I know this isn't money, but I wonder if you guys would be able to make rubberduck with me on some financial advice?

So, I'm looking to buy a house at the end of the year. If it were just me, I'd buy a condo/townhome cheap, but I have a German Shepherd who probably has a number of years left, and dogs aren't allowed in any renting/townhome/whatever that I've seen yet.

I have $40k in a CD that I saved in about 1.5 years, and nearly $30k in savings for a nest egg ($10k came in since September, when I created the CD--I'd kept a $20k nest egg in case anything went crazy). When I buy, I'm going to keep at least $20k as a nest egg when I buy, and would prefer to keep another $10k for immediate investment into the house (new appliances if necessary, furnishings, etc.--I have nothing ATM.)

I make $85k a year, with 12% going into retirement funds.

not sure if I can be of much use.. US(?) financial stuff isn't something I know a lot about

Eh, it can't be that different.

tbh translating back what your saying it all sounds pretty sensible

ATM, I have $600 in monthly expenses (boarding a horse and a 1yr training contract that ends in Nov). If I buy a place with 5-10 acres, I can put that toward the house entirely; otherwise, I'll need $300/mo for boarding still. I know I was kind of crazy to get a horse now, but :/

So, at the end of the year, I should have nearly a $100k down payment (nearly 50% of what I can afford, according to people at the Finance site).

so what do you have coming in a month?

$2k bi-weekly.

My expenses are: horse, utilities bill (basically so my parents don't have to pay tax on rent money), car insurance/expenses, and cell phone. I can usually save about $3k/mo.

Sometimes less, sometimes more.

your monthly expenses will likely go up significantly once you move.. there will be all the utilities, property taxes, insurance etc

Yes, I know.

I don't know how much, which is more scary :(

but given what you've got coming in I can't see it being unmanageble

If I move to one of the Dakotas, I'd easily get the land for that price. The problem is, I'd almost certainly have to work remote.

is it just you (+ dog) or do you have a partner?

If I stay in St. Paul/Minneapolis, I can't even afford a new 1-family house. Those start in the $300k+ range now.

I do not have a partner.

On the other hand, my sister will likely move with me too.

She's got health problems so she can't really work, she doesn't have a partner, and we are both sick of living with our parents, although not enough that we'll do anything to get out of there.

@Hosch250 are you looking to buy outright rather than mortgage?

So, I've been looking at my options, and this is what I've considered. 1) Move to the Dakota's, try to get a job as a programmer working remotely. Cheapest option for buying, but most risky if I lose my job.

@motosubatsu I'm looking to have as small a mortgage as possible.

I'd like to buy outright, but I'm not sure my parents want to put up with me that long. They are already getting a little antsy.

2) Stay in the cities. Buying the house will be more expensive, plus I still have to board my horse. It's safe as far as jobs go--I could quite possibly get a job in a few weeks if necessary.

@Hosch250 the job aspect is a big argument for the cities route IMO - yes if everything went perfectly in the Dakotas scenario you'd save significantly not having to board the horse etc but you're gambling rather a lot on that

3) Stay in the cities and buy a ranch from an older guy I know. Taxes estimate the place at $1.2m, but it's only $1m at least (taxes are estimated really high here). The ranch would make enough to pay my mortgage + some (I don't yet know the full expenses of running the place). And I could probably get it for a few $$$,$$$ cheaper because it's kind of run down and needs a lot of muscle put into the place.

@motosubatsu I know. That's what's really putting me off.

@Hosch250 or - I don't know if that's relevant in the US - look for a house that needs restoration but in which you could still move in right away without lacking anything, and then do the works when you have enough time/money?

@avazula That's something I've been thinking of. My dad would help me with the restoration (he's trained as a carpenter and pipefitter/steamfitter).

I personally am very technical, but I don't have the skill to do that personally.

So, it's something I could easily learn, but I'd need to have my dad's help at a minimum.

And we aren't on the best of terms.

So, he'd help me, but we'd get on each other's nerves.

@Hosch250 I just bought a house a few days ago. I could have bought a 330,000euro house but wasn't comfortable with the idea of putting that much money in a mortgage. So I bought for much less money and planned the works over the next six months.

@avazula Nice. I'm not going to by for $300,000.

@Hosch250 no friends who could help with that?

About $250,000 is the limit I'm comfortable with, unless I go with the ranch, which would have to pay for itself, and as such is ruled out until I have more equity to put down on it.

<looks at his $150k house and feels like he must have gone wrong somewhere />

@avazula Friends? What's that? Seriously, I know nobody.

@motosubatsu I'd love that price--it's just that in my area, that's the kind that needs a TON of work.

@motosubatsu yeah, it's not even possible to find a house that cheap over here. And I'm in the freaking countryland.

@avazula I was homeschooled (education-wise, great; social-wise, not so great). I wasn't allowed to walk alone until I was 17 or so. My parents knew someone who knew someone who was kidnapped in a high-profile incident. They were overly protective.

And I thought France was cheap...

@avazula I live on the outskirts of what is know colloquially as a "sh#thole"

same place would have easily cost me 2-3x that much in somewhere people actually want to live

If I go to the Dakota's, I could get the acreage for a couple K. With electricity on the property, it would probably run to about $20k.

@Hosch250 I always forget that's actually an option in the US.. we basically don't have any spare land that you're allowed to build houses on

I could build a pre-fab house for another $100k, but some areas also don't allow pre-fabs.

I'd have another $4k for septic and $30k for a well.

(Rough guesses; could be more/less.)

And they have fiber-optic cable in most of ND; I haven't checked SD as thoroughly.

@Hosch250 any time builders/trades people are involved it's generally a wise idea to err on the high side.

@motosubatsu Yep. These are standard prices as far as I can find, from various sources. The well one depends on how deep they go.

On the other hand, I could probably get a house out there for $150k-200k.

But again, there's the job problem.

If I was to be comfortable doing that, I'd probably need to have a paying side-job at the least, whether it was an app bringing in some income, or a shoe store or something.

And if I lost my job, I could supplement that with a lower-paying job.

Like a clerk or something in retail. Not ideal, but something that would get me through.

@Hosch250 so right now you're living at your parents' house, right?

Renting isn't a suitable option for you?

No. Dog.

oh right sorry, I forgot

NP. I come back to that every time.

I might well try to find a home to rent that will take her. She's not destructive, and isn't aggressive as long as a stranger doesn't invade "her" space.

Like, someone comes over, she'll bark a little, but settle down and even ask to be pet.

But if they come to the bedroom where she's set up her "den", she'll come after them.

I'm not into entertaining, so it's not an issue for me--but it is for the owner because liability and all.

She's a German Shepherd, so it's harder. I could probably get a small dog in if it wasn't really barky.

Even if someone gets bit by a small dog, it's not as serious as a 55lb dog.

My dog scares people by her height and bulkiness too

If it was me, I could probably buy my grandpa's condo.

At this point, I'm thinking my best bet is to move to the western side of the cities in the country. I'm in the eastern side now, and the suburbs are moving right up to the St. Croix river, which is providing some pressure from people just moving into Wisconsin because the bridges are the rate-limiter in rush hour.

Most of the IT jobs are in the western side of the cities anyway.

The only problem is, the land for sale is almost all more than I want, and is being turned into developments with no yard and prices of $400-500k per house.

And it's all rated residential, which means killer taxes. If I go with land, I need to keep it rated Agricultural.

I could get 80 acres of agricultural for the same taxes as 7500 sq ft of residential.

Oh well, thanks for listening. I'm sure something will come up.

If you have any suggestions, feel free to let me know.

Hey, quick question about this guy: workplace.meta.stackexchange.com/users/59502/gregory-currie and this post: workplace.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6493/… (non legal or political question, I promise).

His rep shows up as "1", but he has tons of answers... Is that how a suspended user appears?

@JPhi1618 I'd guess so.

That was my guess. I was wondering why the fuss about a no-rep user then noticed the extensive history.

I know of a couple other lawsuits being prepped over the same thing.

And several threats that if SE doesn't remove their content or roll the licensing back to follow up. I think it'll end up in a class-action.

Yea, it's not something I personally care about, but I understand how odd and sudden it was to change the license of such a huge collection of work.

I'd love to see a breakdown of how many "man hours" of content are on SE.

Many years, easily.

And some people have died and can't agree to the new licensing. I wouldn't be surprised if SE ended up court-ordered to roll it back.

Huh, that's true. With so many users there are bound to be relatively frequent deaths. Never thought of that.

One of my friends from an OSS project coordinated in another chatroom died. We knew he had cancer, then found his obituary. The project leader contacted his wife and confirmed it.

That was nearly a year ago now, I guess :(

Funny. I'd not thought of him for months. I guess it's true what they say about eventually you move on.

I mean, we weren't particularly close, but it was still a loss :(

The whole "online legacy" issue is going to get to be a bigger and bigger deal in the future. For some, most of their life is on the computer.

It's both good and bad.

In some ways, now people's knowledge and personality can be appreciated by people who never knew them while they were alive.

In other ways, it's now harder to be forgotten and for the world to move on.