Remember Emily and Dna?

[Scales]

Also, because I love Emily so much, I used google and deduced that they are almost certainly living with relatives or have BOUGHT a house for around $50,000. No more apartment living, so Therese will have some room to breathe. It wasn't hard for me to do this, but I'm not going to post any identifying information about them. I'm really happy for them and I hope they fill the house with a loving space for their children.

[Scales]

People, I am BURSTING here.

[persuas1ve]

Now if only she could start a decorating blog for the new home! Posts on how to incorporate stuffed animals into a bathroom!

Honestly, I admire truly thrifty people, but Emily made their lives harder by forced poverty. So much of what she did was just unnecessarily difficult. I hope she's snapped out of that and the family has heat, plenty of food, and a safe environment. Sadly, depending on where she lives a $50k house could be a real fixer- upper which would be just up her alley...

[FreeJosie]

Oh, I REALLY hope that they're in a bigger, more comfortable place (don't they have 5 kids now?)! Emily's blog was like a train wreck that I couldn't stop staring at. The under-crib mattresses, the Rubbermaid bins stacked six-high in the kitchen, the tasteless pasta, Therese, the meat tubes, Emily's "plan" to house 13 kids in that apartment....wow. :lol:

[Scales]

The aerial photo of the house shows a decent-sized house with a big yard, in a very rural area. I'm sure it's a fixer, but surely they must have some handiness skills beyond screwing rickety shelves into the wall above the baby's crib.

After all this time I should have started a new thread! I'm so excited.

I wish she WOULD start a blog about decorating her house. She could use her gloodles recipe to put up the wallpaper.

[indygirl76]

Dear Lord,

Please let Emily start blogging again. I've been (relatively) good and un-Jezebel-like lately - I'm sure you'll agree I deserve this just reward! :)

With love from your favorite agnostic,

IndyGirl

[Mama Mia]

You can buy an actual house, with a yard even, for $50,000 ????? :pink-shock:

[miffy]

You can buy an actual house, with a yard even, for $50,000 ????? :pink-shock:

Look up real estate in Detroit, you can get gorgeous pre 1950 houses for under $10K. They are probably in a rough area & run down. But where I live a cheaply built 3 bedroom house in the outer suburbs will set you back $350k or more.

[uber frau]

Good lord. The pre 1950s, solid but not particularly gorgeous house we're in now is in a pretty rough neighbourhood (for Australia -not so many shooting s but when they do happen they're here), in need of work (read was chock full of asbestos, lead paint and uninsulated wiring when we bought it) and it cost 45 times that (or 9 times Dna and Emily's ) and we did well. Aah, the prices we pay for my having a recession :/.

[library_youth]

It's been just over three years since Emily threw in the towel on her blog, and she's left it up that whole time. I was wondering - does she still make a few bucks off that blog? There's still ads on it, and I'm sure a lot of people have gone back to look at it for a snarky trip down memory lane, so it still probably gets a decent amount of page hits. Just wondering why she continues to leave the blog out there rather than delete the crazy.

[Syd+Marky]

I'm glad I wasn't taking a drink just now, because your use of "skirt cheese" just killed me. Emily was also one of my gateway crazies, and I still sometimes wish she'd start blogging again.

My kids would starve or call DHS themselves, and rightfully so.Thats just too too much.

[Widget]

You can buy an actual house, with a yard even, for $50,000 ????? :pink-shock:

My house was under 40k. 2 full bedrooms, fully finished attic with another huge bedroom, 2 baths, basement, large lot with fenced yard, 2 car garage. Not in a bad neighborhood.

That's Midwestern US real estate for you.

It is very outdated, but that can be fixed in bits and pieces. :D

[Scales]

You can do fairly well for $50,000 in rural areas. There may have been a lot of "deferred maintenance."

I wonder if they took out a mortgage or paid in cash with the money saved from the way they lived. Three years is enough time to save up that kind of cash if you live cheap and use government aid. Shoot, with all those kids and the EITC, they could easily get close to a $10000 tax check back from the government each year - a credit, not a refund of money paid. I wonder if they got smart and started taking government aid to get by with Dna's low salary.

[Closed Womb]

My kids would starve or call DHS themselves, and rightfully so.Thats just too too much.

I pretty sure you comment was meant as humor (at least I laughed), but in reality I think we're all pretty certain that her kids were starving. Dna too. Unless things have changed, I hope her kids realize they can call DHS.

[stacyf]

Looks like you can get a pretty decent house for under $100,000 in her area. Some really cute ones too. There is a 4 bedroom "handyman's special" for $59,000 in her town and an adorable but dated 4 bedroom for $64,000.

[Mama Mia]

Geeze, those prices are ALMOST enough enticement to get me to move to the scary rural south or mid-west.

Since my one bedroom older trailer in a mobile home park was a bargain at $100,000 !

[darkplumaged]

We have friends who just bought a house for $45K. It's in a small town about half an hour from a large Midwestern city. Granted, the house is 130+ years old and a real fixer, but still.

I guess good for Emily and Dna for buying a house. Now that she'd have to pay for heat, though, she probably will really never use it. Those poor kids.

[tropaka]

yikes, we live in a fixer in Toronto but it's worth 7K....

[miffy]

We have friends who just bought a house for $45K. It's in a small town about half an hour from a large Midwestern city. Granted, the house is 130+ years old and a real fixer, but still.

I guess good for Emily and Dna for buying a house. Now that she'd have to pay for heat, though, she probably will really never use it. Those poor kids.

If its old enough there will be lots of fireplaces (for wasps to build their nests in summer) & she will be able to burn the doors in said fireplaces for heat.

[Milly-Molly-Mandy]

My 38m2 apartment? (409 feet) $400,000.

No parking. No balcony.

30 year old building.

Yeah Sydney prices :/

Oh well 2 minute walk from the harbour & 20 minute walk into the CBD (or 1 train stop). Has its advantages & loved living in it for 3 years until I moved in with my fiancée & we moved 6 apartment buildings along to a 2 bedroom with parking. It's worth $1.3 million dollars. Clearly we rent!!!

[hahe77]

Thanks to the housing bust, we bought our 3 bedroom ranch home on almost an acre of land for $69,000. 5+ years ago, the house was valued at double what we paid for it.

[onlyorganic]

Emily and Dan live in Maine, not Michigan. In this area of the country, you can get a fixer-upper or a mobile home for under 100k (sometimes under 50k) but you sure aren't getting a a nicely built, new home with a lot of land. I haven't been to Bangor in awhile, but I'm pretty sure they aren't in the middle of nowhere, they live pretty close to the city (which, here in New England is more like living next to a larger sized town). I've always thought Emily was pretty fantastic because having that much discipline to live on so little a budget is pretty impressive. That being said, I think her husband is more the hero for eating some of that food she made.

[Scales]

They moved to a town of "under 1000" people.

[stacyf]

The data I gave was from the town they now live in (Maine & small).

[salex]

Geeze, those prices are ALMOST enough enticement to get me to move to the scary rural south or mid-west.

Since my one bedroom older trailer in a mobile home park was a bargain at $100,000 !

The Kansas City area has affordable homes, and in the suburbs, good schools. But KS and Mo are going deep red, so there is "that"....