Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Learning Patience

When we bought our town home, we told ourselves we'd be here about 3 years and then we'd sell and find something bigger.   We've been here over 4 years.   With the baby coming, this has been on my mind even more.  I think about climbing all of those stairs after a c-section too and it makes me hurt.  Plus, our 3rd bedroom is filled with so much stuff right now and it feels overwhelming to start dejunking it.  Marshall and I started toying around with the idea of building or buying somewhere else.  Ultimately, I think we are wanting to be in the Herriman area.  It's really close to Riverton Hospital where I work and cuts Marshall's commute to 20 minutes.  We found a house that we love in a great area.  It's right across from a park, within walking distance of the school, rec center and public library, and the school there incorporates leader in me.  Leader in me is a program that incorporates Franklin-Covey's 7 habits.  Since Marshall works for the company, he'd love to see our kids in a school with this program, and I definitely agree.  The house is 5 bedrooms, very new and has a nice big fenced yard.  We had kind of planned to pay off debt before the baby was born but I started to feel impatient after finding this house.  After talking about it, we decided it is in our best interest to wait.  I'm sure we could make it work, but I don't want to have to depend on my income too for a house payment and I really don't want to be house poor.   Right now, anything I make is extra and goes to savings, paying debt off, and things for the baby since we got rid of so much after we had Rowan. I also really love being able to eat out, going on family vacations and not feeling overwhelmed with payments.  We've decided to be patient and save for another year.  It would be nice to have a bigger down payment and have less payments all around.
We also bought this beauty last November, and I'd like to be able to pay it down.  Never thought I would say a van is a beauty, but when it's fully loaded with every feature you could ever dream of, it's a beauty.  :)  It's a Toyota Sienna and we've loved it so far.

I feel a little sad to know that we are probably going to be here in our townhome for another year, but I have to take a step back and count our blessings.  I'm grateful to have a home for our family and and everything we need to live comfortably.  Marsh and I are going to sit down and make a plan so that we have debts paid down and 3.5-5% saved for a new house by this time next year.  Time to be patient.


Sara Birch said...

I know how hard it is to be patient! I feel that way about our house right now. I'm so ready to be in a bigger house, and its hard living in our subdivision and seeing people younger than us living in a lot larger houses. In a year from now, you will be so thankful that you took the time to save up for a down payment and that you paid down your other debts. Sometimes the nicer house isn't worth the stress of the debt it brings...or taking you away from your new baby because you have to work to pay your mortgage. You are really in an awesome position to be able to save. Our budget is stressed to the max right now, but the thought of going back to teach (and trying to pay for daycare and wonder who will get my kids to school and back) stresses me out even more than living on a tight budget.

Janaca said...

I love your van! I never thought I'd love them either but when you have 3 or more kids they come in handy. Plus they make them LOTS nicer these days! Good luck on saving for a home. It's so hard to not have what you want NOW! That's definitely how society is these days but I think you are very smart to wait and not have to stress about money.

Brooke and Jason said...

hey! I am pretty sure we were looking in our neighborhood! Which house were you looking at?!

tiff snedaker said...

Brooke - We were looking at one in Tuscany Estates, but the listing has since been taken offline. We went as far as to see how much we could tentatively qualify for, and it makes it even harder that we could have gotten the house since it wasn't a short sale. I'd still love to live out there, we are just going to wait longer to save for a down payment.