My electricity and oil is more than yours, but I have three kids and am a stay-at-home mom, so we are home more. You are a workaholic whose house probably looks as new as the day you closed on it.
For the record, I am NOT a workaholic. I only did 500 hours of OT last year (translation, average 50 hour week, and 1/3 that OT came from the outage in April). Now at the plant, we have mechanics who did 1600 hours of OT. God help them if they need that to make ends meet.
Meh--there are still a couple of things I'd like to do to the house, namely add a covered front porch and possibly put some plywood down in the attic so I could actually STORE something up there--it's too small to be used as a day room, not to mention it is uninsulated on the roof itself, so it's not much use for anything else, and the basement is too small to be converted as well.
It still amazes me that in AZ, CA, FL, people have lost 40-50 percent of their home values, but here, I'd dare say I could put this place up for 5-10 percent less than what I bought it for, but when you consider what I've put in so far (driveway, blinds, extra carpeting, etc,) and the realtor fees, etc., I'd be losing probably $25K. Not a loss I really want to take, considering that would be a nice down on a house pretty much anywhere else.
I shudder to think what those poor dumb bastards in Dover and Portsmouth are losing right about now.
