orange county

When we bought the house in November, our mortgage, property taxes, and homeowners’ insurance was 75{7dabfd103aa443fce219eea47f0f346a11a54ce587a1a0cbb74f06b9f7a304ca} more than what we were paying toward the rent on our two-bedroom townhome. It was a big change, but one we felt we could comfortably manage considering we were saving such a large portion of our take-home pay in order to fund the down payment. In December 2014, we were pretty much broke. Between buying our first home, buying all those little things you need for a house when you move in (like curtains for windows! Hello Peeping Tom!), and the holidays, we were scraping by. I will say it over and over again—you NEED to have a few thousand dollars in the bank as a cushion after buying