the last few months it feels to me like everyone around us are buying a house or flat.  it made me quite envious, to be honest, that other people can afford to buy their own place. 

if you turn on the television you will find no end of programmes that are helping people find that perfect home to buy.  now, i love those shows a lot.  Probably because i’m really nosy and can look at other people’s houses from the comfort of my sofa (this is better and easier than me walking past someone’s house and stretching my neck to see through the window or door what their house looks like).

i look at all these blogs and websites of what people do with their houses and i do feel a stab of:  oooh i want that.

the thing is, house prices in the uk are at an all-time high.  to be able to scrape the insanely high deposit together is definitely not an easy task if you have to pay rent, eat, pay bills, pay the HIGH travel costs and just survive in london. 

since we are both from south africa, we were brought up, that if you own a house it will imply that you are successful and all grown-up.  family and friends back home even think that because you live in london you are rolling in money, it is a constant struggle to remind them that; yes, we do earn more money than them but our living costs is so much higher than what they can even imagine and if you convert the pounds back to rand we are actually on the same boat.

sure, it is great to own a house if you’re financially secure or if you were lucky enough to get on the property ladder before prices went crazy.  and i would LOVE to change and update a few things in our house BUT do we really want the extra worries when something goes wrong at the house & you have to fork out buckets of money to fix it.  now it is just so much easier to call the landlord and let them fix and pay for it.

it is just sad, i think, that when a conversation turns to where you live and people assume that you own your own home.  and eyebrows are raised when they discover that we are happily renters in a GREAT house.

if we put our minds to it we probably CAN save to get a deposit BUT then there will be no more holidays and luxuries (godrick jumps to mind here) and do we really want to put ourselves through this.  i’ve always said that i NEVER want to think back to my life, when i’m old and think that i’ve wasted it or that i’ve missed out on something.  for me, (at least) a house is nice but is it really a necessity? for now cute furniture & renters diy goodies have to do…♥

image taken last night:  this was a quick DIY for adding extra packing space in the kitchen for the groceries (since the current cupboards are all small).  i’ve taken an old ikea bathroom cupboard (that we don’t use currently) and only painted the inside of the door with chalkboard paint & now i can use it to write our shopping list & menu down.  now all i need is a very cute door knob for the cupboard.