North County News, my writing outlet and my bread and butter for four years, is gone. The hybrid shopper/newspaper PennySaver Community will publish its last issue July 27. So I am now free to create my own blog.
I've missed writing columns for the newspaper, a practice that ended with the last North County News, published in March. Since then, my good friend Betty Lages died. Betty read and saved all of my columns and the last column I wrote was dedicated to her; she died days later. I am sure she's busy in heaven telling everyone how she was in the newspaper. At least, I hope she is.
Two months ago, suspecting my job was not as secure as it once was and feeling it was time to get even more serious about saving to buy a house, my husband Phil, my dog Finnegan and I all moved back home with my parents.
It's a move that to some of my parents' generation is admitting defeat. "Oh, you guys couldn't make it, huh?" is a comment and a look I have received more than once since the move. But more and more I am hearing stories of folks my age who are moving back in with their parents for one reason or another, the biggest one being to save money. (There are also some older folks who have told me their stories of saving up for their first home, so we're not alone.)
I am one of the luckier ones. First, my parents have been encouraging me and my husband to move back home since I moved out after we came back from the honeymoon. I first moved back home about three years prior, after living in Boston then the Hamptons for some years. (I miss the beach sooo much. So does Finn.) My husband and I found an apartment five minutes from my parents' house, and two minutes from the PennySaver/North County News. (Tough commute, I know.) I thought we needed some time to get accustomed to being married and we'd be better off doing that in our own apartment. I was right.
By the time we were considering the move, we thought about how nice it would be to put our rent money into our savings for a home. My mother had been telling me for a year and a half that if we ever wanted to move home, we could have my old room and my brother's old room at the end of the hall for Phil's office, since he works from home. (I'm very thankful my parents didn't turn it into a sewing room or greenhouse or something.) My mother is nothing if not persistent, and when Phil and I took mom and dad out to dinner to ask them if we could move home, her only response was: "It's about time."
It was a lot less difficult than I imagined to move back into my childhood home with a husband and it has been a great blessing. Finnegan enjoys the backyard and the long walks around quiet streets, and so do Phil and I. Living in downtown Yorktown Heights often felt like living in New York City without the benefit of being able to find good Thai food after 10 p.m. Sirens, drag racing, endless trucks speeding along Kear Street--it was a wonder we slept at all.
I have been looking at it as a temporary move, but for many people moving back home is a more permanent gig. It's horribly expensive to live around here and finding a cheap apartment that isn't in a basement is nearly impossible.
So, thanks mom and dad.
