House Envy

I’ll admit it. I have it. I have it every single day. I have it when I clean my house, when I look at other people’s houses, when I go shopping and see really neat stuff or have ideas that I would love to incorporate into my house. I want a backyard that Prayse can play in. I want a basement where the boys can go play Playstation or watch football. I want a kitchen that has storage space. I want an actual office with a desk that does not also double as our kitchen table.

Geez, look at that: want, want, want. How selfish am I? Now that I read it I realize how bad it sounds. I still want it all though. I am blessed, I know that I have a small townhouse. We bought it 3.5 years ago with money down and a good interest rate. Raymonn wanted to stop renting and buy a house, something that could hopefully gain equity. He also wanted to keep playing football. Knowing that meant he would be out of the country for 6 months out of the year I gave him a choice: 1- Keep playing football and we can buy a townhouse/condo so that I am not stuck with mowing, snow removal, all the “house” things by myself for 6 mo every year. 2- Give up football and we can look at real houses.

We ended up with choice number 1 and he never went back to football. We made our choices with the information we had at the time and looking back with all the same information we probably would have made the same decisions. Maybe I’m just growing up now and want my own.  My sister remindeds me of a piece of advice Dave Ramsey always gives: “Live like no one else today so you can live like no one else tomorrow.” A very good piece of advice that is easier to say than live in today’s world. We have a small house, we are comfortable, we are not struggling to pay our mortgage. We are methodically paying down bills to get out of debt. Could we afford a bigger house? Yeah. But instead we have Prayse in a more expensive, but excellent daycare facility. We are paying more money into our 401k and monthly into IRA’s, additional life insurance, and disability insurance.  I know in my heart we are doing things right (or attempting to), I am not worried about foreclosure, which much of the country is. But still… to have a guest room? A girl can dream can’t she? And work toward it in the future.

Hey guess what else today is?

Come on… you can do it!