t even mine. I really couldn’t take it anymore at this point. I had to fix draining issues, which cost me a lot of money and my quality of life at my house was deteriorating. I am never home and when I was – I didn’t want to be there. I know this sounds sad/worse than it is, but it was very difficult. Even after conversations with keeping the house clean, the fact that she lived there, the constant work that he witnessed I was doing – changed nothing from his end. Something was wrong from that aspect with him, I decided – it is best for me to not associate any further, but for an extra $600/year, maybe it will be better and he’ll learn that if he fixes these things/issues of his own – it’ll get better or he’ll face another increase..
February 2014 – 2 years and 2 months in. I sat down in the middle of busy season and simply asked him to leave by April 15th. April 15th then dragged into May, which I then increased the price another $35/month. The price was now at $500/month or estimated at $6K per year. On my house – that’s a very high “yield” as my house is roughly worth between $100-$110K depending on the week and the website. As of the end of June – this would be essentially 4.5 months or 135 days since I’ve asked him to leave. $5oo per month – think about the cost of living this amount covers! I couldn’t rationalize it any further. Luckily – he found a new place and is moving out August 8th, my house will be mine, A G A I N.
One thing I’ve learned – is if you are getting/receiving money for being in a situation that does not fit your lifestyle, does not make your quality of life at a point where you want it – then there is really no price tag on it. You can apply this to work, side jobs, friends, aka anything you spend your money on. This made me more calm in that – money is not everything, at all. I was lucky enough to have someone pay me to live in my house – but he could be paying me twice as much – still not worth it. The same method will go to my current position at some point I feel – where – I may just walk away from it all – and even if they try to lure me with more money – sometimes no dollar is high enough to do something that simply doesn’t make you happy or is in line with your passions. I turned down a $6k income stream for quality of living in a place that is my own. It’s hard to stomach/swallow that, but for me – it’s been really easy. Also – if I go back/dive into rental properties further – I will now be doing thorough methods of background checking, questionnaires and trials with individuals before even considering someone. I hope that everyone does take a second/day/weekend to assess their life and ask – is my time and money being used to make myself happy and to give the world the best of who you are? It’s not an easy question – one that I haven’t found the answer yet. Anyone else have instances of this? Have you stopped doing something, spending money on X, quit a job or leave someone – that just didn’t make you happy? Please share, as I would love to hear. Thanks again for stopping on by and hearing about a moment of my life.
-Lanny