You know that amazing home you only dream of living in? You know how beautiful it is? You know how you dream about living there and how it will always be neat and clean and perfect when you do? Well, I'm here to tell you, you may be able to buy that "dream" home and if it has been a good choice ( ie you did not over extend yourself and you and your realtor were REALLY clear on how you live and how you want to live and what is important to you) it will change your life for the better.
I DO want to burst your bubble now though, if you are anything like me, you won't be able to keep it as perfectly as you want. Reality = I live with 4 kids and 4 dogs and a cat and a husband. I should have known. Other reality= I am often attempting to do too many things and am easily distracted so....I should have known.
Now that falling in love with a home is magical. You imagine living there and how perfect it will be. ( kinda like falling in love the first time) Now hopefully you still have your eyes open ( I did when I first fell in love and also when buying this last house) and you anticipate some of the issues. ( I did) and still, thankfully though things do not go the way one might imagine in their fantasies, I have to say I am more in love with both my first love and our newest house more than the when I first fell in love with them both.....
Now when you first fall in love you believe in "magic" in so many ways. When you stay in love you see different kinds of that magic....
So there is still magic in our house, it is just a different form that my fantasy about living here.
Magically here are some things that seem to happen here-
I find things I have never seen before in the laundry and even more magically I am able to figure out which of the children's friends they belong to and even more unlikely I find a way to make it return to it's proper home.
I find that a little dog born here at this new house though he is a minature breed can jumpt the fence that held the previous owner's big dogs with no problems at all.
When cleaning I find interesting objects, recently a flat pack FED EX box completely covered in Duct tape and with some strange item rolling around inside with a Pringles container also covered in duct tape with a watch connected. When I inquire about WHAT in the world this is my 16 year old informs me that it is a pretend BOMB. Why I ask, especially when this energy could have been used to clean house, do your laundry, do school work. Well appearantly the little kids were using sticks to simulate bow and arrow and he felt that if they were going to play with these they should have a pretend BOMB since it is a more "modern weapon" I take time I could have spent putting away laundry or decorating the home to look like homes and gardens to explain to him the pretend bows and arrows were for "target practice" in the back yard and no good ever ever came from a bomb, especially from a "bomb" filled with nails from the garage.
I find pictures in strange places like the closet, in the fridge, in my makeup drawer, under the couch. Thankfully they are usually drawn on paper, magically sometimes they say things like " I Love You Mom" and show up on days I am feeling a little down.
Amazingly even though I have more cupboard space than I thought I knew what to do with, sometimes I cannot fit all of our food items neatly away. ( We are very blessed that we always have enough)
In this home a little boy who did not talk at all when we arrived is speaking full sentences and people are now often surprised when they find out he was considered developmentally delayed. ( such a blessing and magical in so many ways)
Magically, even though I now have 2 washers and 2 dryers ( something I would suggest to look for as a home feature or a potential home feature, in other words something you could build in) in any home that more than 2 kids are going to live in.) I still can manage to fall behind on laundry. Laundry just appears the moment I "run out" of dirty laundry.
Some how even with a 6 burner stove, on a night I am just throwing something quick together I manage to use all 6 burners at one time.....
Other things that are unexplainable happen here too.....I find action figures, home work, a bottle of cumin and another of cinnamon, a dog leash, poker chips, legos, a half eaten cookie, an unopened box of juice, a toy train, a bottle of syrup, 2 screw drivers, a drill, a garden shovel, 3 50' measuring tapes, a squid jig, a brand new paint brush still in it's wrapping, a mother board, 4 charges to something and I don't know what and 3 my little ponies, and 4 skylanders, and a match box car all in my bedroom when I go to clean it along with an entire laundry basket worth of dirty clothing that belongs to children in the household. These things have appeared and sadly even one pair of my socks that match and my favorite bra have disappeared.
Also, paint peels, lawns get too high and even with such a tiny flower bed to maintain, weeds show up magically as well.
In the middle of it, I love love love our home. I appreciate it too since it is easier than I have ever had it to keep it looking the way I would like ( I guess what I really mean is closer to what I would like) I love that it is located in a beautiful place with neighbors I adore. I love that I actually have a place to put most everything away neatly. I love that there are no carpets. I love the lay out and how pretty it is...yes even when I cannot keep it as well as I'd like. I love the yard with it's privacy. I love the feeling of love that permeates the way it was put together and comes from the love inside the house. I love that my husband took a leap of faith and purchased it for our family and that I picked it since the exact house we lived in meant more to me than to him. I love that I feel happy about being here each day I wake.
And some day, when the kids are grown and no one is making a mess, it will actually look again like it did the day I fell in love with it, maybe even better.....in the meantime I will take care of it the best I can. I will thank GOD for it and the people in it every day. I will enjoy the crazy magic at work here now and appreciate it because like the magic of falling in love the first time I know the magic here right now does not last forever, and while it may, like the magic of falling in love, grow and turn into something even more beautiful, it is something to be enjoyed and appreciated now.
Better yet, instead of just not adding to your debt, what if you could save tens of thousands of dollars in interest and be able to stop paying a mortgage completely years if not even a decade or more earlier? How can you do this? Well.....it's as simple as making extra payments to principle. The earlier in your loan the better. Not sure how it will impact your interest paid out or how long you pay on it?
Here is a link to a mortgage calculator to help you figure out what extra payments would do for you.
One of the largest is a down payment. Gone are the days of conventional loans with little documentation and no down payment. ( and this might be a good thing) However, for owner occupied homes, even FHA loans require about 3.5% down. If you are buying a median priced home in our county ( Pierce County WA) you would be needing to come up with almost $8500.00, and that is if are not talking about covering your own closing costs, which could be close to the same amount.
S