I’ve been ridiculously grumpy lately for no reason. I know I have much to grateful for, but I have been having a hard time counting my blessings. Over the last few weeks, we have been invited over to a few of our friends homes to celebrate new babies, new homes, new marriages and other fun life events. Everyone seems extremely happy with all the newness in their lives. On top of that, they all live in amazing homes! If you have been reading my blog for little bit, you know that I really don’t like our home but am trying to find contentment in it. I know I shouldn’t be trying to keep up with Joneses, but I am finding it really hard to be content with our present situation. It hasn’t helped also that my in-laws were visiting for Easter. There was literally not enough space to be comfortable for the duration of time they were here. I know, I know. I sound like a whiny brat. I’m trying to be better y’all! I am!
My apathy for our home is also affecting my eagerness to full execute the mortgage payoff plan. It’s hard to stay motivated when I have so much to pay off and in the end, I am still in a home that I don’t enjoy. I really should do a no spending challenge for April, but keep asking myself “For what? Why should I care?!” After work today, I spent about an hour looking through zillow.com and truila.com in search of my dream home. It actually helped motivate me somewhat. The type of home I want would require about a $80K – $100K down payment. We currently have about $10K in equity in our home, if I am being realistic. The more I pay down the mortgage, the more equity we have. At some point, we could sell this place when the equity is around $80K – $100K. In the meantime, we would have saved buttloads in interest payments. I have a little “For what?” motivation back. Hopefully it will lasts me a little while.
And maybe I need to stop accepting invitations from my fancy friends for a while!
The C.F.O. Mom Blog 
Motivational dips are hard. The approach you have to see the mortgage payments as steps to increase your equity stake would have been my first reaction as well.
Other people might argue that you are better off in putting the extra money in the stockmarket. This makes me a little uncomfortable if the equity stake is relative low.
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They are hard. But all the comments and looking at others financial paths is helping!
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That’s a tough position to be in. We bought our home pre-construction but were stretched to the max, so we picked a lower model. Now, 4 years later, we’d been wishing we put the 10k down to get the bigger model (which my parents have.) Really, what’s an extra 10k for all that extra space? (It’s only 400ish sq feet, but the difference you feel in the layout is MASSIVE.) For the 1st year or so, I talked about hoping one of the neighbours would sell and then we could buy their home but I’ve come to my senses. Size aside, I like the layout of my main floor better (more open concept), my master shower is about 2x bigger and the bedroom layout works better for our life stage (I.e. 3 bedrooms on the 2nd floor, plus a 3rd floor loft. My parents have 4 bedrooms but only 2 on the 2nd floor; the other 2 are on the next storey.) Our layout is also better for a basement apartment (which we’ve since decided against but was our original plan for the home.)
It might be tough, but try and focus on ANY redeeming factors in the home. If anything, think about your lower mortgage payments and less time spent cleaning a smaller home! 🙂
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Sounds like you’ve grown to love your home. Maybe that will be me one day. 🙂 There’s so much I don’t like now. BUT it is a home in a safe neighborhood with clean water. That’s a lot of people’s dream around the world. I just need to keep that in mind, I guess.
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Yeah, I’m growing to accept this as our maybe forever home, and if we’re honest, we don’t really need much more than 2000 sq feet. We have an unfinished basement as well which would add another 800 sq feet if we did it up. The kitchen layout isn’t my favourite (which is probably the most important part to me) but I know we can improve things over the years. Safety is a HUGE plus imo! We’re a bit more remote but I never feel unsafe walking around at night or if I’m home alone. Better to have a lower risk of burglaries right?
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What you’re experiencing is normal. I know I experience it all the time – overall, I’m not super content with my home either, so I waffle between being OK with living there and absolutely hating it and wanting out ASAP! I just always have to remind myself of the big goal – freedom from debt. And I have to remind myself that my day is coming where things will be different. It’s the whole delayed gratification thing for me. Hang in there!
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Glad to hear it’s somewhat normal. Maybe now that the in laws are gone, I’ll go back to being okay with our home. Keep my eyes on the prize – debt free!!
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I feel your pain! It is difficult to go over to other people’s houses and see how beautiful things are – and I spend time on Zillow and Trulia too, looking for what would make me happy in a home. I, like you, do try to stop, check my privilege, and be grateful for what we have, but it’s fun to dream, too! Sometimes I remind myself that those people whose fancy houses make me jealous may have other troubles they don’t share with me – things I’m grateful not to have in my life. Everyone has something going on that isn’t visible from the outside. I’m with Ernie – “hang in there!” 🙂
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There are so many pretty houses out there! But yes, I need to embrace gratitude in my life!
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You are not alone, most people don’t like their first house. The good news is your house value should go up over time because you bought in a good area. I have see so many young people waste money renting hoping to save enough for a bigger place only the bigger house keeps going up in price. My first house was a dump but 7 years later, I was mortgage free and it was worth 50% more than I paid for it. Have some faith, keep paying down the mortgage and you will get that bigger house.
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Thanks for the encouragement. I’m hoping to keep at it!
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I bet a lot of those friends might seem like they have it all and everything is going perfectly for them but behind the scenes things might be tough for them financially too. I look at our 1400 square foot house and their 2500+ square foot houses and think how I wouldn’t want to clean all of those bathrooms and extra square footage. I didn’t want to buy my grandmother’s house either but we have made it our own and have turned it into our own little cottage. You’ll get there!
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I need to keep reminding myself that things aren’t always what they seem! You make a good point about bathrooms. I definitely don’t want to clean anymore than I currently am!!
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I hear ya. I don’t like my home or my neighborhood. It’s safe , but not pretty and has a certain stigma. We don’t have a lot of room either, so my kids rarely have friends over and their friends have huge houses so it’s more comfortable there for them. But for many reasons, I’m stuck. But you know what has helped? Getiing rid of stuff. It lowers stress, makes the house feel bigger and helps my mood. I don’t go on the real estate sites because I’m not sure where I want to live, but in addition to paying down debt, getting rid of stuff and only keeping the stuff I like (“sparks joy” like the Tidying book) I also feel like I’m preparing to move, that I’ll only carry the stuff that is important to me to my next place, and am taking more control over my present space. And don’t feel badly about having a dip on mood or motivation and difficulty counting blessings. Your feelings matter. We’re human. And feelings of discontent can, eventually, be a catalyst for change. Good luck!
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Thank you for your kind words. I really do need to declutter and organize. Just this morning alone, I spent too much time looking for things my kids needed for school.
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