As my wife, our daughter, and our dog all settle into our new house, I figured it was a good time to reflect on the experience now that we’ve been here for a month.

This process began in earnest after the Thanksgiving holiday last year, still deep in the throws of quarantining with no end in sight. We knew we wanted to move to be closer to family and friends and we were having bad luck finding apartments that felt right or even getting responses from people. We’d gotten a short extension on our lease until the end of March 2021 and figured it might be time to make an adjustment toward buying a house since my wife knew a realtor in the area.

Once we did some budget calculations, we realized this would be doable and starting setting up house tours (masked and distanced). Overall, we saw over two dozen houses and had a handful of our offers be rejected. It was a very exhausting experience but we eventually found a place we really liked that needed a little bit of work but had everything we needed in a great location.

April was the first full month in the house and we started unpacking and getting things setup. We also were taking an inventory of the work we needed and wanted to do on the house to make it our own and make sure that everything was well maintained. This process made it clear we needed to continue to keep a clear budget of the increasing costs of these renovations, figure out what we can do ourselves, and plan to save a set amount each month to cover everything.

This has been a hard month of transitions after an already hard year, but we’re all excited to have more space and a home to call our own.