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For the last two years, my fiance and I been barely scrapping by in a small 2 bedroom apartment costing $315 a week/$1369 per month (almost half my income). It was easy to get to the city (15 min by train/tram) and seemed worth it because he was studying (now finished) and working part-time in the city, and it was close to some friends. We were paying to squeeze in because it was convenient. That was before the people upstairs started getting abusive. We could have taken a shoebox-terrace house up the road offered by our agent for $420 a week/$1825 per month. It was actually a few square feet smaller, and we'd have to pay on top of that to store some of our stuff that wouldn't fit. Our other option was to wait it out for another place with the same price and battle 20+ other people at inspections, all the while wondering if I was going to come home to my car windows smashed. Then yesterday, my dad offered us one of his massive, 3-bedroom rental homes for $200 a week. Since he'd paid the mortgage off already, he was happy to let us have it cheap. He rents the others out for $500+. Even with increased transport costs with it being 40 mins out of the city, we're saving almost $1000 a month to move in to a house 3x the size of our apartment. Due to budgeting like a mother fucker, we have no other debts apart from my fiance's HECS fees (about $16K), and $500 on my credit card  Hello serious savings, how I've missed you.
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Jul 1, 2013 03:05
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| # ¿ May 2, 2024 02:00 |
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Cicero posted:That's awesome, but be careful: having more room tends to result in buying more (unneeded) stuff. razz posted:And higher utility bills, Both excellent points that are both already partially remedied. My Fiancé inherited a butt-load of furniture, including an 8-seater red gum dining table and a loving church pew. I also have my 7 foot easel, painting gear, computer gear, 2 desks, 2 huge bookshelves, 6 dvd shelves, 2 cats, cat tree, coffee tables... when I wrote 'we squeezed in' to a two bedroom apartment, i meant it  We're going to be at 'holy poo poo! I can walk around things!' capacity, and wont be buying more 'stuff'. We live in Melbourne, Australia and have been surviving with no heat or cooling in this apartment and larger, horrible share-housing for the past few years with temperatures fluctuating between 1 degree Celsius this winter to over 40 degrees for a week in a row (summer just gone). It's hot? Open the windows and sliding doors. It's cold? Put on a drat jumper, it's what they're there for. We've gotten used to being frugal with electricity when it comes to that. Our dryer is in the kitchen and we use it for storing the blender. I'd rather wait a day for something to dry then pay to run that sucker in winter. Our energy provider also has an online, hour-by-hour, day-to-day monitoring system to track usage and costs. So I'll be keeping a close eye on that to see when our usage goes up and what's affecting it. Though this new place does have down lights, and if they aren't the energy saver kind, I'm replacing them all 
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Jul 4, 2013 05:49
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