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closePAYCHECK TO PAYCHECK Hard work pays off
The struggle to make ends meet in Centre County“We’re not doing too bad. You just buckle downand set your mind to what you want to get.”
Anne Danahy
- adanahy@centredaily.com
UNION TOWNSHIP — Rose Fritts said she would have needed a camera to capture the expression on her husband’s face when they walked through the home that was about to become theirs.
CDT photo/Christopher Weddle
Rose and Dave Fritts sit in their new home near Julian. The couple bought the home with the help of a low-interest mortgage through the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency. The keys to their success, they said, are spending their money only on what they need and hard work.
"It didn't sink in with him that this would be ours until the final inspection," she said.
This is the new 1,500-square-foot home that has high ceilings, several bedrooms, two bathrooms, lots of windows and a roomy kitchen that the Fritts “fell in love with.”
They bought it in August. Two months later, a small wooden sign in the yard with their name on it greets visitors. In the backyard, Dave Fritts is working on a deck in his spare time.
It is the first home Rose Fritts, 51, has owned. For many years, she doubted whether she would ever become a homeowner. The high costs for housing in the area and the credit scores needed to get a good loan seemed hard to overcome.
But the couple started saving as soon as they began dating about five years ago. Rose Fritts’ sister told her to take a look at the homes at the Eagle Creek Community where their brother works.
The Frittses bought the $125,000 mobile home and the plot of land with a low-interest mortgage through the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency. It means the $534 monthly payments are only $34 more than the rent they paid for the Zion apartment where they lived for five years.
Without that loan, Rose Fritts said, they would probably still be renting and saving.
Dave Fritts said he learned about Rose’s determination.
“I found out one thing: If she sets her mind to something and sets a goal, she does it,” he said.
The keys to their success, they said, are spending their money only on what they need, rather than anything that catches their eye, and good, old-fashioned hard work.
“We’re not doing too bad,” Dave Fritts, 49, said. “You just buckle down and set your mind to what you want to get.”
Dave Fritts has a construction job with HRI Inc. that means getting up at 3:30 a.m. for the daily commute. The job pays about $30,000 a year for the seven months or so when work can be done. The remaining months, Fritts collects unemployment.
Rose Fritts works full time at the American Legion in Bellefonte for about $8 an hour plus tips and had been working a second job on evenings and weekends.
Together, they make about $42,000 a year. All that work actually led to problems when it came time to get a mortgage for their home. They couldn’t afford a house without the low-interest agency loan, but they made slightly too much money to qualify for it.
The income limit for a two-person family is $39,500.
Rose Fritts cried when she got the news.
“You work your heart out,” she said. “They’re penalizing you for being a working person.”
She solved the problem by taking a break from her part-time job — sticking with her job as a bartender that keeps her busy more than 40 hours a week — and the home is now theirs.
Dave Fritts said he feels comfortable but wonders how young people raise families in the face of rising costs.
“It’s twice as hard now with the price of everything going up,” he said.
Rose Fritts said she hopes their story will tell people they should go for their dreams.
“It doesn’t matter what kind of job you have,” Rose Fritts said. “If you want something bad enough it will come to you.”
Anne Danahy can be reached at 231-4648.
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