Home is Where I Hide My Gun

We’ve started looking for a house in earnest this week. We have a line on four different houses that we like and I’m working with a “relocation specialist” (their term, not mine) in San Diego to help us find a house. Even so, we haven’t totally decided whether or not we want to live in base housing. Pros and cons of base housing:

Pros:

• It’s free. We don’t pay rent or utilities except for phone, cable, and internet.
• It’s safe. Unless we do something majorly drastic, we can live in base housing as long as the Mister is stationed out there.
• There will be no end to the kids that my kids will be able to hang out/play with.
• The housing area we are considering has it’s own Popeye’s (this could actually be a con, heheh), gas station, and convenience store.
• The commute is very minimal.
• It’s easy.

Cons:

• Most of the units are duplexes so we would have neighbors sharing walls.
• In my experience, people that live in base housing are gossips, busy bodies, and look for any reason to be in your business and to complain about you. Not all of them, to be sure, but a goodly portion of them.
• The square footage is small.
• We haven’t had to live in multi-family housing in six+ years. It will be a big adjustment.
• You’re not allowed to paint. Anything. At all.
• I hate base housing.

Three of the houses we are considering are in San Marcos which is about a 45 minute commute from the Mister’s base. But they are really nice. BIG. Of these three houses, one is really affordable and the other two, we can afford but we’ll have less money left over at the end of the month than we would if we lived in base housing. The fourth house is 4 miles from the gate to Miramar, it’s HUGE (5 br, 3 ba), and the owner is military. But it’s at the top of our price range being the most expensive rent of the four. Our biggest issues with these four houses are the rent and for the other three, the commute. The biggest “pro” of all though, is that they aren’t base housing. UGH! Not for the first time I wish that someone could tell me the future, lol.

No matter where we live, I have to have office space. I work from home and need an area where I can shut the door and work. No matter how disciplined I am, it is impossible to balance the books for an organization with kids and dogs pestering me. I need quiet for that and for the many other tasks I do. This could be a potentially big challenge in base housing. More often than not, you are given a unit based on how many kids you have. We have two so we rate a three bedroom. This doesn’t leave space for an office.

What to do???