Just before our second wedding anniversary my husband and I got bit by the house bug and we bought a house. This house was okay for the first year or two and then we realized we made a HUGE mistake. We hated the house's location, the house was built in the 1880's and needed a ton of work and we found that prior repairs to the house were done wrong. We sunk quite a bit of money into the house for new repairs and to redo repairs. The only good thing about the house was its proximity to my work. It was only a 20 minute walk, this allowed me to not only get exercise but save on purchasing a monthly parking pass.
We realized we didn't get a great deal on our house and looking back on it felt pressured to buy quickly. After that experience we changed real estate agents and shopped around for a mortgage. We decided to hold off on seriously looking for houses because we had to sell our house first. It took almost 6 months before our buyer made an offer. Then the whirl wind began, we looked at 30-40 houses. Our home was a house that we put on the list to see at the last minute and doubted we'd actually like it. The item that got it on the list was the wood stove. My husband and I both thought that would be wonderful to have a wood stove. Once we saw the house, even though it wasn't the two story classic house we had been looking for, we realized immediately, it was perfect. We came in under asking and on February 14th the seller accepted our offer. Then on February 17th we found out we were pregnant.
We took a mortgage that was a little higher than we wanted but didn't mind because we had enough room in our budget to absorb this and still have money left over to keep adding to our savings. Then in October just before our son was born, we decided to take the step to purchase an SUV. We needed an SUV to make it up and down the hill to our house, without it my husband wouldn't be able to get into work.
Then my son was born at the end of October. Thankfully, my husband and I were very conscious of the fact that we would have medical bills. We saved throughout the year and knew we had the money for the bills so we could pay them as soon as they came in.
Unfortunately, taking on a higher mortgage, purchasing a car and having the expenses of a child have strained our budget significantly. It didn't help that my company only pays my salary at a percentage. Thankfully, we worked hard to plan ahead and have been able to stay current on all our bills, however, to do so we've had to dip into our savings. Now we need to go back to being incredibly frugal and building our savings back up. Which is one reason I've started writing this blog, I want to chronicle my journey and hopefully help others by discussing my successes and failures. Because let's be real- not everything we try is a success.
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