REAL ESTATE (3)

Quick honesty note before the numbers: this is our real life, not financial advice. Every figure below comes from two months of our own bank exports — June 2026 (a full month) and July 2026 (through the 28th, so a few late-month charges are still missing). It’s one household account, and I’ve rounded our income. Tax rates and fees change; I’ve flagged the ones worth verifying yourself.

We don’t live in Seattle

Every “cost of living in Seattle” article you’ve read was written about a neighborhood we can’t afford. Capitol Hill, Ballard, a Craftsman with a view — sure, if you want to hand your whole paycheck to a landlord.

We live south of the city, in the Auburn area. It’s the part of the map where a software salary and a mortgage can actually coexist, where families quietly move when the “Seattle dream” runs into the Seattle price tag. Longer commute, smaller zip-code clout, an actual yard. That trade is the whole story, and nobody writes it down with real numbers.

So I did. I exported two months of transactions and I’m going to walk you through the big rocks — no hype, just math.

The mortgage that eats first

Everything starts here: $4,347 a month to house mortgage, same to the penny both months.

That’s the number that makes or breaks a household budget down here, and it’s the honest reason we’re in Auburn and not King County’s trendier corners. On roughly $8,000/month coming into the account, the mortgage alone is more than half of it before we’ve bought a single grocery. When people ask why we didn’t stretch for something closer in, this is the answer — a bigger number here would’ve owned us instead of the other way around.

(If you want to see what a payment does to your own budget, I lean on our mortgage calculator constantly — it’s the tool I wish I’d used before we bought, not after.)

The bills nobody warns transplants about

Here’s the recurring utility stack, and a couple of these surprised me when we moved:

• Puget Sound Energy (electric + gas): $236–$254/month. One provider for both, and in winter it climbs.
• Two separate city utility bills. We sit right on a city line, so we get billed by two municipalities — one runs about $116/month, the other about $65. Water, sewer, and the stuff you never think about until you own the pipes.
• Comcast (internet): $50/month, and I fight to keep it there.

Call the recurring core about $466/month. But utilities have a nasty habit of ambushing you: in June a garbage bill of about $116 and a $275 insurance premium landed on top, and suddenly the “boring” category wasn’t boring. That’s the real lesson — the monthly number lies a little, because the quarterly and annual stuff hides inside it.

Feeding four humans: about $1,000 a month

Groceries were $956 in June and $1,016 in July — call it a grand a month, and no, I’m not proud of it, but I’m not going to pretend it’s $500 either.

The receipts tell you exactly who we are: Costco for the big hauls, then H Mart, Uwajimaya, and Trader Joe’s for everything Costco doesn’t do.

We know we could shave this down. We mostly don’t. When you both work and there are small kids, some of that grocery bill is buying back time, and I’ve made peace with that trade even though the spreadsheet side of my brain twitches.

The cars: the mortgage’s quiet sidekick

One car loan: $436/month, steady. That part’s simple.

The part that isn’t simple — and the one that gets every Washington transplant — is the annual tab renewal. In June, the WA Department of Licensing took $752 in one hit for registration. That’s not a monthly line you can plan around; it’s a once-a-year gut-punch that shows up and wrecks whatever cushion you thought you had. Nobody tells you about it before you move here. Now someone has.

Add gas — $220 in June, mostly Costco Gas, with July still filling in — and transportation is the second-biggest category in our life after the roof.

(Thinking about a car payment? Run it through the car-payment calculator before the dealer runs it through you.)

The “savings” line that’s actually insurance — and why I keep it that way

Here’s where a finance blogger is supposed to flinch, so let me get ahead of it: the biggest thing I’d call “savings” in these two months isn’t a brokerage deposit. It’s $594/month to New York Life — whole life insurance.

I know the internet’s verdict on whole life. “Buy term, invest the difference” is practically a commandment in personal finance, and honestly, the pure-math case for it is strong — a purist would tell me to swap this for cheap term and dump the rest into an index fund. Reasonable people land there, and I won’t pretend they’re wrong on the returns.

But I count this as savings on purpose, and here’s my reasoning: it does two jobs at once. There’s cash value building inside it that I can actually borrow against if we’re ever underwater — a floor under the family that a term policy doesn’t give me. And if I’m gone, it covers the people I’d be leaving behind.

(If you want to read more about life insurance? Check out this article)

Meanwhile the “real” investing was thin and honest: $600 per month That’s the confession — the guy who writes about options trading put more into a life-insurance premium than into the market these two months. I’d rather tell you that than perform a portfolio I didn’t fund.

The Washington tax twist (the part that ties back to my trading)

The bumper-sticker version of moving to Washington is no state income tax, and that part’s real — my salary and my wife’s owe the state nothing on the income line. That’s a genuine advantage, especially against California.

But the state gets its money elsewhere, and you feel it at the register: Auburn’s combined sales tax is about 10.4% as of 2026 — among the highest in the state. (Verify the current rate for your exact address before quoting it; it drifts.) Every non-grocery purchase quietly pays that. One kind mercy: groceries are exempt from Washington sales tax, which softens that thousand-dollar food bill a little.

And because I trade on the side, people ask about the Washington capital gains tax. Yes, it exists — 7% on long-term gains, but only on gains above roughly $260,000 in a single year (the exact threshold is inflation-adjusted and worth checking — sources disagree on the 2026 figure). For a side-trader doing cash-secured puts on a software salary, it’s not in the picture. It’s a high-net-worth tax dressed up as something scarier. Worth knowing exists; not worth losing sleep over unless you’re selling a company.

Adding it up — with the caveats up front

The non-negotiable core — mortgage, car, recurring utilities, groceries, gas, and the insurance-savings line — runs right around $7,000 a month. On ~$8,000 of household income into this account, that leaves maybe a thousand dollars for dining out, the kids’ stuff, personal care, and everything else life invoices you for. In a month where a $752 tab bill or a $275 insurance premium lands, that cushion is just gone.

Now the honesty section, because a budget without caveats is a lie:

• This is very close to AVG per month.
• It’s one household account. If your picture of a family’s finances requires every last dollar across every account, this isn’t that — it’s the shared-bills reality, which is the part most people actually want to compare against.
• The income number is rounded. I’m showing you every expense in real dollars; I’m keeping the paycheck fuzzy on purpose.

So is south-of-Seattle “affordable”? Compared to a house closer in, absolutely — that mortgage would be a different animal ten miles north. Compared to most of the country, we’re paying a Seattle-area premium for a not-Seattle zip code. That’s the honest trade: we bought breathing room with a commute and a longer drive to the fun stuff, and for a family at this stage, I’d make the deal again.

If you’re eyeing the move down here, budget for the tab renewal, the two city bills, and a grocery run that costs more than you think. The rest, you can live with.

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This is our real household, not a recommendation for yours — and definitely not financial advice. Numbers are pulled from two months of our own transactions, income rounded, single account. Tax rates, fees, and offers change; verify anything time-sensitive before you act on it. If whole life vs. term is your question, that’s a real debate with smart people on both sides — do your own math with your own family in the picture.

What “buying points” actually means

A discount point — often just called a “point” — is a fee you pay the lender upfront, at closing, in exchange for a lower interest rate on the life of the loan. It’s not a fee for the lender’s trouble; it’s literally prepaid interest. You’re handing over cash today so you owe less interest every month going forward.

One point = 1% of your loan amount. On a $400,000 loan, one point costs $4,000. Points are sold in fractions too — a lender might quote 0.5 points ($2,000) or 1.5 points ($6,000), and each increment buys a smaller slice of rate reduction.

There’s no fixed exchange rate between points and rate — it moves with market conditions — but as a rough industry rule of thumb, 1 point buys about a 0.25% reduction in your rate. That’s the number to sanity-check against whatever your lender quotes you, not a guarantee.

Points Paid	Cost (% of loan)	Typical Rate Reduction
1 point	1%	~0.25%
2 points	2%	~0.50%
3 points	3%	~0.75%

Points are also called a “rate buydown,” and you’ll sometimes see the term “mortgage discount points” on your Loan Estimate

This is an example only; verify the actual points-to-rate tradeoff on your own Loan Estimate, since it varies by lender and by the day.

What it costs, and how to run the break-even math

Here’s the concrete example I use to think through this:

• Loan amount: $400,000
• Rate without points: 6.50%
• Rate with 1 point: 6.25%
• Cost of 1 point: $4,000
• Monthly payment savings: roughly $65

Divide the upfront cost by the monthly savings: $4,000 / $65 ≈ 62 months to break even. Before that point, you’ve paid more in points than you’ve saved in payments. After it, every month is pure savings for as long as you hold the loan at that rate.

A few things that change the math in practice:

Your break-even shrinks with a bigger loan. The same 0.25% buydown saves more dollars per month on a $700,000 loan than a $300,000 one, so the payback period is shorter even though the point still costs 1% of the (larger) balance.

Points are usually tax-deductible in the year you pay them, if the loan is for your primary residence and a few other IRS conditions are met — this can meaningfully shorten your effective break-even.

Refinance risk cuts the other way. If rates drop within your break-even window and you refinance, you never got the payback — you paid $4,000 for a rate you held for 18 months. Points are a bet that you’ll keep this exact loan long enough to collect on it.

Should you buy points on your next loan? My framework

No hype, just math: points are a trade of a known cost today for an uncertain stream of savings later. The entire decision hinges on one question — how long will you actually hold this loan?

Buy points if:

• You’re confident you’ll stay in the home (or hold the loan without refinancing) well past the break-even month — I treat “well past” as at least 1.5–2x the break-even, since life happens
• You have the cash to spare without raiding your emergency fund to do it
• Rates are elevated and you don’t expect a refi opportunity within your break-even window

Skip points if:

• There’s real uncertainty about the timeline — new job, growing family, “we’ll see how the neighborhood is,” anything that raises the odds of selling or refinancing early
• You’d need to stretch financially to afford them, even though the closing math “works”
• You expect rates to fall meaningfully in the next few years — a refi kills your payback before it materializes

Free money changes everything. If you’re getting a seller credit or builder incentive that can only be applied to points or closing costs — not to the price — buy down the rate with that money before you’d ever spend your own cash on points. That’s the closest thing to a free lunch in this whole calculation. [ADD YOUR OWN LINE — did you get a seller credit on your own mortgage, and what did you do with it?]

My own rule: I don’t buy points unless I’m at least 90% sure I’m keeping the loan past double the break-even period. Below that, I’d rather keep the $4,000 liquid — a lower payment via points is not worth locking up cash I might want for something else.

Run your own numbers before deciding — use our mortgage calculator to plug in your actual loan amount, rate quotes with and without points, and see your real break-even.

This is not financial advice. Verify current rates, point pricing, and tax-deductibility rules with your lender and a tax professional before making a decision — terms and market conditions change.

This is our real story with our real numbers — not advice, just one family’s experience with the biggest purchase of our lives.

The American Dream: own your house! We did it. So why do I feel like the house owns us?

Let me tell you the whole story, because if you’re planning to buy, I want you to see the parts the house-hunting shows skip.

The hunt (2023)

About three years ago, in 2023, we bought a house in Auburn, Washington — about 50 minutes south of Seattle. The neighborhood checked every box: clean, safe, nice walking areas, great schools nearby.

Our wishlist was the same one everybody has: a decent-sized backyard, at least 3 bedrooms, a walk-in closet, somewhat renovated — and AC already installed, which, trust me, is a MUST in the Seattle area now.

Then we found it. The house that fit our description perfectly. Built in the late ’90s, one owner before us, renovated during the pandemic in 2021, roof replaced the same year. We couldn’t find a thing to complain about. We were all in.

The money (here’s where it gets real)

To make it happen, I completely drained my stock portfolio and my crypto to fund the 20% down payment. Two reasons: avoid PMI, and keep our debt-to-income ratio under 50% of my pre-tax income. Add closing costs on top of that.

(One tip I’ll stand behind forever: shop your lenders. At least three. The offers are not the same, and the differences are real money.)

Mortgage rates at the time were hovering around 6.5–7%, and we locked in at 6.625%. But our lender had a genuinely nice promotion: 1% off the rate for the first year. That put our monthly payment around $3,800, and it gave me a plan.

Because in late 2023 and early 2024, all the news was saying the same thing: rates might come down in late 2024 or 2025. So here was my play — enjoy the discounted first year, and when rates drop, refinance about 1% below what we locked. I was hoping for the best.

And I want to be clear: we loved the house. My wife, my kids, all of us. No spoiler, but — we still live in this house.

The promo ends (and the plan starts leaking)

About a year later, the promotional rate expired, our rate reset to 6.625%, and the payment jumped to about $4,300 a month.

For a year, we managed to survive. Barely. The nice dinners out — cut. The trip to Hawaii — cut. Even the grocery budget took a trim. This is what “house poor” means in practice: you own a beautiful house, and it quietly eats every other line in your budget.

Then 2025 arrived with reinforcements. My first daughter started pre-K: $1,300 a month. My job called everyone back to the office three days a week, so I had to lease a car: $430 a month. That’s another $1,730 a month landing on a budget that was already gasping.

I make about average — honestly, maybe below average — for what it takes to stay alive in the Seattle area. And these stacked expenses have been pulling us underwater.

The refinance that never came

Remember my plan? Refinance when rates drop 1%?

Three years later, I’m still waiting. The war in Iran keeps gas prices high, high gas keeps inflation sticky, sticky inflation keeps the Fed from cutting, and no cuts means no refinance for me. Every link in that chain is completely outside my control — and my entire plan depended on it.

That’s the lesson I didn’t fully appreciate when we signed: a plan that requires the macro economy to cooperate is a hope, not a plan.

What I’d tell you before you buy

If you’re planning to buy a house, keep this in mind: things will not go as you planned. (If they do — I genuinely envy you.) And when the plan breaks, you don’t have many choices. Realistically, two:

1. Live like me — house poor. Keep the house you love and squeeze everything else.
2. Sell, and move to a house you can afford comfortably — the classic guideline being a payment around 30% of your post-tax income. Whether that’s even possible in this market is a fair question… unless you’re making $500K+ a year.

Neither option is fun. That’s the honest part nobody puts in the listing photos.

But if you’re still going after the house you really want — and I understand, believe me — I’m here to support you and walk the journey with you. Start with the numbers before you fall in love with a walk-in closet: run your real payment, with PMI, taxes, insurance, and HOA included, through my free Mortgage Calculator. Stress-test it at the full rate, not the promo rate. Ask what happens if nothing about the economy cooperates for three years.

Because the house is the dream. The payment is the reality. Make sure you can live with both.

Our numbers, our situation — not financial advice. Talk to a professional for decisions this big, and shop those lenders.