About Me


The Husband and Myself on our wedding day - 9.11.11 - also happened to be 30 weeks pregnant with Mister Two


Considering how shy I am I could actually go on about myself for hours but I'll try to stick to telling you the basics and explaining why I started Living While Renting.

I'm a child of the 80's who loves to sing when no one is listening, dance when no one is watching and write when no one is reading. I have huge dreams to travel the world, build a big house and live a happily ever after.

I love Christmas, snow, chocolate, snow, traveling, snow and classical music and books....oh and snow.

If you wanted the short version stop reading here, if you have some time and are curious then please continue...

Since I moved out of home in 2004 I have been renting. This fact has never really been an issue or even a point I gave much thought to until after I became a mother. Suddenly, and I don't mean as soon as your baby is placed in your arms, but with in your childs first 12 months you will think about their future. I was thinking about my grand children and my first born had only been in our lives a few short months. I was thinking about where she would stay the night before her wedding, I was thinking about where Christmas dinner would be held once my own children had grown up and made a family of their own, I was thinking about where my husband and I would sit on Sunday afternoons discussing if we were still young enough for that bike tour of America. Home was suddenly the third most important thing to me after my husband and daughter.

I have always dreamed of having my own home, and to be honest in my dreams it always looked very much like the Home Alone house, but for those first few years I always thought "I've got time". I had more important things I wanted to do with my money instead of 'save' it. I went to America and worked at a summer camp, I visited Disneyland, I went to New Zealand twice, I went to the UK to visit friends - and apparently meet the other half of my soul - I was living life and seeing the world, living another of my dreams.

Then my future husband moved to Australia and we were so excited to start our life and a family and we did think about a house but he wasn't a resident which made it complicated so we started with the babies and well as I said above that made me think more seriously about the house.

So here we are with two amazing children who we love and adore with all our being, on one income and renting.

Renting is so annoying and its gotten consistently more annoying the longer I have been doing it. My first rental was amazing, double story home, no inspections with a really nice landlord. the next one was almost as good, I grew to love the house and the size block it was on and again no inspections and only a little trouble when trying for our bond back. That was in NSW then I moved back to WA. My first home over here was just as great, mainly as the landlord was a family friend so yippee again no inspections. Our next house in WA was even better, the best by far I would say. Amazing old farm house, on land and a private rental in which we could do anything we wanted - ANYTHING. That was until we found out the man renting it to us shouldn't have been. Oops. It all worked out a real estate took over the house and we got to stay there and the best bit was we could still do what ever we wanted.
This was when we fell pregnant and our rental life would get annoying. We had to move out of the amazing house as it only had tank water filled by a bore or rain and drinking water we had to buy in. Neither myself or my husband thought that was ideal for a pregnant lady or a newborn so we moved.
Our next house was a shoe box in comparison to the farm house, but it had a good sized yard. The real estate agents were nice enough people but golly gosh were they anal about the lawn presentation. We had the pleasure of meeting the landlord of this house. This amazing man couldn't give a single care about the state of the lawns just as long as we kept them cut. The real estate agent though would have a fit if we hadn't edged them and that was just the beginning. We now had to have rental inspections, which is more than fine I have nothing against people wanting to make sure their houses are being cared for, I do have an issue with real estate agents looking down on tenants like we are the scum of the earth.
We soon fell pregnant with our second baby and had to move again as the house was just too small and that brings us to where we are now.
The house itself is great, though very obvious it was built to be a rental. The real estate agency conducts inspections every three months, THREE MONTHS! I got to the stage where I felt like I was living inspection to inspection always worried about the weeds and the walls and the carpet.

Then something clicked. We are good people - upstanding citizens remember - we take care of the house, we look after the gardens and lawns. Nothing is broken there is no mold or mice. I was determined to stop worrying about inspections and the some what ridiculous lease terms we agreed to and create our home in this house.

We have a savings plan in action and are on track to saving that home deposit but it won't happen over night so in the mean time we'll style our home how we want instead of waiting because honestly we all know Murphy likes to play. Something may come up and the house dream may be pushed back and well I'm more than a little inpatient.

Skye




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