Well as many of you know, Alicia and I have recently purchased a house and will be moving at the end of the month. It’s a pretty scary thing in some ways to know you’re on the hook for a lot of money and somewhat tied down to a specific location for a long period of time. And to think buying a car used to intimidate me… this is a whole other universe entirely!

One thing I will say is that being a homeowner is somewhat empowering. No offense to people who prefer renting (in bigger cities it still makes a lot of sense, since buying a home can be pretty financially daunting), but the fact of the matter is you still have to answer to someone else about the place where you live. This is the main reason I am glad to be owning a house soon. It’s more reponsibility on your shoulders, but ultimately you are in control.

We’ve had some minor annoyances at our apartment (laundry room headaches, water shutoffs and power outages, weird/creepy/obnoxious neighbours), but the worst thing about it is feeling that you’re always subject to the whims of the landlord. They can basically disrupt your life however they see fit.

Even now that we’re ready to leave, it’s been a real hassle. We just had a bit of a dispute with the management over the terms of our lease. They claimed that we had agreed to another full year when we signed our Rent Increase notice in February (in the fine print it does say we’re approving for another 12 months). The thing is, we have been here for two and a half years now and we were already on month-to-month from the year previous. We just assumed the same terms would carry over. It all feels very underhanded, like they are holding us at the same level as a bunch of deadbeats trying to skip out on their lease, when in fact we’ve been nothing but perfect tenants. Thankfully it looks like they’re going to let us off the hook after all. I guess the lesson here is to always read the fine print, and more importantly — understand it.

Our next priority is to buy appliances and some new furniture. And somehow I need to convince Alicia that this awesome Floating Bed is an absolute necessity.