As most of you already know, I’ve been looking at condos around SF for a while now. Last weekend I found a condo I really like, the parents approved of it, so I put in an offer on Tuesday. Later that afternoon, the sellers countered and gave us until noon on Wednesday to accept or reject it (or counter again.) I talked it over on Tuesday night, and my parents (who are already helping me financially in a big way) said they could probably help me a little bit more to come up with the difference. I went to sleep feeling excited about moving into a new house.

Wednesday morning when I woke up, though, I lay in bed and started adding up numbers in my head. And those numbers got real big. When I got up, I even started looking around my apartment at what I could sell to get extra money. Do I need my Game Cube still? Maybe I can sell my speakers? My new bike? I was nervous, but I figured my parents knew what they were doing.

Just as I walked into work, I got a call from my dad, and after about 20-30 minutes of talking, we decided not to take the counter. Rather than feeling the extreme disappointment that my parents expected, I actually felt relieved. Very relieved. And this is how I knew it was the right decision. After talking it over with my dad, I think even our initial offer would have been very tight, so in a way, it’s good that the seller countered and snapped us out of our excitement over the property. It was a pretty sobering experience, and I have to admit I was a little spooked by the experience, because I think my parents and I very nearly made an extremely financially irresponsible decision. And now, more than ever, you can’t afford (literally) to do that.

Otherwise, things are going pretty well. Working until 9pm (or later) has started to feel ‘normal’, which is a little disturbing. I haven’t taken a photo in weeks, which sucks, but I’m not feeling as stressed as I was earlier, so I can deal.

I’m happy.