So I've been a bit of a slacker lately on posting. We have had some pretty extreme weather this summer in the Florida panhandle, mostly rain. Heavy rain. With flooding. Which would be fine if we lived at our old house, but we now live on a creek. For example: it rained all Friday night. When I got up and finally made my way to the back door to check, the creek was still in the banks, about 100yds from our house (9am). By 2pm, the creek had risen about 15' and was edging it's way up our back steps to the house. So apparently it was rising at about 3' per hour. No bueno. We don't have flood insurance (yeah, I'll be checking into that here shortly!) but this summer has been very odd anyway with the weather. So you could say I have been a little sidetracked with watching the weather and hoping my house didn't float away.
Nothing much to say about cooking. Because of the flooding yesterday and part of today, my husband had to cut off the water to the house to prevent the well from shorting out while it was under water. We've been surviving on crap food, still vegan, but pre-packaged junk. So much for that, right?!
My husband decided yesterday that he wishes we were able to buy another piece of land somewhere and build a home instead. We are hoping for that to be our 'retirement project' and because of the awful flooding lately have started to look for a few acres to buy and pay off in a few years. Unfortunately, because we live in such a popular area, the cost of living is skewed here and a .25 acre lot in town will cost you three times what it cost to live 20 miles north of the same lot on a 20 acre parcel. I guess I don't mind living where we live, but being raised in the city limits and moving out to a more rural area leaves me feeling that a 20 min drive to my grandmother's house is just too much. Spoiled? Yes. I used to live next door to my grandmother. Hehe.
Because my husband is self employed, it makes it a lot more difficult for us to attain financing in a conventional way. Fortunately he has made a few friends in his line of work that are investors of sorts that have helped us out. I don't believe they would be willing to finance vacant land though, so we are searching for something with owner financing. I'm sure we will have several thousand to put down and it shouldn't take us more than 2 years to pay the parcel off, but sometimes, you just don't want banks to be involved.
Which brings me to my next point. We have decided to try to build a home instead of buy an existing home. Most of the homes here in our price range are either tiny, in bad neighborhoods, foreclosures with extensive repair work needed, or with some other major flaw that we just aren't interested in. Another big issue is the lot size of the houses for sale, we need at least 2+ acres for my husband's business. Bringing us back to my above paragraph, we have a difficult time obtaining financing because of self employment as well. So, we figured what the heck, we know plenty of subcontractors that would be willing to put in bids and work on a house for us, why not do it ourselves and save big time? We could run on a build as you earn basis so when we finally get finished with the home it would be paid off. So what if it takes a few years to finish, in the end we would save a chunk of money in general contractor's fees as well as the one we both hate, INTEREST on a loan.
This is appealing to my husband, especially if you knew him. He does not like banks in the least bit. Nor politicians. Smart man. :)
I have found a fabulous website I have been reading for the last two nights straight and I am learning a lot about the DIY general contractor. Thank God for people like the owner of this site that write all this stuff down for people like me to absorb up. He even lists an order of operations worksheet so you know what needs to happen when. Very helpful!
Well that has been my last two days in a nutshell. Hopefully everyone has had a great weekend!! Happy eating!
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