There’s been a number of little things on the ‘someday we need to buy’ list, for quite some time now. Some of them have been there since before we were even seriously discussing the whole ‘let’s sell the house and move to Sacramento’ idea that constituted the better part of this past spring and summer. Most of the things on that ‘someday’ list tend to be larger ticket items, but with a lot of bills to pay off, and then going through selling a house and buying a house and all the extra financial entanglements around those, it just never seemed like a good idea.
It’s such an odd feeling, now that this is all over. I’m so used to worrying about money. I’ve been doing it for so long that I’m not sure how not to worry about money. Spending money on some of those things we’ve been wanting for so long seemed somehow irresponsible, as if by doing that, we’d not have the money left to take care of stuff that *had* to be paid for.
We got an unexpected check today, from the company that once held our mortgage for the house we just sold. We’ve always had it set up so we paid a little extra each month, that went into a special escrow account that the mortgage holders kept to pay insurance and property taxes. Well, now that that house is sold and we’re no longer responsible for property taxes on that particular property, suddenly there was this pot of money they no longer needed to hold on to. So all of a sudden, it showed up. Ta da.
And it got us both to thinking. The move has been good for us in a lot of ways. Our commute time to our respective offices has been cut to less than half what it was. We’re closer to rehearsals and social groups, to grocery stores and restaurants and all the other amenities. We’re spending less on a lot of things, and there’s no longer those big bills hanging over our heads. Our savings are in great shape. Our investments are chugging merrily upward all on their own. And, well, there’s that list of stuff we someday wanted to buy. And it hit us. What are we waiting for? Someday might as well be today.
Luckily, being nerds, pretty much all the stuff on that someday list could be found in one location. And so we set off to the mecca of all things electronic – Fry’s. We walked down aisles. We pondered sizes and resolutions and space within rooms. We asked about compatibility with future technology. And then we paid and picked up our boxes (one for him, one for me, and a shiny new toy for both of us to share) and we came home and after unpacking and reading through directions and stuffing batteries in remotes, and hauling away the old clunker that’s been going slowly downhill for a year or more (the weirdly discolored patches in the middle of the screen were always so appealing) we sat down and ate dinner in front of our pretty new flat screen television.
Posted for NaBloPoMo.