What I’ve Been Up To Lately

I’ve been pretty quiet for the last few weeks, so I thought I’d take a moment to tell you what’s been going on in my world. Don’t worry – there are financial tie-ins for most of it, so this post will have some money stuff scattered throughout.

First off, work has just been crazy. There is no financial tie-in there, other than just, ya know, working is how I get paid. The paycheck isn’t why I do what I do, but it is a result.

But that’s why my posting schedule has slowed way down. I simply couldn’t sustain it – not if I wanted to sleep and eat and have clean clothes. I’ll get back in the swing of things soon. I’ve been working hard in the background, and you should see a normal pace resume shortly.

But Wait, There’s More!

My military readers will know that military folk change jobs a lot. That’s what we do. The active duty folks, anyway.

Well, guess who is moving??

That’s right. I will be leaving the DC area this summer and moving to a new location. I haven’t decided yet whether I will be as open about my new location as I have been about being stationed in DC. Why? Well, in DC I have a lot of anonymity. There are literally dozens of places a military member can work here.

That’s not the case at my next location. So – stay tuned! I will say that I’ll be living in the western half of the US, and that my new duty location is very different from DC. That’s all you get for now.

The new job has affected my blog – and my money – in a few ways. Blog-wise, I’ve been spending time doing research on my new job and duty location. Time is a finite resource (which is why FIRE is so important to me!) so it’s affected my blogging. When I wasn’t working long hours at work, I was thinking about my new job. And starting packing again (already). And scouring Zillow for a new place to live and looking for a new car.

Oh yeah, the money part. Let’s cover the car part first since that’s easier.

I Need A New Car

If you’ve been following along for a while, you might remember that I sold my car over a year ago and have been living car-free ever since. In DC, this is a great option. Most of the people I know have a car for every adult in the family, but it really isn’t necessary here. I currently spend less than $20/month on transportation. I am able to walk to work, so that helps a lot. And since you have to pay for parking in the city, not having a car actually saves me a big chunk each month.

In my new duty location, not having a car isn’t going to be an option. If I live in the area I’m expecting to live in, I’ll be commuting about 15 miles each way. Back away Mustachians – this isn’t because I love a long commute and clown cars. There is no option to live within walking distance of work at this new location. Even riding a bike would result in a long commute just based on where the houses are in relation to my new work site.

I’ve driven fuel efficient compact cars my whole life. For the first time, I’m considering getting something different. Because I will be living in a location surrounded by great scenery and endless hiking, I’m thinking of buying something that I can convert into a car camper. That way I can pack up my car with some equipment and my dog and hit the road any time I want – and wake up to gorgeous views in the middle of nowhere!

Just what is a car camper? Well, here are some images and links to give you some idea of what I’m looking for.

CAR CAMPERS!!

My leading contender right now is a Honda Element. Unfortunately they stopped making them in 2011, so while that will be easy on the budget, it’s a bit older than I was hoping for. I would prefer to get something in the 2014-2016 range. But check out these layouts!

I like this one because it’s a convertible system. It can be a bed or bench seating. Plus it has nice storage options, and most importantly it can easily be removed and reinstalled (I’ll use it as a normal car most of the time).

And this one would require a friend with some woodworking equipment, but check it out. You need to scroll through this post to see how it sets up! Because of the design, you could carry it around all the time and be ready to go camping in minutes. Nice.

I’m also looking into a few other vehicles, but so far the Element ticks all the boxes – affordable, reliable, a great size for the camper and not too big for daily driving.

If you have a car camper let me know what kind of vehicle and what your setup is like in the comments. I’m open to other options!

New vs Used Cars

If I get the Element, I have no option but to get a used model. But if I choose another vehicle, I have to make the new vs used decision.

Right now I’m leaning towards used. It’s more sustainable, more economical, and quite frankly I have no particular need to have a brand new car. On the other hand, some of the options I’m looking at are only a couple thousand more for a new car than some of the used cars I’m looking at. And given how long I keep cars, it could end up being the last car I own while in the military. So…time shall tell.

I don’t have a hard budget on the car. I’ll spend what makes sense for the model and year I decide to buy. I probably won’t spend more than $25,000, but that would be for something pretty new and really nice. Most of the vehicles I’m looking at are in the $13,000-$18,000 range.

And About That New Place To Live

I’m moving. Again. Gotta look for a new place to live. Again. Oh, and the housing allowance in my new area doesn’t go very far.

Civilians: military members either live on base in government housing, or we are given a housing allowance to find our own place (either on or off base). I’ll explain more in an upcoming post but long story short, we are given “enough” money to cover government-determined adequate housing for our rank and family status. “Enough” is very subjective.

When I first started looking at housing options in my new duty location, I was convinced I was going to have to spend more than my housing allowance to find something suitable. I’m not kidding when I say that the options in my price range were…interesting. I was spending lots of time looking at tiny, old, rundown housing in not great parts of town for basically all of my housing allowance. Then there was the one with a kitchen that was three different shades of green – walls, cabinets, and countertops.

I’ve started to see some more inventory opening up in the last few weeks, so hopefully I find something good. But yeah, normally I like my rent + utilities to come in at or below my housing allowance. At first blush, that isn’t going to happen. But I’m keeping my eyes open! If I do go over budget it’s not a huge deal (my savings rate will stay high) but it’s obviously not what I’d like.

I won’t be buying in this location for two reasons. One, from what I can tell the market just isn’t very good. Prices seem high for the area. Two, I’ll be there for a short enough time that I wouldn’t want to sell right away because I wouldn’t meet the threshold for selling without owing capital gains taxes. The home prices don’t justify turning it into most homes into rentals in my opinion, so renting is a better option for me right now.

One last thing…remember how I just moved into my apartment at the end of 2017? And how in order to make it financially worth it, I had to stay here for at least 6 months? Funny story…

I’ll end up leaving this apartment at about 7 months and 4 days, give or take a few days. So yeah, it ended up being worth it financially…a little bit. In all I will have saved a few hundred dollars. Of course, I still had all the trouble of moving. Even with paying people to physically move the big stuff, I still did a lot of work myself. I probably wouldn’t do it again if I’d known then what I know now. C’est la vie.

Wrapping Up

So that’s what I’ve been up to lately. Between my job and planning another move, plus several trips that all converged within one month, my schedule has been packed. I’m doing a lot of budgeting and scoping out houses and cars and hopefully these experiences will turn into some good posts that I can share with you. Hey, maybe I’ll end up having some funny car salesman stories! Did I ever tell you about the salesman who told me it was impossible to get cruise control in a car with a manual transmission? 🙄

Thanks for sticking around!