How Do You Know?

How do you know you're ready for the next step...

in your career?

moving out and the whole renting vs. buying?

in your relationship?

These 3 questions have been keeping me up at night. NO JOKE! I just can't figure it out. Everyone says, you'll know when the time is right...I don't believe them. Let me explain further...

How do I know if I'm ready to take out another loan to put myself through grad school? I'm still $15,000+ in debt from my undergrad. :::sigh::: However, (side note and to make the long story short: I was a terrible not so good student when I was growing up. It wasn't until I went to college that I really "got it"---sad? Maybe. But oh well) it has always been a dream of mine to earn my Masters degree in the field of education. I haven't decided in what or where, but I know I want to pursue it and accomplish that. So, you might ask, why don't you? It's a little green papery thing called money. Ya, don't have that. But if I don't have it now, when will I have it? Certainly NOT when I'm ready to buy a house, nor when I'm getting married and certainly not when I'm ready to have kids because all 3 of those come slightly before my Masters degree. Therefore, when is the right time to go back to school?

How do I know when to move out? I'm currently living back at home with my parents (and more recently my little sister also moved back home---one big happy family AGAIN lol) not paying rent. Since I've moved back home, I have been paying off more on my student loans per month. The Boy (yes, we're still together) is still living at home as well, since he did go back to school and works on the nights he doesn't have class. He only lives literally 4 minutes away. So, neither of us are paying rent and instead, we're paying off as much on our loans as we can. We're ready to move in together (and I'm ready to by on our own) but it's a matter of being educated on the whole real estate world. We don't want to waste money renting an apartment and with a dog (and wanting many more), it's not the most ideal. So we're willing to stay in our homes until we figure that out. On top of everything, we don't know where to start looking because we don't know where we want to live. It really depends on where ever The Boy gets a job and we won't know that until January. Would we even qualify for a pre-approval or mortgage with all of our student loan debt? Who knows?!

How do I know (100%) if I'm ready to take the next step in my relationship with The Boy? I mean we're talking about FOREVER!!! That's not something I take lightly. I feel like we've talked about our future a lot lately, but I'm not sure if we've talked about the BIG things. For example; how would we pay for a wedding? We come from different family dynamics, so how would that play a part of OUR future together? Would he resent me if I couldn't have kids? Who would take care of the financial stuff? Are we willing to move somewhere else if jobs are lacking here (for both of us)? Are we willing to split different 'chores' around the house? And just long term goals. Forever is a scary thought. Any pivotal questions or conversations you needed to have before 'forever'?

I know everything will happen the way it's suppose to, so for that reason, I'm not all too worried about it. I know I will get my masters someday, when I'm married to my best friend in our new house. :::insert a sign of relief)

Back to blogging again and man, that felt good to write!