One of the first things people ask when the meet me is how I managed to become a home owner. When I tell them that I was just 22 when I closed on my town home, the questions usually start flowing. How on earth does a twenty-something make such a large and important purchase? While it is not easy, it is certainly not impossible, and it really can be a sound financial decision  for your future.

If you think about it, most 20-somethings spend a large portion of their income on living expenses like rent and utilities. Instead of just giving that money to someone and never seeing it again, how cool would it be if that money could go into an investment? Let’s face it, rent is money that you are literally throwing away, but a mortgage payment is something that goes toward your ownership of a property, something most people don’t obtain until much later in life.

Now, there are some major challenges to buying a house in your 20’s, one of the main ones being that you have to have already decided where you want to live, unless you plan to simply buy the property as an investment and rent it out, but that’s another topic entirely. Many 20-somethings are figuring their lives out and that includes where they want to spend it. For me, the choice to stay in the city where I went to college was one that I fell into, but I don’t regret it for a second. I have my home here and a job I love, I just have to hope the other things fall in to place.

Another challenge is that you may also believe that you won’t qualify financially for a home. After all, buying a house is probably the biggest purchase you will ever make, but the reality is that now is one of the best times that you could possibly be in the market to buy a home. Many houses are selling for way under their market value as the economy tries to make a comeback. Homes that us 20-somethings might never have gotten approved for 5 years ago are now within reach today.

If you are seriously thinking about buying a home in your 20’s, here are the three main things you need to do before you buy.

1. Get your finances in order and begin talking to a mortgage broker about your financial options. Before you can go home shopping, you need to know how much home you can afford. Find out how much your monthly mortgage payments would be and make sure you factor in any homeowner’s association costs plus utilities and home repair. Many 20-somethings will qualify for FHA (Federal Housing Administration) loans, which require minimal down payments on homes (I did and my down payment was less than $5K.

2. Find a reputable real estate agent whom you trust and who listens to your needs. Trust me, you need an agent. They can negotiate deals that would make your head spin. My agent was able to get the price of my house knocked down by nearly $50K and he found out about homes that weren’t even on the open market yet. He was a major source of support when one of my deals didn’t go through. I can’t stress this enough: you need an agent.

3. Decide how much home you need. Do you want to live in a condo, a townhouse, or a single family home? Do you want to have to take care of a yard and landscaping? Do you need a garage? When I was home shopping, I was shown houses that had garages and yards, but I knew that I simply did not want to deal with any of that stuff. I ended up buying a 2 bedroom 2.5 bath townhouse because I didn’t want to live in a condo building and I wanted to rent out my second bedroom to make my mortgage more affordable. I also knew that 2 bedrooms would be great while I was single, but if I did meet someone and we wanted to live in my house, 2 bedrooms would be space enough. I also needed an in-home washer/dryer and big closets. Decide your non-negotiable up front.

Buying a home as a 20-something is neither crazy nor impossible. True, there are many pros and cons to buying a home at such a young age, but for me, the positives outweighed every negative aspect that came up. Something to always remember is that if five years down the road you did change your mind and want to move somewhere else, renting out your home is always an option. Once you invest in a home, that investment is yours and yours alone. Though being a single, 20-something, female homeowner is not always a walk in the park, it is something that I have not regretted in the nearly four years I have owned my home.

Teacher Girl is a 20-something lifestyle blogger who blogs at www.teachergirlblogs.com.  Have more questions about buying a home? Feel free to contact her at teachergirlblogs@gmail.com or via Twitter @tgblogs.

I’ve been a member of 20sb (20something bloggers) since the very beginning. With over 16,000 member now this community is certainly a force to be reckoned with. If by some off chance you are a blogger in your twenties and are not yet on 20sb you need to remedy that now. If you’re like the other 16k of us be sure to add me as a friend.

I remember:

• when 20sb (20something bloggers) had less than 25 member. want to know who they were?
• when Renee made the most awesomest ode to 20sb video. If you haven’t seen it, stop what you are doing and watch it right now.
  

  vlog day 8/17/09 from Renee W on Vimeo.

  the one where i dance awkwardly.

• many intense discussions breaking out on the forums on various topics. do you call yourself a feminist got quite heated.
• Lisa, founder of 20sb, guest blogging here on genpink about why all things in moderation is crap.
• this here pink blog winning 20something specific in the first 20sb Awards (oh and also designing the badges)
• when Dshan, head honcho at 20sb, gave us 10 ways to handle rejection professionally

And so, now it’s VOTING time again! You can vote until 12PST on February 4th!

The Categories

BLOGGER TRAIT BESTS

• Most Distinct Voice
• Most Inspiring Blogger
• Most Interesting Blogger
• Most NSFW Blog
• Funniest Blogger
• Most Opinionated Blogger
• Least Likely To Be “Marked As Read”
• Blogger I’d Like To Get A Drink With
• Blogger I Wish Would Blog More Often
• Sexiest Blogger

What I look for mostly in a man is humor, honesty and a mustache. Burt has all three. – Sally Field (talking about Burt Reynolds)

Although this site is well PINK I felt compelled to tell ya about a thing coming up called Movember. If you haven’t heard of it yet here’s a little intro video:

The ‘Mo’, slang for moustache, and November come together each year for Movember.

Each Movember we challenge men to change their appearance and the face of men’s health by growing a moustache. The moustache is our ribbon, the means by which we raise awareness and funds for cancers that affect men. Much like the commitment to run or walk for charity, our commitment is to grow a moustache for 30 days. Funds raised benefit the Prostate Cancer Foundation and LIVESTRONG.

Think this all sounds a little silly? Well…

In 2009, global participation of Mo Bros and Mo Sistas climbed to 255,755, with over one million donors raising $42 Million US equivalent dollars for Movember’s global beneficiary partners.

So, whether you’re a Mo Bro or a Mo Sista you can help out by raising awareness of prostate cancer and help raise funds for LiveStrong. Register at Movember.com or find out if you’d like to join an existing team.

I’m not a big fan of mustaches (no offense to those who like them) but I did talk the bf into joining the Dallas team and growing out his ‘stache. I’m sure I’ll be posting photo updates via twitter.

Curious what you’ll look like with a mustache? There’s an app for that. Stachtastic.

And here’s a little mustache trivia for ya from GloriousMustache.com:

• In 1967, The Beatles gave away cardboard mustaches with their album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
• There are between 10,000 and 20,000 hairs on a man’s face
• The only 4 U.S. Presidents known for baring mustaches are: Chester A. Arthur, Grover Cleveland, Theodore Roosevelt, and William H. Taft. Since Taft in 1909, all U.S. Presidents have been clean shaven.
• In the U.S. today, there are some ten million millennial men thought to be wearing mustaches.
• In a deck of cards the King of Hearts is the only king without a mustache.

Guys, do you dare join in? Who is your mustache baring idol?

About a month ago my mother sent me a very cheesy “I’m so proud of you” email. In her email she points out how much I’ve changed and how much I’ve accomplished in the 10 years since May of 2000 when I graduated high school. YES, I am about to have my 10 year high school reunion, and YES it makes me feel OLD, and it reminds me that I’m getting very close to THAT birthday!

This idea of 10 years did however get me thinking. I have changed and I have certainly grown. So I thought it might be fun to do a quick breakdown of the highlights and major life impacting events of the past ten years. And of course I catalog milestones based on how old I was at the time. So here goes nothing:

18: I graduated high school and decided 3 weeks before college started that I did not want to attend the local private college in Texas I was already enrolled in. During a vacation in Phoenix I drove from Phoenix to California on a whim, applied to a college in Southern California, decided I was going there. In a little under 2 weeks I came home and told my dad (who thought I was crazy), packed up my stuff and moved to Orange County.
19: I moved back to Texas and opted for the large state school route and decided to move into the dorms (even though I was a Sophomore) and tried alcohol for the first time (yep I was that girl). I met many of my close friends this year.
20: I had a 13 hour jaw surgery and hibernated for 3 months to heal.
21: I moved into a 4 bedroom/4 bath with 2 friends and a stranger. I also went through an intense entrance process to get into an exclusive design program.
22: I’m pretty sure I didn’t sleep the entire year, I can recall many 48 hour must get this project done or I will die times.
23: I graduated college and got my first “office” job.
24: I worked full time and started freelancing and moved in with my then boyfriend.
25: I started blogging as a way to have a sense of community about the craziness that is life in your twenties. I got engaged. I was convinced I had life all planned out for the next 80 years. I went though 10 painstaking months of watching, hopelessly, someone struggle and lose the battle with cancer. I attended 7 weddings.
26: A three year relationship ended and I got unengaged. I celebrated getting laid off from a job I didn’t like. I was convinced I had no idea what I was going to do with myself, my job or my life. I went through a personal effectiveness leadership training that completely altered my outlook on life. At which point I decided I wasn’t shy anymore. I moved into my first no roommate, living alone apartment. I decided I wanted to work for myself. I networked my face-off (credit for this term goes to Miss Sydney Owen). I worked night and day, sometimes forgetting to eat, and certainly there was no time for laundry.
27: I decided I wanted to go back to the office environment and for the first time experienced the cubicle lifestyle. I worked long hours, I was thinking about work even when I wasn’t working, I traveled. I was challenged and pushed and made a huge contribution to business and an industry I was a noose to. I started speaking in public, me the person who was too shy to talk to people speaking to large audiences of people. I got to speak at the ultimate nerd conference, SXSW!
28: I traveled to Memphis, Las Vegas, Boston, New York, Chicago, New Orleans, Cape Cod, and Houston. I got a job offer without ever applying for jobs. I turned in my first letter of resignation. I am moving in with the current boyfriend. I paid off a crazy amount of debt by changing my lifestyle and living frugally. And as of this writing I still have 6 months left of being 28!

I’m sitting on an airplane flying to New England to attend my best friend’s (of 14 years wedding) so I guess you could say I am in a bit of retrospective mood. I think the reason there are so many 20-something bloggers (did you know there are 13k plus members on 20sb.net?) is because most of us have 10 years of roller-coastering, life changing, job jumping, breakups, marriages, babies, celebrations and tragedy. I’m not sure that once the clock hits 30 that all those things change but I can definitely say if someone asked me 10 years ago when I graduated high-school if I had any desire to become a public speaker I was have RUN the other way!

This exercise was fun for me, I challenge you to think about all that you’ve done, who you’ve met what you’ve contributed to and how you’ve changed in the past 10 years.

This is the cutest vlog I may have EVER seen! Belle Renee’s video blog is her ode to what being apart of 20sb (20-something bloggers) means to her. First, I must say, I love the song! Pretty sure that will be my new ringtone for my soul sisters! And secondly, I think Renee’s points really are the major advantages of having a sense of community anywhere online (and I suppose in real life too). While I am partial to 20sb and Brazen Careerist, if you’re community is mommy bloggers you can still have all of these perks. Just find your people and share with them!

vlog day 8/17/09 from Renee W on Vimeo.

This guest post was written by Dani, a fellow 20SB, who is currently a secretary by day, and psychology grad student by night. She blogs regularly on She laughs too easily & cries too hard …

* * * * *

We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming for a 20sb blog swap…

When I first opened the email telling me the identity of my Blog Swap partner, my initial reaction was:

“::insert sailor words here::! This, clearly together, lady has a serious blog which people actually read. I’m not used to that.”

And so I started reading backwards to try and glean what kind of content would not horrify Elysa’s readers be appropriate and in an attempt to own my Gen Y identity. What did I have to say that would resonate with folks, some of whom might be rather like me (that is to say, a working, student-ing, single, blogging, “slightly” outspoken mess from Jersey) and many of whom probably differ greatly, about the experiences of being 20-something in today’s world?

And I thought…and pondered…and mused. I tried to be sage; to mine, from within my heart or mind, some noble truth that would shine rays of light into the lives of all those who read it. To recount some story that would be applicable across all divides and unifying in its universality.

Here’s what I got:

Saturday morning, after sleeping on the couch of one of my dearest friends because my car had been blocked in his driveway the night before, I was awoken around 5 am by the baying of his 8-month-old pug. Much to my delight, another friend, who had also been blocked in, got up to take him out. I rolled over and began to fall back asleep.

Ten to fifteen minutes later I was awoken by the sound of Puppy and the feeling that someone was standing right next to me.

“Does he only go for some people? Because he won’t go.”

I swung my legs off the side of the couch, mumbled some sailor words at both the friend and the dog, took the leash from his hands and walked, barefoot outside. Puppy did his business, we came back inside and I went back to sleep.

Two hours later the owner of both the house and the dog came down on his way to work. “Puppy has already been out this morning” I croaked. Owner let him out of his crate, put some food in his bowl and headed to the bathroom himself. While he was doing so, Puppy made a mess in the laundry room.

…Sometimes life cooperates with you. Sometimes life shits next to your dryer. And that’s about the most unifying truth about getting through the roller coaster that is being a 20-something that I have for y’all.

* * * * *

I laughed out loud when I read Dani’s email with this post and then about 2 seconds later the goodie-two-shoes in me said “can I put *that* word on my blog?” and obviously I decided I could – at least for now … unless I decide not to. This train of thought was the perfect spring board to my impromptu post for Dani’s blog. Hey it is 20sb blog swap day after all so I had to come up with something to say on her fun blog as well.

Thanks for sharing your ohh so wise insight with us soon to be master degreed lady!

I am working on a list of 101 things to do before my 30th birthday. I sent out this question to twitter & got several great responses. I will soon compile a list of everyone’s ideas and my complete list. In exactly 1 month from today (Feb 7 – put it on your calendar!) I will turn 27 so that gives me 3 years of adventuring.

Here’s why I need 101 things – Things to Do Before Your 30th.

Also, last night I was revisiting the ABCs of Me post – that’s pretty fun and random. If you want to know some randomness about me check it out & feel free to add some of your own. In fact how about do the whole ABCs on your blog and send me the link.

There are not a whole lot of words to describe the roller coaster, self discovery time of life some call our twenties. The best I can put it today, is it’s like standing at the edge of the ocean … some days the tide is up and the water brings life and energy and other times there’s nothing. The truth that I’ve found is that enjoying each moment as it is, not worrying about the future or regretting the past is what it’s all about. And sometimes it’s the in between that brings the greatest gifts.

I am what you’d call an information junkie. I love books/seminars/podcasts – if it has information I’m hooked. I particularly like the arena of “being a better me.” The book I just finished is The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. One bit of advice I’ve heard/read a few places is that we become who we hang out with … negative people breed negativity, you get the idea. I would say my networks of friends is quite in keeping with my values – so this post is not a find new friends push. Hey, if that’s something you should do I welcome you to it.

Actually, I would like to find some interesting people to “hang out with” on the web. Since I am a graphic designer by profession I follow many successful designers on twitter. The 50+ Designers to Follow post is a great place to start if you’d like to “hang out” with the big dog designers.

So here’s my plan … I’d like to interview (on GenPink of course) some successful 20somethings. I have an idea of a few people to start with but I’d love input and/or connections to some people you’d like to know more about. Also, let me know if there are any particular questions you’d like answered in my interviewing.