so we have tried twice to buy a house: once in february during the same weekend we were in the bahamas…let’s not do that again, and the 2nd time last week. both were in santa clara. and both final prices were $100k or over the listing price. it’s such a seller’s market right now. people are bidding so much for homes and not even asking for contingencies on the contract. we bid $713k for a $629k listed house, and it sold for $751k! there were 16 offers, 6 of which were higher than our offer.

yesterday (sunday), i was bored so i made a spreadsheet of our estimated financial situation if we worked for about 20 years more to see if we could retire at age 50. from my calculations and conservative estimates of only 1% interest on our monetary assets, 2/3rds social security kicking in at age 67, inheritance from parents, expenses with 3% inflation, we’d have a comfortable life style for 35+ years. however, this doesn’t include some big expenses that we’d probably have to have in the future (i.e. cars, house, etc). i think that if we lived in oregon, the house thing won’t be much of a big deal, but living in the bay area would definitely make it harder. i also don’t know how it will be if our health deteriorates, and that is more likely to happen with old age. we’d still probably work a little after age 50, but i don’t think that i’d need to do full time work.

i don’t want our lives to be just about work (which right now, it usually is the primary focus). i like the european way in which your work doesn’t define who you are…or at least you aren’t working just for someone else’s benefit (corporation). if you know about computer stuff, make your own site! if you’re good at writing, write something that you’re proud of. it doesn’t have to be sold somewhere, but it helps enrich you. i want to keep learning despite my inner sins of laziness. i want to take a photography class and take nice pictures. i want to travel. i want to make my blog into a book…grammar mistakes and all! i want to enjoy all the things that God has to offer in this life.

 this summer, we’ll probably not travel as much (err…we did go to sacramento with my parents for my bday), but things are still getting filled up. last week, we went up to san mateo to go hiking and to celebrate anson’s bday at espetus ($100 gift card that we finally spent from justin and vicky). on saturday, we hung out with nathan and andrea, yesterday, we had a church clean up day. this month is filled with 2 yelp events, church picnic, and helping some church friends move. there will be an all church retreat in august. I’m going down solo to LA in september, and both anson and i will be going down for the holidays in november and christmas.