Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Cold Feet

And not the kind you can warm with slippers...  
The recent economic down turn has gotten V worried.  He is concerned that if things continue to get worse the hospital will make more cuts.  While that is always a possibility, I do feel that they would be shooting themselves in the foot to make more cuts in staffing.  Of course, no one ever said that hospital administrators always make the best decisions.  I'm not too worried.  Our division already gave up the new staff we had been promised and are going to be cutting another .2 FTE.  That will leave us only 4.05 FTE to cover 5 inpatient units, 2 outpatient programs and outpatient cognitive evaluations.  I'm not holding my breath that we will get a raise in July like we usually do but I'm okay with that given the current situation.  I may be wrong but I really don't foresee my hours being cut.
But V is worried.  He wants to back out of making an offer on this property and just sit tight for a while longer.  I'm anxious to move on- we've been 'sitting tight' for too long.  We really need time to sit down and talk about this but I've been busy at work and we've been running in the evenings this week.  V has been working on freelance stuff.  He has a bunch of start up stuff for his brother and has a manuscript to edit for his former employer by Friday as well.
I want to make an appointment to meet with a realtor.  A different one than who showed us the house.  We will eventually need someone to help us sell this place and we want someone who can help us negotiate on this property- who is more experienced than we are.  We know a realtor socially (he is a friend of my brother and we have chatted with him several times at my brother's parties) and I've been trying to talk V into at least going to talk with him.  Who knows- he may know of something in our price range that we haven't found.  There is another place that we've looked at on line- but it's only 3 acres and it's almost 20 miles from town and the children would be in a different school district unless we wanted to pay for them to remain in this district and provide transportation- that seems a bit much- but the house on that property was built in 1990 rather than 1951 and would be much less work to repair.  It does have a bit of the McMansion look about it- it looks like a garage with a house attached-yuck.
I'm going to try to corner V tonight after we get the children to bed.  Hopefully we can both stay awake.  I think we both slept better last night than we did the night before so we're not dragging our tails quite as much.  Sunday night both of us had too much running through our heads about house stuff.  I was cataloguing problems and V admitted that he was choosing power tools for different projects in his head (I guess that means he's willing to tackle them)
I really don't want to give up on this one.  I know that the economic times are scary but I feel that we're in a much better position than many.  
I guess I allowed myself to get my hopes up and I'm worried that it will all fall apart.

6 comments:

  1. Take a deep breath, then LISTEN. It's out there... hearing it is sometimes the most difficult thing I do. But the answer is there.

    On a sidenote - how are the hotel plans coming for the wedding? Or did I miss something - couldn't remember what the final answer was.

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  2. Thanks- I do need to try to listen more. We went through a stint of marriage counseling that helped tremendously but we are both a bit stubborn.

    We think we finally got the hotel plans worked out. It took my brother's wife to sort it out. She's a 'take charge' kind of person. It also helped that she actually had all the information. Once we got my Mom out of the middle transmitting conflicting information we got it worked out. We did need to get a few more rooms at the hotel across the street but everyone finally has a place to sleep. Now I just need to figure out what to wear,,,,
    Judy

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  3. Judy --It's like standing on the edge of a cliff, isn't it? There is NO right decision-just don't let it be a decision made in fear. K

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  4. I agree with Hickchick - there is no real right or wrong here, its just making the best possible decision in this moment with the information that you do have. No way to tell the future, just keep making one decision at a time and see where it ends up. Can you step away for a day or two? Or would that hinder the timing for the land you are looking for? I agree that it would be not-so-smart to cut staff now at a hospital, but then, who knows. If V did lose his job, would you have a backup plan for income? I think that a big difference between you and many others is that you do have a plan on downsizing other parts of your life to make your dream real. Maybe one thing to do is look if there are other places to consider, if anyone else has a lead. Who knows, it might require less fixup or have a more eager seller....
    Okay, longwinded that was, but just saying that hang in there.

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  5. Step back for a minute - your loan pre-approval will still be there, the house will still be there. I'd talk to a realtor - they would possibly know other places that are even better. This economy is HORRIBLE right now - hang in there. I'll be thinking of you!
    Kris

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  6. There are so many things to think about and it is easy to become entrenched..for both parties.

    Maybe making a list of pro's and con's can help if you extend the list to cover some contingencies.

    Will the land make you more food independent, offsetting cost? Does it offer a way to make money should the need arise? How much does it really change the overall costs of daily life including utilities, travel, insurance?

    Add intangibles like: Which place will you feel safer? Which place offers more quality of life for each person? How much will this place cost when the economy recovers? Would we be able to afford a place like this when the economy recovers?

    Then break down the What If's. What would happen if I lost 20%, 40%, all of my income? What happens if I sell my old home? How much remaining debt do we carry?

    I know we aren't there with you to provide friendly personal support, but we're all out here waving to you in blog land.

    It's natural to get cold feet in the best economy let alone a bad one, but in real estate matters, buyers are getting the deals right now.

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Glad you stopped in. I would love to hear from you.