Anita and I rent. We know that in the long run, we’ll be financially better off than if we bought. Aside from the blip on the real estate radar that’s happened over the last few years pushing real estate prices through the roof, that has come to an end and will not happen again for a long time for a zillion reasons. This we know to be true, but sometimes have a hard time convincing some people who are (like most) convinced that renting is a waste and the only way to plan for the future is to buy.

This article in Yahoo Real Estate explains the whole thing very well, here’s a great excerpt:

Rent is the cost of owning shares with money you would otherwise spend on a house. Houses have ownership costs, too: taxes, insurance and maintenance. Rent costs about 5% of house prices each year if we apply the price/rent ratio of 19. House incidentals often cost around 2%. If you have $300,000 and a choice between spending it on a house or shares, you’ll pay $6,000 a year in incidentals if you buy the house or about $15,000 a year ($1,250 a month) in rent if you buy the shares. But the shares will return $21,000 a year after inflation while the house will return zero. (My numbers work out even better than these. I pay a smidgen less than $1,250 a month for rent, while house prices in my neighborhood are far higher than $300,000.)

Today is my last day off between jobs, on Monday morning I’ll be heading downtown to my new job. I wish I could sit around doing nothing today, you know be really lazy and unproductive, because I think its the last time I’ll have a quiet day for a few months at least.

Anita went to work early this morning so she could finish up some things, then she’ll be coming home to vegetate with me. I dropped off little Erik at daycare (after ignoring Anita’s instructions and getting lost in North Coquitlam somewhere), and now I’m home with a Venti Mild, a bad cough, and a really messy garage that needs some cleaning up.

Summer’s over!

Had a great meal at Milestones tonight, pigged out on Kobe Beef Meatloaf, which Erik devoured. Until Anita gave him his first french fry (made from yams). Then he wanted nothing to do with the Kobe. That’s ok! Going out for dinner is supposed to be a treat, anything goes. Later on if he decides he wants to start with cheesecake and work his way backwards, that’s cool with us.

That doesn’t mean you can take him to McDonald’s Granny and Opa!!

Bedtime for the little bugger is coming up soon, I better get my butt inside and help out.

We called, they answered, we now have a ton of friends and family willing to help out with the move. This is very awesome! Everybody hates moving, I know I loathe it, so any help we get to shave a few minutes off the task will be great.

It’s Monday night, back to work tomorrow. Only 14 business days left at my current gig before I take a little break and start my new job on October 1st. This is going to be one crazy month.

Anita and I found a fantastic, perfect townhouse for rent in Port Moody that has everything we’ve been looking for. Great facilities nearby, very close to the water (and The Boathouse restaurant!), it’s brand new, has a big deep garage with room for the canoe and our bikes, you name it.

But the hitch was that we’d have to move in on Sept 14, and here’s why we’re asking for help:

We’ve been renting this current house for three years, and have spent quite a bit of our own money and LOTS of our time fixing it up, painting, landscaping, power washing, you name it. Since our landlords knew back in early spring that we were looking, AND since they even told us that they’d appreciate it if we could do a mid-month move so they’d have some time to (presumably) fix up the place some more, we thought they’d be happy about this and agree officially that a mid-month move was OK and we’d get back a half month’s rent in return.

The answer was dissapointingly “no”. So this means if we want the townhouse, we’re out a half months rent, $750. That’s a fair bit of pocket change, so we need to be frugal.

So we’re going to do the move ourselves. We need to forgo the luxury of hiring movers, and as all of you know, moving sucks! Thankfully everything is pretty light. No crazy heavy pullout couches, no 100-pound TVs, no fridge/stove/washer/dryer, just nice light teak stuff, boxes, oh a king size mattress that’ll be fun, but nothing ridiculously hard.

If you can, we’d love it if you could come help on Sunday September 14th. Help us load some boxes and stuff into the truck, follow us to Port Moody if you can and help us load it into our new home. We’ll supply the beer, pizza, and Anita’s amazing homemade cookies. AND you’ll get instant VIP status to our first party!

This feels like the shortest summer in history. Hopefully it turns around at least for a few weeks, right now its just cold and crappy outside. I’m almost ready to give up and start wearing pants again instead of shorts. I love wearing shorts. It means I’m somewhere warm!

Lemme go see what the forecast looks like…

Well, yeah that’s official enough I guess. No more 25+ days, no more hot sweaty nights. At least I got a lot of canoeing in this year! I’ll keep going in the winter, since we’ll be moving to Port Moody in September and I’ll be much closer to a few great paddling spots it’ll be faster to get out there. I can even portage from our new place right to the water.

Just what I needed!

Happy birthday to me … Part 1 of birthday extravaganza. Eating b-fast at IHOP with poopsie!

Will we move? We went to look at a nice townhouse in Port Moody tonight, it’s a brand spanking new two floor, three bedroom, 2.5 bath place with plenty of room in the garage to park a canoe or two. We’ll miss the view from the house we’re in now, and after three years this place really does feel like home, but it’s just so old and small. We never use the basement, except for the office. We had a mouse infestation last winter. All the windows are drafty as hell, the outside really badly needs a new coat of paint. Ahh who am I kidding, this place is a dump.

I think we’re moving!