Saving for a home vs. Living large

Houses are expensive. And in order to buy one, we all cut back on our "fun money" - dinners out, new clothes, etc. - and start saving. At what point does the desire to own a house over-ride the joy of being able to spend money on things you want and have fun without worrying about every penny? Does anyone regret not saving enough? Or saving too much and not having enough fun?

Re: Saving for a home vs. Living large

I could never, ever in my life be house poor. Eventually that would cause problems with your relatiobship. Therefore I would save until I had enough money to put a down payment so that we could still shop and go out to dinner. I work to hard to not enjoy life.

Re: Saving for a home vs. Living large

Re: Saving for a home vs. Living large

Message edited 2/27/2007 6:09:55 PM.

Re: Saving for a home vs. Living large

I wanted to add, that we saved for 2.5 years and plannd a wedding and will be closing later this week. we heard a lot of remarks from people about why we were "wasting" our money renting. well fast forward to now... renting for that period allowed us to save enough of a down payment to allow us to buy a beautiful house in a great neighborhood, and can still go out to dinner and vacation. Those friends of ours that wanted a house right away instead of "waste" money on renting, are those friends of ours who decline dinner invitations time and time again because "they can't afford it right now."

Re: Saving for a home vs. Living large

Re: Saving for a home vs. Living large

While we watch what we spend, we do go out to dinner, etc.

We have enough money left over every month to save while buying our house at the same time. That also means we don't have the "fancier" house on LI but we do little projects at a time. It more important for us not to be in debts.

Re: Saving for a home vs. Living large

Posted by Whamtastic

Posted by MrsFlatbread



I'm glad to hear that "throwing your money away" worked out for you. I'll remember it as my inspirational story!

How is it wasting money? You need to live somewhere right? Tell those people that unless they have $500,000 they can give you, they really have no business telling you how to spend your money. Good luck!

Re: Saving for a home vs. Living large

Posted by MrsFlatbread

Posted by Whamtastic

Posted by MrsFlatbread

I'm glad to hear that "throwing your money away" worked out for you. I'll remember it as my inspirational story!

How is it wasting money? You need to live somewhere right? Tell those people that unless they have $500,000 they can give you, they really have no business telling you how to spend your money. Good luck!

AMEN!

Re: Saving for a home vs. Living large

i agree with the others, we are saving for a wedding and home, and while we want all of this you have to live life too!!! i refuse to cut out all of the other stuff, therefor i will not live beyond my means

Re: Saving for a home vs. Living large

You have to balance what you save vs what you spend. We found a happy middle ground that we're settling into. The first year will always be the hardest, but it gets easier from there.

Re: Saving for a home vs. Living large

Re: Saving for a home vs. Living large

Re: Saving for a home vs. Living large

I started saving for a house years and years before I met DH. I never got used to living on my total salary and always paid myself first. I was an unusual kid... I was addicted to savings and investing...lol. Even at 23 in grad school I was thinking house, house, house.

I actually planned on buying a house by myself circa 1997, probably a cape. My Dad was due to retire, he was going to help me fix it up (he was very handy), add and apt. and I would have been well on my way. Unfortunately, my Dad had a very bad stroke and well, that plan was impossible. I also couldn't spend a lot of money living large because I couldn't travel or go out all of the time and leave him.

I continued to save for a home. At one point I dated a guy for a while who bought run down houses and lived in them while flipping them. I was an investor in several of his projects as housing prices took off and did pretty well which has made owning my current home a lot easier. A bad situation wound up working out after all.

ETA: I also got a lot of bargains in regards to my wedding, like getting married on a Monday and paying 1/2 per plate, not having a bridal party, no limos, etc. None of my guests noticed and I had tens of thousands more in the house fund.

It's just me but I never felt like I was missing out on life by living the way I did.

You have to do what works for you.

Message edited 2/27/2007 9:16:10 PM.

Re: Saving for a home vs. Living large

I agree with a lot of the points made, but everyone has their own specific idea of what's right for them.
My DH & I each brought a child from previous relationships into our marriage, so in addition to planning a wedding & saving for a house we also had an instant family & college savings to work on.

We bought a house we love in a more afforadable area, but it took us a couple of years to save up & to find the perfect house for us.
Some people have to live in certain areas because Newsday says they have a good school district or whatever. Personally, I like to be on the higher end of income in my area, not on the bottom fighting to keep up with the Jones'.
We started buying investment properties way before we bought our own house & people would say "why don't you buy a house to live in?" Its always easy for people to give their opinions, but don't let that put you off course for your plan.

As far as spending goes, DH & I are very conservative & we have modest taste.
I outgrew the "shopping makes me happy mentality" a long time ago. Now I'm trying to get rid of all of this crap I bought over the years & simplify.
We don't eat out often because we love cooking together or for eachother.
We do alot of entertaining & hosting dinner parties & outdoor parties & we would always rather do that then spend $$$ on dinner out w/friends.
We do love to travel, but haven't taken any trips recently because we decided to roll our travel budget into an investment right now.
We don't buy new cars every couple of years, we drive our cars until they are 6+ years old.
We bring coffee, breakfast & lunch from home every day(almost). We are healthier because of it & I can honestly say when we first started 6 years ago we noticed a savings of a few hundred dollars a month. That went right to the house fund.
So for us it never has felt like a sacrafice, maybe because we're a bit older. We don't feel like we're missing out on anything.
You & your DH have to sit & look at your budget & how you spend now & decide what you can cut back on comfortably in order to save without feeling resentful. And you two have to decide how strong your desire for homeownership is.

Re: Saving for a home vs. Living large

Re: Saving for a home vs. Living large

Owning your own home is the best feeling in the world. We may have to cut out certain things but it is worth it in the end.

Re: Saving for a home vs. Living large

FH and I both lived at home until we bought our house.

We got engaged 12/05, and wanted to be in a house by spring 2007 - FH and I have student loans up the wazoo, and had about $15K combined in the bank when we got engaged (FH paid for my ring in cash )...

so for all of 2006 we pretty much saved saved saved - the only vacation was a three day camping trip, FH worked a summer job, we paid off all our credit cards and was able to save enough for 10% down and closing costs.

our mortgage is big, but we have a fixed rate and a big house, so we arent going anywhere for a while - and we know our incomes will increase over the next few years - we can still go out to dinner, taking our Hawaiian honeymoon - but do we have enough money to jetset to Europe 2x per year? nope - but having a house was worth it to us.

Re: Saving for a home vs. Living large

Re: Saving for a home vs. Living large

I am glad we were able to save after the wedding, and thankful for the Gifts from the wedding because that money really helped us buy a house. I also was able to pay off my credit card before the house purchase.

We are still able to go out to eat with friends, buy things for ourselves and have work done to the house with money left over....

I am glad that we didnt bury ourselves.

I have a friend that is looking to buy a house now, and getting married this year. They cannot afford to do both right now, so I wish they would wait till after the wedding...rent now and save their money...so they dont become house poor.

Scott

Re: Saving for a home vs. Living large

We rented for a loooooonnnggg time before buying. It's not a given that once you decide to get married you have to buy a house..that's crap.

We had a very nice apartment and were enjoying ourselves and didn't see the need to biy anything right away.

It took us two years to save but when we did finally decide to start looking it took us that long to find our house.

We were married 5 years before we bought our home. That was right for us. We have money to go on vacations and go out to dinner and do all the things we want. Are we rich? Heck no, but we have money in savings, a brokerage acct, retirement accts and 2 homes..it paid for us to wait and get to the point of being able to sleep at night.

Waiting is not the worst thing and there's no hard fast rule about when to buy a home. Nobody pressured us at all and thankfully we answer to only ourselves.

Do what's right for you.

Re: Saving for a home vs. Living large

ultimately you have to do whats right for you. We have been married 1 year this Sunday and we've been in my parent's basement for a year now (god love em) and it was always our goal to save a bit before we'd move. Now, even so, we aren't buying an expensive house right now because I don't want to be house poor. We are buying a reasonably priced townhouse for 272K. Could we have afforded a larger single family home, yes, but then we'd be struggling and I didnt' want to be house poor either. Don't get me wrong, we still plan on cutting back, but that does mean once a week we won't go out to eat, or etc. I didn't want to loose my house or not have grocery money because I need a larger house. Its whatever you feel best with.

Re: Saving for a home vs. Living large

Re: Saving for a home vs. Living large

I was just having a conversation with a friend who rents a house about this.

Personally, I don't think owning a home is the greatest deal in the world. Sometimes I miss having a landlord. There's a lot of upkeep to owning, and there are better investments to be made if you're doing it for financial reasons. Yes, it feels great to "own" something, but you can own stock too.

In the end, I'm glad we bought, b/c I think we got a decent deal and I like our yard. But I would be ok with renting and putting my $$ elsewhere too.

I guess what I'm saying is don't buy just because everyone is buying. There is nothing wrong with renting if you are investing your money somewhere. Some people rent forever and have a very nice life.

Re: Saving for a home vs. Living large

I think there's a happy medium. DH and I are not house poor, but we have changed our lifestyle. But, they are not huge changes -- instead of going out for sushi 3x a week we go once. Things like that. We still enjoy our lives, we just think a little more before we spend.