I have a renter!

After eight months of only one tenant, I got a deposit and signed lease today, from a girl who seems quite nice (and had great references and all that). That last craigslist posting finally did the trick. She's moving in on the 22nd, and we'll see how she is as a housemate then, but there were no warning flags at all.

I am giddy.

I haven't really mentioned it because I'm very, very aware of how many of my friends are in really tough financial straits, and comparatively I'm livin' high, but knowing I've plugged the slow leak in the budget is a huge weight off my shoulders. Eight months is waaaay longer than I wanted to go without a second tenant. A year ago it would've been a real problem, but in January my hours were raised at work, which accounted for a good chunk of the lost income (which means in the next few months I'll actually feel like I've gotten a 'raise', for the first time since the raise!).

I've been lucky to have a float -- I bought my house when there was that big federal incentive, and saved half of it for the studio project (other half went to windows that absolutely had to be replaced pronto) -- but I was spending it down a tiny bit at a time. When I priced out the studio a few weeks ago the total was about a thousand less than I thought it would be -- and a thousand more than I had.