Wow. What a stressful week it has been! We received a notice last week stating that our landlord has decided not to renew our lease, which runs out mid-april. We have been running about like headless chooks trying to organise money so we can move. Thanks to the mining companies, the rents in our area have skyrocketed. We can no longer afford to live here, so we have been looking in other areas for a place to live. However, if we move out of the area, there are some issues with our car that will need to be fixed before it drives long distance. We need to come up with money for bond and two weeks rent in advance. Also, we then have the actual cost of moving. Definitely not cheap!

After much deliberation, we have applied for a home in South Australia. It isn’t perfect, but the rent is only $75 per week, so we could use it as an opportunity to save for our own home. We emailed the application to them last night and we are waiting to hear back as to whether we get the place or not. I really hope we do. I am so damn sick and tired of renting! I am tired of paying off somebody else’s mortgage. I am tired of quarterly inspections. I am tired of panicking every time my kids so much as mark a wall. I am tired of needing permission for something as simple as hanging a picture hook or getting a cat. I am tired of having to live with somebody else’s sense of style, colour etc. I am tired of having to move around all the time.

I am more than ready to own my own home. It doesn’t have to be big. It doesn’t have to be fancy. I just want a place I can call my own. A place I can decorate however I want. Where I can paint the walls whenever I feel like it. Where I get to choose if I want curtains or blinds, tiles or carpet, grass or gardens. Where I can decide how many picture hooks are allowed or whether my pets can come inside or whether fingerprints on the wall of a child’s room is really such a major disaster. A place where I don’t have to deal with someone else judging whether I am a good enough housekeeper. Most of all, a place where I can live as long as I choose as long as I keep paying my mortgage and council rates.

Up until now it has been a pipe dream. Something that might happen in my next life or the one after but which I have Buckley’s of seeing in this lifetime. However, if we get approved for this home we have applied for, or even another home in the area which averages $120-150 per week in rent, the dream may just become a reality.

Related articles

• Ways to decorate rented property (directblinds.co.uk)
• The Essentials of Renting – Breaking Down the Basics (miketendstotravel.com)

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