so uhhhh it turns out I was calculating the 3x rent requirements as take-home instead of gross and I was severely lowballing myself????

so I kept looking at super cheap apartments instead of ones actually in my real price range

this is a good thing for sure, like, hopefully one of the ones I see on Monday will still be decent enough, but it means when my lease is up I can always consider moving again without having to worry about qualifying

it does also mean I've turned down tours with features I wanted in an apartment because I thought I couldn't afford it..... I am a fool. but in my defense this is the first time I've had to deal with any of this and I'm just struggling through it on my lonesome here

but. on the bright side, scoring a place with cheap rent means it'll be easier to save up for a condo in the future so I guess it's not a terrible thing

honestly just getting a place in the city will make it far, far easier in the future to get BETTER places since I can look around without having to book a literal flight. so yeah

ohhh dad's gf said she has a nephew that's a realtor in Albuquerque?? something to remember in a few years once I really do look for more permanent housing

I'm at the airport WAY too early because I was paranoid about something going wrong.... there wasn't even a TSA line this time. srsly wtf is my luck even

but even in my tiny airport a bottle of Pure Leaf tea cost me $6.50

I'll just be chilling for the next hour and a half until my flight boards I guess

In the DFW airport now but no time to look around, my connecting flight boards in 5 mins

the flight crew I had over here were a bunch of older ppl who has the good dad jokes, it was great

6.50?!

yeah it was highway robbery lol

Arrived in Abq and waiting for a shuttle to my hotel..... you can see mountains in the distance

lmao my hotel didn't say the shuttle was on demand when I booked it ofc...

in my hotel room now... the Waffle House next door looks pretty scummy but there's a local restaurant on the other side I can eat at instead

thus is a pretty bare bones hotel but I can just chill and watch movies tonight

*this

pumpkin spice pancakes

slept pretty badly unsurprisingly, just a combo of being in a new place and this hotel bed doing my back no favors

it's like 50 degrees outside and won't hit 70 until noon? is this real fall weather?!

had a quick breakfast in the lobby, I'll call an uber to take me to my first apartment showing in half an hour

Uhhh this first place is getting bad marks already, even though I called to confirm the office location on their website was wrong and I had to wait around for a long time for someone to show up to tell me the actual location

I have another tour at a different place in an hour so I'll have to speed run this one

just waiting on my next uber there

second place was FAR better, roomier apartment, gated parking, the lady answered all my questions even before I asked most of them

rn I have time to kill so I'm at a local Cafe, my next showing is like a block away across the street, not far from my 2nd showing

also the location was far better

my 3rd place is the big ass complex next to the hospital so idk how that one will go really

oh wait my appointment isn’t until 2 LOL.... idk that I can sit in this restaurant for 2 hours

I got sat in the back of the Cafe close to a group of loud old conservative guys fml

there's a Starbucks not too far from here, I can linger there after I'm done eating I think

my view of the mountains from here

wish my phone camera wasn't so shitty, even out this window I can see a decent amount of detail on em

back at the hotel after looking at the 3rd place.... it's nice but it's also more expensive, it's also 4 floors and their open units are on the top floor

so not first in the running just based on that tbh

hell my uber driver back to the hotel was like 'yeah my one bedroom is 1.2k, how much does it cost there?' rofl dude might be looking to move too

LOL my bathroom ceiling started leaking through the light fixture ..... I called the front desk to let them know the person above me flooded their bathroom

the water is landing in the tub so no harm done here, I decided not to switch rooms (I'm not even dressed, I had to throw a hoodie on over pjs)

but I'll maybe avoid turning on the bathroom light lmao. I check out tomorrow morning anyway

at the airport super early for my flight home.... I scored a MUCH better boarding number for these flights, maybe I can actually get a window seat

this is a pretty small airport for a city but I also have time to get Tessa a souvenir maybe

more mountains

got myself a good-ass milky chai from a coffee shop here and I'mma watch anime until boarding time

I found a cute lavender Abq shirt for my little sister that'll probably still be too big for her, but oh well

my legs are super stiff, I do waaay more walking on my trips than I do regularly lol

at the Houston airport with a little layover, I grabbed a pizza slice for a late lunch... this is a nice airport with a lot of shops but I see it nearly every time I travel

got an hour until my flight home boards

this bathroom is the swankiest I've ever seen.... it has an electronic system saying how many stalls are free and how long the walk is to the next bathroom..... incredible

made it home.... the weather here is so bad compared to Abq lmao

wow the price went up on the apartment building I wanted to rent at.... I wasn't fast enough stupid AI controlled bullshit

dang, I'm sorry! are there any chances that it'll go down again? which apartment was it, the second one?

the second one yeah.... I tried playing around on the website and literally the rent goes up by $2 a day the longer out my move-in time is lol. the apartment manger said it's totally cool to start my lease earlier and not get there until a week or two later tho

but literally yesterday there was a really cheap option that's gone now

somebody else must've grabbed it

either that or they renewed their lease at the last minute yeah.......

I got my application in but it was. like nearly $100 more monthly than I thought it would be, and I'm not sure if I'm going to qualify with all the tacked-on fees 😔

I'll wait and see I guess......

ugh yeah, the apartment manager e-mailed me back and just said that someone applied for the cheaper apartment literally earlier in the day than I got to it. you know, my fault for having to fucking travel all day I guess. their application is still pending but that doesn't mean much

I did the math and I should be able to afford the one I applied for, it just stings that it's so much more expensive and I'm going to have to start my lease 2 weeks earlier than I can be there to lock in a lower rate.... it's super bullshit