Struggling Family in Economy

[Shiloh Acres]

It really IS different -- so different -- depending on where you live. In the past couple of years I've lived east coast, west coast, and middle ... and spent some time looking and comparing and making decisions too.

From early 2010 ...

If I'd stayed on the west coast ... two acres of LAND (no house, and not particularly ARABLE land) in the country near where I was living was going for around a million. I saw a tiny OLD house in the city on maybe 1/5 of an acre for close to a million. Of course you could buy a mobile home for less than 30K a few places ... and then pay about a thousand a month to rent the land it was sitting on (and be contractually unable to move your home). (Funny thing is, there were no jobs there either.)

East coast, I found a small house in a pretty bad area, on an acre, that needed some serious repairs for 35K.

In Texas, I found trailers on up to 3 acre lots for under $10K. For 40K I found a 2500 sf brick house in pretty good shape on 3 acres. Three hours away from those houses, where the economy was pretty good and there were JOBS ... It was hard to find anything on an acre even in falling-down condition for less than 75K.

And in Mississippi -- well, they appeared to be GIVING houses away.

 

[Shiloh Acres]

I guess we all know that it's what you do with what you got. And those of us here know how to have a lot on what other people would consider very little.

I think that about sums it up for me.

 

[ORChick]

Holy smokes!!! - where do you live? We have some great homes here in beautiful rural Indiana, both modular and stick-built that are on 1, 2, and 3 acres for $60k to $100k.

Anna lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. Having lived there myself for more than 25 years I can say that it is one of the most expensive places in the US to live. I've been away from there for 9 years, so can't say what the prices are currently. Big reason we moved away: we had a choice of retiring early, and no longer living there, or staying , and working till or beyond retirement age. Couldn't have stayed and retired.

No kidding. I lived in San Jose for 5 years. When we went to the bay area for vacation in 2001 a 3 bdrm, 2bath, 2 car garage on a concrete foundation and stucco walls was going in the 900k range. I hear they got up over a million before the housing crash and are now down in the 600k range. Up in SF the prices are even worse.

It's amazing the difference in housing prices across the country. I know Oregon has gone up a lot too. People in LA selling for a million and then coming up there to buy for a lot cheaper. Just like the big migration of New Yorkers that bough their houses in the 40's for 25k and sold in the 90's for 900k then moved to Florida and bought really nice places for 250k and drove the housing prices way up.

Unfortunately those places that have the 60k houses usually don't have any jobs. Once a major job provider comes to town the housing prices go way up.

Several years in San Jose, and the rest in Sunnyvale. We lived in a little post WW II house, which we sold for a large profit (beginner house in Silicon Valley), and bought a house in Oregon, twice as large for just over half as much, with a lot more land. And the Oregonians complain about the Californians moving in . They are half right; we come in, and are willing to pay more (as it is less for us), and bring up the prices. But we also bring our retirement money up here to enhance the Oregon economy. And in this market the only people buying houses like ours are probably people from California. This is one of the most econimically depressed counties in Oregon; no one here is buying a house like ours (and ours is nice, but not great) except those nasty Californians!

 

[Beekissed]

I'll be praying that this couple will grow in understanding about what is important in life and will seek for God's will in their lives.

Other than that, I have no comment on this article....they seem to have enough on their plate~self-imposed or otherwise~ without criticism from me.

 

[Team Chaos]

As lovely as a house can be, it's not home if you're there without your family. I hope she and her husband work it out and stop playing the divorce card at every turn- talk about going from bad to worse. I hope they can find a way up to give their children a stable homelife regardless if 'home' is in a brick palace or a "Crappy apartment".
With all the uncertainty in life right now, you've got to count your blessings and not confuse the "good" with the "goods".

 

[me&thegals]

As lovely as a house can be, it's not home if you're there without your family. I hope she and her husband work it out and stop playing the divorce card at every turn- talk about going from bad to worse. I hope they can find a way up to give their children a stable homelife regardless if 'home' is in a brick palace or a "Crappy apartment".
With all the uncertainty in life right now, you've got to count your blessings and not confuse the "good" with the "goods".

Very, very true! I need to go and kiss my sweeties good night (just got home from work).

 

[AnnaRaven]

You can't buy a trailer home hereabouts for $175k . . .

Holy smokes!!! - where do you live? We have some great homes here in beautiful rural Indiana, both modular and stick-built that are on 1, 2, and 3 acres for $60k to $100k.

I'm in SillyCon Valley. House prices are absolutely insane here. My understanding is that some places in Nevada had a similar "bubble" in housing prices. Except that here, it didn't drop much.

My house in Minneapolis was $30k when I bought it . It's now around $175k. Big yard, big old 3-story house. That's barely a downpayment for a single-family home here. OTOH - salaries are jacked up here too...

So yeah - crazy prices. This is why you have to specify the area when you're talking about housing prices. Or specify the kind of house and compare it to median house prices in that area. A big house (5BR) with an acre yard is NOT what I consider a modest house and is likely to be in the higher tier of cost for its area.

 

[dboss66]

I may get screamed at after this but feel it needs to be said.



SO.... Here goes..

*deep breath*

I'm tired of reading these articles of people boo hooing, feeling sorry for themselves. I don't think that 95% of Americans today even know what hard times are!! Including myself, I had parents (As did many of us) that grew up during the Great Depression and those were tough times!!!!! I remember stories of my grandfather and his brothers stealing coal from moving coal trains in order to keep their families from freezing. My father not having milk to drink as a kid and was selling news papers on the street corner at the age of 7 to help with family expenses. These sort of stories are in everyone's family from that time period. Generations since have had a pampered existence, everything handed to them. To the point of developing the "I Deserve it" attitude. They lack what it takes to survive when times get hard. We have become a touchy feel good society that doesn't know how to deal with stress and turn to our almighty doctors for an answer; (After all we have been taught they have our best interests in mind right?) who prescribe us mind altering drugs (Prozac, Paxil, Wellbutron, Zoloft and countless others shall I go on?) in order to "cope"! after having a nervous breakdown due to stress. People of my parents generation didn't have time to get depressed and quit if they did they died!! I believe these hard times may be upon us once again in the near future.

Heres the way I look at it you have 2 choices when life gets tough you can take the easy way out and give up go see the shrink and get a pill so you don't have to deal with reality and stick your hand out for a freebie OR you can pull your boot straps up, dust your pants off, put your head down and charge!!! you don't need a pill for that just a kick in the &%# maybe? Which choice are you going to make?
Stop boo hooing and do what needs to be done!

A house does not make a Home! a family makes a house a home without that its just lumber!

Success is not measured by how many dollars you have but how many people you love and love you!!! I think people have forgot that. People will completely ruin themselves and their families in order to achieve this fake success.


Ok i'm done let the stoning begin

 

[AnnaRaven]

I may get screamed at after this but feel it needs to be said.



SO.... Here goes..

*deep breath*

I'm tired of reading these articles of people boo hooing, feeling sorry for themselves. I don't think that 95% of Americans today even know what hard times are!! Including myself, I had parents (As did many of us) that grew up during the Great Depression and those were tough times!!!!! I remember stories of my grandfather and his brothers stealing coal from moving coal trains in order to keep their families from freezing. My father not having milk to drink as a kid and was selling news papers on the street corner at the age of 7 to help with family expenses. These sort of stories are in everyone's family from that time period. Generations since have had a pampered existence, everything handed to them. To the point of developing the "I Deserve it" attitude. They lack what it takes to survive when times get hard. We have become a touchy feel good society that doesn't know how to deal with stress and turn to our almighty doctors for an answer; (After all we have been taught they have our best interests in mind right?) who prescribe us mind altering drugs (Prozac, Paxil, Wellbutron, Zoloft and countless others shall I go on?) in order to "cope"! after having a nervous breakdown due to stress. People of my parents generation didn't have time to get depressed and quit if they did they died!! I believe these hard times may be upon us once again in the near future.

Heres the way I look at it you have 2 choices when life gets tough you can take the easy way out and give up go see the shrink and get a pill so you don't have to deal with reality and stick your hand out for a freebie OR you can pull your boot straps up, dust your pants off, put your head down and charge!!! you don't need a pill for that just a kick in the &%# maybe? Which choice are you going to make?
Stop boo hooing and do what needs to be done!

A house does not make a Home! a family makes a house a home without that its just lumber!

Success is not measured by how many dollars you have but how many people you love and love you!!! I think people have forgot that. People will completely ruin themselves and their families in order to achieve this fake success.


Ok i'm done let the stoning begin

Okay, I think you have three choices:
boohoo and be a victim,
push through it without any help,
get help and use that to help you push through it.

Personally, I had a 2month period when:
my dad died
I got laid off
my ex left,
my 1 year old son got diagnosed with high lead levels,
without an income, we were facing foreclosure.

For me, that was enough to push me into either giving up or getting help. I got help - a couple months of meds, and a couple months of foodstamps - but meanwhile I was working 80 hour weeks and had a friend watching my kids while I worked. Eventually, I was able to get a better job and afford to feed my kids myself, and also got off the meds. But - I'm not sure I'd have made it without.

Boohooing and playing victim is useless. But getting help, including meds, isn't freeloading, it isn't being a victim, it's getting some help to get through it. My kids were worth my getting help, even if it leads some people to look down on me.

The rest - I agree with you. Most of the stories I read, these people just don't get what it means to be poor. They are so used to being able to make stupid choices and not pay for the consequences that they don't understand that there *are* other choices. People say things like "of course I have to have a car payment - I don't have a choice". Yes, you *do* have a choice. You can take public transit. You can walk. You can buy a used car. You can carpool. You can bicycle. You *DO* have a choice. You don't have to buy new clothes and eat out every day. My kids grew up in clothes we bought at $1 a pound from the Goodwill outlet (the place stuff went that *didn't* sell at the regular Goodwill store) and we bought our breadstuffs at the bread outlet. We had a tv (no cable), but only because someone gave us their handmedown tv and vcr. We watched tapes that a friend loaned us after she watched them. We shopped on foot or bus or rode with a friend to Sam's club where they had a membership (we couldn't afford the membership). We planted a garden full of veggies after building raised beds over landscape cloth (the soil was contaminated with lead) and filling them with compost. We didn't buy books, but both kids had library cards.

Basically, there are a lot of choices out there. The biggest problem I see is that the recently well-off don't even *recognize* them as choices.

 

[Dunkopf]

Anna lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. Having lived there myself for more than 25 years I can say that it is one of the most expensive places in the US to live. I've been away from there for 9 years, so can't say what the prices are currently. Big reason we moved away: we had a choice of retiring early, and no longer living there, or staying , and working till or beyond retirement age. Couldn't have stayed and retired.

No kidding. I lived in San Jose for 5 years. When we went to the bay area for vacation in 2001 a 3 bdrm, 2bath, 2 car garage on a concrete foundation and stucco walls was going in the 900k range. I hear they got up over a million before the housing crash and are now down in the 600k range. Up in SF the prices are even worse.

It's amazing the difference in housing prices across the country. I know Oregon has gone up a lot too. People in LA selling for a million and then coming up there to buy for a lot cheaper. Just like the big migration of New Yorkers that bough their houses in the 40's for 25k and sold in the 90's for 900k then moved to Florida and bought really nice places for 250k and drove the housing prices way up.

Unfortunately those places that have the 60k houses usually don't have any jobs. Once a major job provider comes to town the housing prices go way up.

Several years in San Jose, and the rest in Sunnyvale. We lived in a little post WW II house, which we sold for a large profit (beginner house in Silicon Valley), and bought a house in Oregon, twice as large for just over half as much, with a lot more land. And the Oregonians complain about the Californians moving in . They are half right; we come in, and are willing to pay more (as it is less for us), and bring up the prices. But we also bring our retirement money up here to enhance the Oregon economy. And in this market the only people buying houses like ours are probably people from California. This is one of the most econimically depressed counties in Oregon; no one here is buying a house like ours (and ours is nice, but not great) except those nasty Californians!

Yea, the Californians did the same thing here in Colorado. It seems like around 1995 or so when the technology bubble busted there was a big immigration of Californians here. Don't get me wrong. I love California and the west coast in general. I really miss the Pacific and the mountains they have. The people are a lot more free thinking than in other parts of the country and not so uptight. My new neighbors are from Ca. They have bought the house on the adjacent property but are still trying to sell the one in LA.

I loved Oregon by the way.