Closing Day

Who has two thumbs and no longer owns a house? THIS GUY. It took around 6 months, but we finally closed on our old house in Maryland. It was a good house, and we would have been alright continuing to live there, but there was really no sense in keeping it once we moved overseas (it wasn't even close enough to DC for commuting... as I learned in the Spring). 

Bye, bye "Home" category in Mint.

One of the downsides to the Foreign Service, is that it's very difficult to plan ahead. I mean, you rarely know where you'll be living in a few years, so you're always in a state of flux. This starts pretty much from day one, since you don't know when or even if you're going to get the job. This can lead to some unfortunate housing situations, as happened with us. We ended up selling our house at a substantial loss. The market hasn't been great and rental values aren't really amazing (not to mention the incredible unreliability and headache involved with having renters), so we were pretty much forced to sell, when the market was flooded with houses. 

We're not the only ones; I know of people who have sold houses they've lived in for around 18 months or even worse, who literally got their offer letter for the Foreign Service on closing day for buying a new house. Of course the nice side of this, is that we can look forward to not having to pay for housing in the foreseeable future.