Reply to How did you afford your $1M plus home?

Forum Index » Real Estate

Reply to "How did you afford your $1M plus home?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]11:52 here. We do buy nice things, but not every day. I also would rather have a great home for the next 10-15 years than a great $10k vacation today. And, for the record, we've taken those vacations and we've dropped $700 on one dinner, etc etc, but that was before we made a nice home our priority. And it's not just the home that we prioritize, it's our kids' college and our retirement. I don't need a $15 .25lb wedge of cheese every week or a $5 latte every day, though I do indulge in that if I want it on occasion. We focus on what we need first and it frees us up to have what we want without feeling like we're sacrificing long term goals for short term gain. I got an iPad for Christmas and a $300 spa certificate for Valentine's Day, so it's hardly like we're not enjoying ourselves! Plus, I have an infant and a 3 year old. A fancy vacation would hardly be enjoyable right now anyway. Rather wait a few years and take one when they're old enough for us all to enjoy ourselves.  :) Really, it's abut choices. Mine aren't better than yours--they're just what we've chosen based on our goals. Your goals may be different, and that's totally fine. But don't complain that you can't buy your dream house because you spend your money in a way that doesn't make it possible.

To answer 13:30, we're buying the home this spring. We already bought and and sold a $750k home elsewhere, for which we also put down 20%. Lost about $50k when we sold, but we were moving and had to sell as our co-op rules didnt allow us to rent it out (this was in Manhattan). That sucked. This time, we'll also put 20% down for whatever we buy. Our credit is excellent, so we qualify for the cheapest mortgage rates. That keeps our totally monthly payment, with taxes, at around $4500. Our former mortgage plus HOA was $4100/month (3100 mortgage plus 1000 HOA). We pay roughly the same now for rent as for our old mortgage and we been saving the extra $1000 for the new home. DH and I kind of can't believe how much we've been able to save, but it's because we "pay ourselves first," as my very frugal and now very rich father used to say. I definitely feel like DH and I (esp working the hours he does, which used to be the same for me) deserve to treat ourselves and indulge in nice things, but isn't a beautiful home in a great school district with an easy commute a nice thing?

But 13:30, don't compare too much--you have daycare costs that we don't have (we just have $300 month preschool) and $40k less in income (that's another $20k after tax that we can save). Childcare eats away at your cash. When we had a nanny, our HHI was $400k and we live about the same now as we did when I was working and we were paying for her too. When your kids start school, you'll have more cash. Just reallocate it into savings right away!! Don't say "wow! We have another $20,000 a year to spend!" You can definitely get the house you want--it'll just take you a few more years to get there.  It took us 7 years to save for this home! [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics