All Things Travel and Real Estate

I started my blog while working at ACU last year. I loved blogging so much I always intended to continue.

Enter lots of distractions, like booking an overseas trip to the UK and now having to work out an itinerary (travellers will sympathise with me as fun and exciting as it has been, it's also time consuming). Thank goodness August isn't here yet!

Then there's the compulsion to scrapbook in my limited free time, and I can spend hours at it. Plus the hours of thinking about scrapbooking and purchasing (unnecessary but totally needed!) supplies online. Drool.....

I've also changed jobs, and I felt bittersweet about it because I did love ACU but a fractional income and trying to get ahead financially did not go together well. I now truly know the value of a regular wage, even if it means working full time and having less time for fun pursuits. It's totally worth not having so much financial stress. Fortunately in my new job I'm working with great people and I love the actual work itself so it has all worked out perfectly.

The biggest thing in my little world at the moment though is the decision to buy a house sometime in the next year. David and I have been hitting a couple of open houses but we haven't been able to do too much yet. I'm building up an idea of where I want to buy and I plan on hitting open homes with more regularity soon.

I am under no illusions that my future house will be as grand as this one, but there's no harm in daydreaming occasionally.

Oh and for anyone looking at buying (or even just for a laugh) I can't speak highly enough of this book:
The Property Diaries: A Story of Buying a House, Finding a Man and Making a Home... All on a Single Income! Antonia Magee

Seriously I was laughing out loud (my housemates probably think I have gone mad). I'd read most of it in one night (it really was that good!). Plus it gave me some good advice. As a complete novice to buying a home, my reading has been limited to real estate, property investment books or budgets. I will succeed though, and I can't wait to have pets again and be paying of a mortgage rather than dead rent money!