Well, I’ve joined the club: I bought an appartment and I’m in financial debt!

I never wanted to have such a commitment. I never wanted to have a mortgage and such a commitment, for years actually decades. In fact, I had managed to remain 100% debt free, up until now.

I especially didn’t want to do this now. It’s crazy to do it now.

But here I am today, with a mortgage and it all went so fast, I didn’t have time to really think of the consequences.

3 weeks of hell!

To back up a little, my partner and I wanted to move this year. We had a couple bad experiences in our current apartment, nothing major, but enough to make us rethink our situation.

I was ready to find another place to rent. He had always wanted to buy his own place. So the plan went from renting a new place, to him buying a place on his own and me renting from him.

And then… it just spiraled!

Despite looking at hundreds of adds, we couldn’t find anything we really liked. We visited one place which we didn’t like but we did, just because we had to start somewhere. To be on agents’ lists.

A week later, we went to a meeting with a real estate developper and were sold an apartment, in less than an hour. We didn’t sign anything there, on the spot but in our heads, we were hooked, although incredibly scared.

We took probably more time than most people do, to sign the required documents. About 10 days. We needed this time because we were freaking out! By that time, considering the budget required, I was going to pinch in a bit. Something like 10%, just to help. Something that my partner could buy back easily, if needed.

My partner signed the contract alone with the developer, as I was on my way to see my dad, that day.

The next week, we contacted our banks and thinks evolved quickly. We realized we had to buy 50/50 and that we would be joint and several guarantors on the loan. I was… well I don’t even know what I was! Annoyed? Scared? Depressed?!

We couldn’t stepped back and instead had to push through all our feelings (well, my feelings!), to handle all the paper work. The first 2 weeks of August are probably the worst time of the year to try to handle such things. O, maybe Christmas time is worst but August is pretty bad, I guarantee you!

We signed the dead, 3 weeks after our first meting with the real este developer. We will hopefully move in our new apartment, by the end of next year.

What happened to my dreams? My goals?

My goal of remaining debt free has vanished. My dream of having an A frame house, tucked in the woods, has been crushed by reality.

I’m slightly appalled by myself. And by slightly I mean enormously!

By no way am I blaming my partner. I helped him with the whole thing. I offered to participate. I agreed to the terms. I signed and I didn’t even hesitate.

So why do I feel so bad?

A little bit is because this apartment wasn’t my dream.

However, most of it comes down to more sneaky reasons: Part of it is because I feel like I wasn’t strong enough to reject getting pulled into such a consumerism trap. I particularly hate that I am now a participant into a flawed, unrealistic market. And I’m upset that my personal projects will be derailed because of having to handle this.

Having little faith in the future that is going to be ours, on this planet that we are trashing and devastating with the upmost disrespect, it is hard for me to see a silver lining right now.

This is shaking me to the core.

These feelings are temporary

Everything is temporary and these feelings will be too.

I will soon try to make the most out of this situation. It’s going to be an interesting adventure and I’m sure we’ll make it work. I’m sure we’ll be happy with the result and clearly happy, when we finally move in.

The year to come is going to be intense.

The apartment will be temporary too

Buying an apartment is not buying a forever home (despite the title of this piece). Not to me, at least. To me, this is just going to be a roof over my head, the place I sleep, work, live, laugh… for a while. Yes, it might be for a few years, but it’s still just temporary.

This apartment is going to be an investment. I already treated it as an investment and will continue to do so while making decisions about the floors, the kitchen or the partitioning. This may be the silver lining I was looking for. I hate to be part of a flawed market but now that I am in, I will for sure, try to make the most of it.

And hopefully, such investment will get me a step closer to my dream house!

Why am I telling you this?

Well, I’m not even quite sure. I think there are a couple reasons here.

One is that I had mentioned (proudly) before, that I was debt free and it’s not the case anymore so I felt I needed to tell you. I’ve also talked quite a bit about saving money and living a simple life and suddenly my life got really complicated (well to me, it got complicated!) and I bought an apartment.

I had also mentioned that I would talk more about certain things, including sewing or furniture up-cycling but I don’t know how I will manage, although this will probably still be relevant once we’re in the apartment.

This might also be a warning that I’ll probably talk about the construction of our new apartment often, the moving, the fitting, the decoration, etc.!

Most importantly, it is a reminder to myself to make the most of this. That I got into this mess and need to make it work! Repeat daily and as often as necessary!!

And cheers to a hectic year to come!