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Once in college, while I was studying abroad, a friend of mine found an apartment for us to split the next semester. It was very cheap but turns out also unbelievably infested with cockroaches!

 

I'm helping here right?

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For those of you who are young (early to mid 20s), one thing I would suggest when thinking about housing is actually buying something if you think you are going to be in an area for longer than a couple of years.  This probably doesn't apply to some place like San Francisco, but in a lot of other markets, you can buy something like a trailer home for an amount equal to just 3-5 years worth of rent in a decent place.  If I could go back to my early 20s again, I would have bought a trailer for ~$25,000, would have paid it off in just 3 years paying the same amount I paid for rent, and then could have lived rent free or sold the place and upgraded.  True, you're living in a trailer park, but the economic footing you are putting under yourself is massive if your income vs expenses are at all tight at that age. 

 

This is something I've been looking at again recently, as it is an option we might encourage our daughter to do.  In our area, there are places for sale in the ~$18,000 range (which is going to be a lot cheaper than the coasts where some of you are).  If we help with a down payment and co-sign a mortgage with her, she can have a monthly payment significantly lower than rent prices here (which are stupid high), and own the place outright around the time she is graduating college. 

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Yeah, if you can afford it purchasing housing can certainly be a preferable alternative to renting.

When I moved to my current location however, I had barely any money (actually ran out when my first paycheck was late) so it was unfortunately an option for me.

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The lack of money is the most obvious hurdle, but that's why I pointed out trailer homes, as they are often actually cheaper than renting IF you can get a loan for one (which is the other big hurdle, but I think it's one that a lot of people fresh out of college have a legitimate shot at).  I think it's just an alternative most people never consider because we've been normalized to think only of renting an apartment at that age, and to think that trailer parks are somehow inherently bad, a sign of failure or full of undesirable type people, when none of that is inherently true.

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The dream job that I've been trying to get turned out to be bilingual-only. D'oh. OnO

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For those of you who are young (early to mid 20s), one thing I would suggest when thinking about housing is actually buying something if you think you are going to be in an area for longer than a couple of years.

 

Or you can end up like me, pushing 40, moving back in with your old roommate for a long commute into NYC with no equity and no prospect for ever earning anything ever!

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Surely though to get any kind of loan of that size you'll need either collateral or a secure job that the bank is guaranteed to last at least a year or so? Maybe I'm too deep in the starving artist lifestyle but I thought secure jobs were rare at this age.

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My experience with loans is mostly just that you need to present an income history that indicates a future potential to be able to pay back the loan.  Depending on the length of loan, the monthly payment for a trailer can easily be sub-$400 (or even much lower than that), which even if you have a very, very modest income (even just part time income), you'll still be making multiple times what your housing payment is. 

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This is something I've been looking at again recently, as it is an option we might encourage our daughter to do.  In our area, there are places for sale in the ~$18,000 range (which is going to be a lot cheaper than the coasts where some of you are).  If we help with a down payment and co-sign a mortgage with her, she can have a monthly payment significantly lower than rent prices here (which are stupid high), and own the place outright around the time she is graduating college. 

 

I live in a college town and I've noticed a fair amount of undergrads doing this. Living in the minuscule downtown area is stupidly expensive and, well, Michigan isn't exactly doing great economically so houses a bit outside of town are super cheap. The people I've come across who've done that say it was one of the best decisions they made for while they were in college (stable living, quieter than apartments, less incentive/harder to overindulge in the college party scene, etc), but some of them have had problems selling the house after the fact.

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The lack of money is the most obvious hurdle, but that's why I pointed out trailer homes, as they are often actually cheaper than renting IF you can get a loan for one (which is the other big hurdle, but I think it's one that a lot of people fresh out of college have a legitimate shot at).  I think it's just an alternative most people never consider because we've been normalized to think only of renting an apartment at that age, and to think that trailer parks are somehow inherently bad, a sign of failure or full of undesirable type people, when none of that is inherently true.

 

I don't know if we even have trailer parks here in Sweden...

I will google this.

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So even though I'm getting this settlement, I'm still really worried about finding a job. I can't do manual labour, I don't think I could bring myself to do a customer service job again, and I don't speak French. That means my options are pretty limited. I know I'm smart, but I don't have enough of an education to get out of the shit-tier jobs. And I just can't get my act together with self-sustaining creative work.

 

I suck.

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For those of you who are young (early to mid 20s), one thing I would suggest when thinking about housing is actually buying something if you think you are going to be in an area for longer than a couple of years.  This probably doesn't apply to some place like San Francisco, but in a lot of other markets, you can buy something like a trailer home for an amount equal to just 3-5 years worth of rent in a decent place.  If I could go back to my early 20s again, I would have bought a trailer for ~$25,000, would have paid it off in just 3 years paying the same amount I paid for rent, and then could have lived rent free or sold the place and upgraded.  True, you're living in a trailer park, but the economic footing you are putting under yourself is massive if your income vs expenses are at all tight at that age. 

 

This is something I've been looking at again recently, as it is an option we might encourage our daughter to do.  In our area, there are places for sale in the ~$18,000 range (which is going to be a lot cheaper than the coasts where some of you are).  If we help with a down payment and co-sign a mortgage with her, she can have a monthly payment significantly lower than rent prices here (which are stupid high), and own the place outright around the time she is graduating college. 

 

Went Googling out of curiosity and trailer park homes in my city cost ~150K. \:

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Went Googling out of curiosity trailer parks in my city cost ~150K. \:

 

Holy crap!  :devil:  How does that compare to regular housing costs in your area?

 

Before I posted anything, I did a very quick search around Seattle just to see, and was seeing stuff for $30,000 (but of course I know nothing about their relative location in town and whatnot). 

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Tegan, you do not suck. I know this is extremely hard, but you can't let that voice in your head dictate what you can't and cannot do. If you're staying home all day, sure, you have time to do creative stuff, but then it becomes really hard to have motivation or energy to do so. Even getting out and going to the library or a coffee place can do wonders, because it forces you to do the little normal things you're suppose to do as a human, like get dressed, eat on a regular schedule and talk to other humans.

 

(I'm sure you've heard all of this before, but hey, it's important)

 

 

As for jobs, is there something more administrative you can do? Like secretary, office assistant, financial admin, postal worker, that kind of thing? Can be boring, but fits the bill for what you can/cannot do.

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I realized yesterday that the reason I haven't been productive for a few weeks is because my motivation has been drained from this whole GamerGate thing, and whenever I try to focus my brain on making new content for my game it purposefully redirects itself to something else, like it's trying to protect me from making myself a 'target' or whatever. It would be nice to get past that and continue with development instead of moving icons back and forth and polishing up code on the existing content, like some kind of digital janitor.

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So even though I'm getting this settlement, I'm still really worried about finding a job. I can't do manual labour, I don't think I could bring myself to do a customer service job again, and I don't speak French. That means my options are pretty limited. I know I'm smart, but I don't have enough of an education to get out of the shit-tier jobs. And I just can't get my act together with self-sustaining creative work.

 

I suck.

 

This is exactly where I am (with the added bonus of having a master's degree in a field that I have completely divorced myself from because I just can't take the stress of it). I'm stuck being told that I'm overqualified for entry level positions because of my education and unqualified for higher positions because I don't have the necessary experience. So, here's what I keep being told: It's not you that sucks. The situation sucks. The people not hiring you suck. The job market sucks. The options available to you, in general, suck. But you? You're awesome.

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Holy crap!  :devil:  How does that compare to regular housing costs in your area?

 

~500K. I live in north Orange County though, which is part of the huge sprawl of the Los Angeles/Orange County metro area. Suburbs as far as the eye can see... and it's all super-pricey.

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This is exactly where I am (with the added bonus of having a master's degree in a field that I have completely divorced myself from because I just can't take the stress of it). I'm stuck being told that I'm overqualified for entry level positions because of my education and unqualified for higher positions because I don't have the necessary experience. So, here's what I keep being told: It's not you that sucks. The situation sucks. The people not hiring you suck. The job market sucks. The options available to you, in general, suck. But you? You're awesome.

It's really hard right now. I feel lucky to have this new job though it's still not quite what I want to do. At least it's a start. 

I'm trying to focus on building my own projects too, because I think ultimately just getting a good job isn't enough. If your work is owned by someone else, you're getting the short end of the stick in some way. 

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If all goes well we'll probably be signing the purchase act of our new house late september/early october. So hype.

1r4oGf6.jpg

(only EUR 380.000, ouch)

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Tegan, you do not suck. I know this is extremely hard, but you can't let that voice in your head dictate what you can't and cannot do. If you're staying home all day, sure, you have time to do creative stuff, but then it becomes really hard to have motivation or energy to do so. Even getting out and going to the library or a coffee place can do wonders, because it forces you to do the little normal things you're suppose to do as a human, like get dressed, eat on a regular schedule and talk to other humans.

 

(I'm sure you've heard all of this before, but hey, it's important)

 

 

As for jobs, is there something more administrative you can do? Like secretary, office assistant, financial admin, postal worker, that kind of thing? Can be boring, but fits the bill for what you can/cannot do.

Unfortunately, if this is Quebec, all those positions generally require being bilingual.

 

Tegan, there are tons of testing jobs that pay crappily but give you skills that are in Montreal and Toronto. Being versed in English and French is not necessary.

 

The reason I suggest these is because it is better than working in a convenience store and they can lead to bigger and better things. If you do happen to be in one of those areas and you are interested let me know as I can probably ask around with some people I used to know.

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Have you considered learning French anyway? It's great for the brain to speak multiple languages and it opens a lot of doors.

e: the door-opening thing miht be less-so in the Americas, I dunno.

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