the new homeowner battle

In March, we bought our dream house in the hills just south of Adelaide (I say the hills, and it is, but it’s technically suburban Adelaide and is about 12km from the CBD… This is the beauty of our fair city). Being homeowners is a big new thing for us; we have a (hefty) mortgage and with that comes a new set of Grown Up responsibilities!

No matter how many times you walk through a place during open inspections or who you pay to get building inspections done before you sign on the dotted line, it would seem unlikely you will ever know exactly what you’re in for until you move in. This is definitely the case for us. The past couple of weeks have been big for us in that, at the same time we received our first ever council rates and emergency services levy in the mail, we also received an electricity bill for $1800! I nearly died. How in earth does that even happen. Well, this is how:

A) a pool:

As you can see, the pool looks a bit on the sad side. The pump is shot and so is the salt water chlorinator (something I just learnt existed).

And B) this old electricity meter:

Which apparently does not measure off-peak electricity usage (which we use for the pool). Hubby says this is completely common but I had no idea!

So now we need to add the cost of the pump, salt water thingy, and new meter to the ever-growing list of improvements… Unfortunately these ones are on the more urgent end of the list because I don’t think we can afford an $1800 bill every quarter, eeek!

So there you have it, Amelia has just learnt a few valuable lessons in what it’s like to own a home, how electricity works and how to give herself a heart attack. I hope baby doesn;t mind sleeping in a box on the floor because his nursery is on the backburner (don’t worry we’ll get him sorted).