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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]We live in a 1400 sq ft house that we bought before kids.  We now have two, 9 and 11.  We need more space.  Our mortgage is $2100, which is easy for us (HHI approx. $280K).  We have law school debt and a special needs child, which is why we haven't moved thus far (and because we bought at the height of the market so we won't profit very much at all).  But the time has come, and without going into it, it is related to our special needs child and how difficult it has become with so little space for everyone.  We are not taking a mansion, we just need a bit more space, a driveway or a garage, and a guest room.  In any event, my DH and I have been trying to figure out how we would swing a higher mortgage (to get what we need we would have to increase our mortgage by at least $1600).

We track our finances fastidiously in Mint.  All of our accounts are linked, and every month we categorize everything we spend.  All of our income is also tracked.  Budgeting is difficult on Mint, and generally because my DH has a solo law practice and income is unpredictable.  His annual income is relatively predictable (has increased about 20% consistently for 4 years), but month to month is not - he may make $2k one month, and $19k the next.  As a result, we tend to rack up credit card debt, and then pay it completely down, and rack it up again.

As we started to talk about this, I thought "we can never move.  We already live beyond our means.  We have $18K in credit card debt right now!"  But, we looked at Mint today, and every way we calculated our income to spending trend,[b] we are on average $1300 in the black each month. [/b] In other words, I looked at our net income v. net spending since we started using Mint (2013) and it's $40K more in income, I looked at this year, last year, past 6 months - same thing.  Average $1300 more in income per month than spending per month.  So it looks like it isn't true that we actually spend what we make.[b]  But I don't understand how we carry a credit card balance.  [/b]I am missing something.  And it might be very obvious.  Help me out!

If we do have $1300 a month, I am confident we can reduce our spending enough to afford a higher mortgage.  We are happy with the saving we are doing for retirement and 401K.[/quote]

Are you saying you spend $1300 less than you make a month but you still don't have the cash reserves to pay off your *current* CC balance?  You literally have zero cash reserves right now, despite this obvious disparity in earnings vs. spending?

1) Your math is off.

2) You can't afford a more expensive house.[/quote]

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