A little sad and a little worried.
Contemplating moving to the shittiest part of the closest big city. BUT it is smack dab between both our jobs and we can actually afford to live there (CS is almost half of FDH's income). What with CS being what it is, we cant afford to live in the nice part of town and still pay CS. The only homes close to my or his job are like $150,000 homes and we JUST CANT afford that.
Looking at the neighborhoods we can afford and the crimetracker shows most assaults and burglaries occur in THE FUCKING DAY TIME in those places!
We're stuck between a rock and a hard place. We either live with bars on the windows (yes, they actually come pre-installed), or we live in an apartment in the town my job is at, BUT we cant move into one for AT LEAST 3 months. Of the 8 complexes we have tried after they post an ad on craigslist, we have had three call back informing us, no the apartments are not actually open right now...perse...but MAY be open in 3-6 months. OR we move into the very nice apartments 5 mins away from FDH's Job, which would leave me with a 45 minute commute, one way, most of that being after midnight.
We cant fucking wait for months if we want to go for custody. We don't have that many years left with the oldest boy.
I dont know what to do.
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True. By the time the
True. By the time the application goes through all the hoops and you end up ready to take the kid home, the three months will be up.
I am just so damn frustrated.
I am just so damn frustrated. Those boys deserve the best and we can't afford it. Hell, the truth is a shitty 2 bedroom apartment is better than the BM's two bedroom house with 7 people living in it.
A mortgage on a $150,000 home
A mortgage on a $150,000 home is not as expensive as you would think. Its actually just as affordable as a nicer apartment
We pay less for oir mortgage with insurance and taxes bundled into it than we did for rent on a "luxury" 2 bedroom apartment. Not only that but just because the seller asks for a certain amount does not mean they expect to get that. Most sellers price slightly high to make room to negotiate 
Same here. Rent is crazy high
Same here. Rent is crazy high here, we pay only $170 more a month on a 4 bedroom home in a nice neighborhood than we did on a tiny 2 bedroom apartment. Our home was $165 & we didn't put much down (FHA loan).
Could you perhaps get a fixer upper home? A foreclosure? A crappy house in a nice neighbhorhood? All of those are better options than living somewhere dangerous. That won't be good for a custody battle anyway. A 45 minue commute isn't half as bad as staying up all night worrying about being robbed.
I live in a 'not so
I live in a 'not so expensive' part of the US, about 4 hours for DC, & our 2 bedroom apartments run $850-1200
I know your income probably reflects that cost of living, but I am so jealous.
Homes in our area, it's hard to find a decent 3 bedroom for less than 200k. Most 'nice' ones run between $225-300k. We got a 'fixer' with only 1 full bathroom, 1 "1/2 bathroom" in the basement, for $168.5k & put like 10k in it fixing it up.
oh I get to work in 5 mins
oh I get to work in 5 mins also. DH & I both live & work in a very small town.
Don't live in the worst part
Don't live in the worst part of the city, even if you can afford it. Everyone else's business suddenly becomes your own. You've already looked at the crime stats. Don't move there. Is it possible to rent a small house somewhere? The biggest headache would be coming up with the security deposit, but if you're already in an apt, the security deposit from your current place should be coming back to you. You can roll it into a new place. Don't buy in a crappy neighborhood -- you'll regret it. It's still a renter's market and there are lots of houses to rent, even a townhouse/rowhouse/duplex would afford you more room. I have two townhouse rentals because DH and I needed a single family when we got the 2 SDs FT. We didn't want to sell our individual townhouses in a bad market, rather we wanted to hold on to the property and save it for retirement income. Someday. LOL.
Get on realtor.com and look for private individuals who have small HOUSES to rent.
I drive 30 miles one way to work each day. It takes 1 hour right now because school is out and there is "less" traffic. I leave my house at 5:50am and get to work at 7am to avoid traffic. Settle for a longer commute if you have to, but don't sacrifice moving the entire family into a bad area.
Fingers crossed for you!
~ Moon
I pretty much said fuck it.
I pretty much said fuck it. My job is not...particularly special. I have a waitress job right now. Meh. Thats my fall back job when things get bad. Like when the carpentry company FDH and I both worked at (me for 5 years him for 13) closed down.
I applied at three bars and four restaurants/hotels with in a 15 min drive from the apartment by FDH's job (Since I posted this). The only reason I was thinking of them (the apartments) anyway is that they called us back asking if/when we wanted to move in. So I just did it.
I pretty much just set us up to relocate to FDH's town. It's a closer commute to my school anyway.
According to three of the job ad's I'll be getting phone calls sometime in the next 24-48 hours to interview.
Cross you fingers Ladies.
I hope you get a job
I hope you get a job soon!
Seems like you found a better solution
You cannot put a price on
You cannot put a price on safety. The neighborhood I used to live in was going downhill fast when DH and I got together. THere were break-ins during the day there, too. I was VERY thankful that I have a huge, uber-protective dog that I kept inside - the 3 houses with dogs were the ONLY ones who didn't suffer a break-in. If it hadn't been for the dog, I would not have been able to sleep at night.
I'm glad that you decided to
I'm glad that you decided to NOT move into a bad neighborhood. Even if you can afford the houses there, peace of mind has a cost too. Also, when you were able to move out, you might have had a hard time finding someone else to take that house off your hands at a decent price.
CS is almost half of FDH's
CS is almost half of FDH's income
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
why
They probably live in a BM
They probably live in a BM centric state like NY where CS goes on forever and you're screwed for life. Chef pays well over 50% of his net income; approx 33% of his gross.
Do not move to a bad part of
Do not move to a bad part of town. I lived in the inner city of Rochester NY. From '78-'94 in various areas throughout (NW side, SW side, NE side, SE and back to NW)
Almost burned rubber tire tracks when I finally made the 45 minute move to a rural village with a suburbanesque feeling, mostly for the sake of my two bios.
The school district was horrendous, my daughter got pushed out into a busy street and stuck with needles. My son got teased and had old batteries and the metal piece of a water fountain thrown at him. I had bars on my windows and doors, a guard dog, security lighting and yet got broken in to several times. The fights, the theft, the gunshots, the prostitution, the drugs. My kids were "latchkey" kids for quite a while and this all added to the stress.
They tore down almost all the houses on that street-mine is the only one standing from 1994 when I finally left the city for good. Poverty doesn't lead to crime; crime leads to poverty.