It's Happening!!

We are jumping in!

We have decided to buy the property! We go Monday to put the down payment on it. From there, we have the title searched, etc.,  and soon it will be ours! Or at least as ours as it can be until we pay it off.

I have spent weeks researching zoning laws, property rights, building codes, etc. I have spent hours researching companies to find one that would loan to us to build a house and include the land in the purchase that didn't require us to end up waiting for several more months, or even a year, in order to have what they wanted down. Good grief, we wanted to build a two bedroom home not a mansion!

We both have gone to appointments to talk to contractors and the like. I'm back to good grief, it's not like we wanted to build a mansion!

In the end, we decided that purchasing the land now so we could call it our own was the best choice. And we decided just in time. We told the man selling it that we were interested. He said that he was glad we called because another couple was going to look at it and were really excited about it. If they had gone to look at it and offered, we would be back to square one right now.

I am really excited about this. We are both really excited about this. I can't wait to have the keys in hand and to be able to open the gate and drive onto OUR property.

Buying the property without a livable building still leaves us here for the time being, however we have looked at many of our options to get out of here. We looked at a separate loan to build the house, buying a camper to put on it, building as we can afford to pay cash, and putting another shed on it and converting it into a cabin, or a combination of these. We opted to not have a loan for building the house that we have designed right now. We decided against the camper as in the entire time we looked at that route we didn't find one that was acceptable with an acceptable price. We don't want to build as we have the cash as that will continue to leave us here in the trailer park. In the end we decided that putting the building on it was the route to take.

We can get the building on it for not a lot of money. We will get someone in to dig the foundation and set the block. Then get the building up. From there, there is a lot that we can do for only parts/materials and no labor costs. My husband's brother and son have both offered to come and help us.

My husband and his brother are both able to pull wire and run electricity. My husband and I are both capable of plumbing work. After all the repairs we have had to make here, we definitely know what not to do. And just about everything else that we would need to do to finish the inside, my husband and I have both already done here and at other homes we have lived in. Although, I do believe that we will have the flooring installed so it can be done quickly. Since we intend to build a future home, we plan to have vinyl put down. We don't see the point in putting down expensive flooring in what will essentially become a guest cabin.

We will have to have a will drilled and the electricity run to the property. Since the driveway and septic are already in place, there is no expense there for us.

Once all the paperwork is complete and we have our keys, we will go to the property and take some pictures. There will be some clean up work to be done before all of the building actually starts. We are looking forward to it, though! Get ready for picture heavy posts in the very near future!

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Tonight for supper is white bean and sausage soup. I am using a Cajun style andouille sausage. MMMM!

I am thankful for a new road ahead of us.

Another Update

I still cannot answer comments, so I will address that here:

My son was supposed to go into the Marines. I have no idea if that will happen now. He was gifted some land by his dad and a small building to go on it. He has been working on it to make it livable for himself for the last few weeks. Tells me that he still plans on going. That said, I don't believe him. I think he will just settle and find a job and move on with life and never join. I hope I am wrong.

We did not hire an attorney for the accident as we believed based on what the insurance company told us that my husband would not be found at fault. Since we are working on purchasing property, we are not interested in a long drawn out court battle over who was at fault. Maybe we should take that route, but it is more important to us right now to figure out how to get out of here. He has never had a claim before so hopefully that helps us in the long run.

We are done with Christmas now. We had a lot of fun and really enjoyed visiting with family. It was nice to get to visit with everyone. Since we lost the truck, our out of town visits are limited. It needs to be fairly close right now or we don't have a vehicle to get us there. We will have both vehicles left worked on now, but can only do so much at a time. Mostly because we want to put as much towards moving as we can. Not to our detriment, but as necessary.

We have looked at the land with the "cabin" on it a couple of times now. The owner actually mailed us keys to the building that is on site so that we could get inside and see it. Unfortunately, the "cabin" is not really livable, so we would need to build something that we could live in. That being said, the price of the property and all the work that has already been done, we can't really beat it. We will continue to follow this lead and see where it takes us. We really hope to our future home.

Over Christmas and the first of the year, we had some time off together and really enjoyed it. I have talked to my mom a few times and am not seeing or hearing any reason to be concerned for confusion or inability to care for herself. She is coherent and all there, if you will, when we talk. My husband's mom only seems to have some regular old "old timers" even with the confusion that seems to have. We are glad for that, as obviously we want our parents to be ok. At least as ok as you can be as you get older.

I know I have said this before, but I really miss having a garden. We have not dismantled the garden beds that we have currently, but we cannot plant anything in them as we will have to eventually, as in sooner rather than later. It won't quit raining for us to do anything with the beds, or we will have to move mud. I don't want to move mud. It's heavy and hard to move. So I won't until I am good and ready. Like when we move.

As things are beginning to change for us, I will try my hardest to keep updating.

A New Journey

Well, we have jumped in with both feet. We made a decision to buy the camper and go that route.

We actually bought a fifth wheel. It has a whole lot more room in it for us and the pets. The dealership we bought it from will deliver it where ever we want (within reason of course) for free. I talked to a friend of mine last night to see if she would care if we parked it there for now. She said no problem and it will not cost us anything. Of course, we will still pay her something as we don't feel it's right to park the beast in her driveway or yard for nothing. Although, she did ask that we leave a key so when she needs to get away from her daughter or grand daughter for a few minutes, she can go have some peace and quiet. I said sure thing.

Part of the reason we made this decision instead of buying a house right away was the campground that we went to for the memorial on Sunday. We met quite a few of the people that live there year round and were quite impressed with them. Everyone was very welcoming and friendly despite the occasion. We also found out that the campground owners and our friend's fellow year rounders put the memorial on for our friend. The campground gave use of one of the pavilions and provided the meat for the dinner that we had. His neighbors are the ones who put everything else together. They cleaned the pavilion, set up the tables and candles, set up the video and picture memorial and music, and anything that needed purchased they all pitched in and bought it. All the folks that came to the memorial, including us, brought side dishes. It really helped restore some faith in people to see them come together like that to help ease someone's pain.

As we drove around the campground people actually waved. I realize that in a campground one would expect that. That being said, I have seen a lot less southern hospitality since I moved down here than I thought I would. In our trailer park, no one waves at each other. Not that we care as we don't want to associate with the kind of people that live here anyway.

At this campground, we met a woman who is a horticulturist (retired), a man who is a professional fisher (as in competitions- not a hobby fisher), and several folks who are retired from various walks of life like mechanics and truck driving. One guy even gave us his number to call if our friend gets back to work and breaks down emotionally while he is out somewhere in the truck. He said he would go to him no matter where he was or how far away. To us, those are the kinds of neighbors you want.

We might have another option for this as well. The friend that is letting us park the camper at her house for the time being is up for a discussion about maybe staying on her property until we are ready to buy. There would obviously be a lot of details that we would have to talk about and work out and it may not be something that all of us want to do. We'll see.

I do, however, think that staying at the campground would be a better bet for us expense-wise. All we would need to do there is hook up so to speak. If we stay in my friend's yard, there would be a shit ton of things that would cost us to get set up. I am not sure that we would save any money taking that route. More discussions and options. :) It does feel as if things are falling into place for us now that we have made the decision. The price was right, a "free" spot to park it until we are ready to move it, a son-in-law that can move it when we need to, a place we both really felt comfortable at. Maybe I'm just being crazy, but I swear even the music on the radio today seemed like it was supporting our decision!

We will just take each of our next steps as they come and it will all work out for us in the end. Also, I will be getting out of dodge! Or at least this dodgy trailer park!! I'll have to become preppin in a campground!

Getting Out of Dodge

My husband and I are looking for a way to get out of this trailer park. I have a feeling that there are some rough times coming down the pike and feel like we need to be out of here before it hits. With the kind of neighborhood that this is, I think it is prudent to not be here if (when) there is any kind of economic downturn.

Most of the people out here rely on either welfare or unskilled labor jobs. Gas stations, grocery stores and fast food. Jobs likely to have hours cut when there is a downturn. Jobs like mine. ;) I have a lot of seniority at work so I'm not too worried about mine so long as the nursery stays open. If not, well we don't rely on my income anyway. My husband is not going to lose his job. We are 99.9% sure of that. What we worry about is all the yahoos out here that will. Thanks to my son, everyone out is well aware that we have weapons. Due to his lack of OPSEC and some other wild stories that were told and gossiped about (which were completely false!), pretty much all the yahoos out here now know it.

We try hard to be circumspect when we bring in groceries, except with no garage and parking by the road, it's a little hard to be discreet when bringing in the bags. I do realize most people are not that observant, I just worry how many people have noticed us bringing in groceries and other items.

We could easily have some money for a down payment and when we sell the trailer would have even more.

So the options we are looking at right now are to buy a travel trailer and find a nice campground to go to or find someone with property we could "rent" some space on, or bite the bullet and just buy a house.

They all have pros and cons. We sat down and worked on a list of pros and cons for everything we could think of for staying put, getting the travel trailer and buying a house with as much land as we could afford.

As far as our list, staying here seems to have the least amount of pros. Not necessarily the most amount of cons, but definitely the least amount of pros. The campground also has a lot of cons. The biggest problem we have with "renting" land from a like minded person is finding someone that would agree to it that is close enough for my husband to go to work without driving for a long time. We do know a few folks that would let us, but two are not someone we think that we would want to have to work with long term unless there was no other choice and the other one is too far away from his job. Buying a house is just scary, especially with the economy needing a reset. Having that much debt hanging over our heads is a scary thought. With that said, it seems like it would benefit us the most.

We still have not reached a decision, but I do feel like we are running out of time. Have you ever felt that way?  How did you reach a decision? Or did you even have options to choose from? I realize without any real details it would be hard for you to say what you would do. With that said, what pros and cons do you see with the choices we have? You might have a thought that we didn't think of.