I am watching the evening news, from Columbus, Ohio, a town that has grown leaps and bounds. They are doing a segment on how a new interchange is needed, somewhere, because a new mall and a gigantic outlet mall is going to be erected, over some nice looking farmland.
My question. Where are all these people coming from, what are they doing to make a living, where are they working, I just don't understand it all. Unemployment is rampant, home sales are up, and shopping centers are expanding and building new ones. For some reason, this just does not compute, in my head. Unemployment does not equal prosperity. Are the unemployed being given enough government money to purchase new homes? In Hawaii, on welfare, etc., you can make 60 thousand, I assumed that amount was possible because of the high cost of living there, maybe not.
Our rent here, in our apartment will go up in a few months, to an amount that we just cannot afford. Our rent increase in our twelve years here, far outdistances the cost of living increases. It has gone up 71%. The cost of living, 30.03 during that time frame.
One neighbor is stretched to the point where he will have to give up eating. He makes enough to pay rent and utilities, nothing left. We are near that point, just too much. We have paid $20 a month for Caleb, our dog, $2,880, still paying that amount per month. We have been promised a new stove and refrigerator since we moved in, been threatened with eviction on three occasions, two when they credited our rent to another Dooley, who lived here, and once when they lost our check, they later apologized and promised to buy our dinner. We rarely call for a problem, have, in my opinion, been ideal tenants.
So, we start looking, I don't mind a new location, but that moving, in 12 years we have amassed so much stuff, just plain stuff. The one good thing, we had, I guess, figured we would be living here until we died, not gonna happen .... apparently. And on top of that, Michelle and the kids and her mom are going to China, probably a few million, and none of them even speak Chinese ... travel while you can, I guess.
