2 - The Budget

Apparently the most important first step in deciding upon a housing option for a patch of land is to ascertain how much money one can legally acquire for the pleasure. We did not really do this, preferring to jump right into dreaming up, discussing, and looking at plans. In keeping with my unwritten desire to ensure this written piece is readable, I will outline the budget details here rather than clumsily unpacking them over the course of proceedings as was the case in real life. Right, so towards the beginning the only thing we knew about the budget was that we would like it to be small enough to pay off its borrowed component (all of it) with one modest income or two half modest incomes. There are a few reasons for this. We do not want to be stretched thinly across a large debt, we are not keen on having a child care centre raise our child(ren) and a small loan is better, in so many ways, than a big loan, no matter what the hell it’s for. The actual figure would need to incorporate what we owed on the land already – $70 000. After factoring in my sole income of around $50 000, it seemed we would be eligible to borrow about $220 000. This leaves $150 000 for the house and everything that goes with it, like water tanks, waste systems, and solar panels. For the first few months of house planning I sort of forgot about the $70 000 already owing on the land, grossly overestimating our confidence when talking with potential contractors.