Worst Year?

[Phoebe]

Sally, I hear ya! I wonder where the high life is myself. DH is maxing out his 403B, just started a new investment account this year and we pay close to 1800/month in student loans. We feel like we are living paycheck to paycheck again and I feel like I live with the finance police since uping the investments. We aren't hurting, but we are definitely watching ourselves.

Jennifer

[PrincessFiona]

Sounds like things around here too. We really struggled our first two years out more than we should have simply because of dh's starting salary (first two years non-partner), our debt and the cost of our mortgage.

We'll be starting our 5th YEAR post-training in July and things are settled for us now. We haven't paid off all of our debt, but...we have paid off almost all of our credit card debt . We've also maxed out our retirement accounts each year and just now *gulp* considering how to put away more money for the kid's college funds. Basically, we only have a small savings account for each of them This year, we're hoping to years the year end settle up to rid ourselves of the plastic once and for all....

We are finally at a point where we can start relaxing and now we need to start getting more responsible about HOW we spend money.

[SueC]

Yay Kris, that gives me hope! Right now, if you over hald of dh's income is going to debt, and I'm not counting the mortgage .

[houseelf]

I refuese to read or listen to any of this post.

Seriously.

I'm signing off now so that I can kick and scream and throw one hell of a temper tantrum. We *still* have three years of training and a self-financed move across country. I guess that we had better buckle up.

Kelly

[PrincessFiona]

Sue,

Our first two years out were like that as well. We actually had less money than during fellowship when he had been moonlighting, but the cost of living here is much higher.

A couple of things helped us. When he made partner, his salary went up substantially...and hew as eligible for year-end settle up payments as well as system bonuses. We have tried to really be good about using one of those extra checks at the end of the fiscal year (translating into August and September payments) to pay off debt.

If we could go back and do it all over again, we would have bought a less expensive home and would have had lower expectations.

Paying off the debt can feel really mind-numbing, especially after you feel like you are supposed to be reeping the rewards of all of the sacrifice of your time and money to get there.

It WILL come though...I promise.

kris

Our plan is to stay in this house for another year or so if we stay here. We might also build an addition on this house.

The tricky thing is moving. I reaaaaallly don't want to move and then move again a year or two later. And you've got the expenses of moving to consider too like closing costs, realtor fees, etc.

Good question and one that gets discussed frequently here!

[mommax3]

Regarding the house, we (very reluctantly! ) came to the conclusion that we wouldn't be able to afford our dream house upon leaving the military. This was especially bitter because DH had been out of training for 4 years at that point! We set our housing budget and stuck to it, and are glad that we did.

We are tentatively planning to build in 4 or 5 years, and THAT will be our "house of dreams". Neither of us look forward to the actual moving, but there is a lot to be said for living in the community for a while, learning which builders have a good reputation, going to open houses, and figuring out all the stuff that is very hard to figure out without actually living somewhere. Also, with this (potential) move, we won't have to actually uproot ourselves from our community, we will just relocate within it.

We've always bought at the conservative end of what we thought we could afford, and we have never been sorry. Life, especially life with kids, has a way of surprising you with expenses, as do houses.........

(Yes, we are still dealing with the air conditioner issue today! )

Sally

[SueC]

We are holding off on the dream house and honestly it feels good. Well, it doesn't feel good to now be cramming a 6th person into a 1400 sq. ft, 3 bedroom house, but we at least feel like for once we are using our heads! I think it is the smartest thing we have done so far, though our families and many others think we are insane for continuing to live here.

Buying what you can afford while still paying off debts and living comfortably is really smart. You build up equity and improve your credit rating while still being able to buy furniture and pay for digital cable and a trip to the mall.

We definitely bought at the lower end of what dh's salary could have gotten us (assuming we hadn't carried an extra house for a year). We both felt that was a better choice, and I don't feel like we've "suffered" at all. We have a lovely home, live in a very nice neighborhood, in an excellent school district. Our neighbors aren't doctors and CEO's, but that is A-OK w/me. Is this my dream home? Nope. Our current plan is to re-evaluate in another 4 years and decide if we want to build, etc.

Our price range when we were looking showed us some MUCH bigger houses, but older (built in the '80's) and coming up on maintenance needs. ESPECIALLY considering that we couldn't unload the other house AND how much we had to drop the price, I am so happy that I pressed for this place. It's 3 years old.

Just to clarify...we're not thinking of getting ourselves over a housing barrel or anything. I am so frustrated doing real estate searches and finding not a whole lot in our next price range. But go up one more notch....

And I just hate moving. One of the pluses for staying where we are.

[Phoebe]

I wouldn't say we bought on the conservative side, maybe moderate. There are four docs who live in our neighborhood who work with DH, so the realtors pushed for this area. Our original plan was like Sally to purchase a home and then build in 5 years. We have been here almost three years. We realize now that we won't be able to build in our current community because dime size lots sell for over $125K and 1 to 2 acre lots are at least 200 to 300K.

We us it was safer to buy lower than we probably could have afforded. I don't think I would ever need a bigger house, just a differently designed one. We would love to design and build our own home.

Jennifer

I guess we bought a middle-of-the-road house. It cost about half as much as what we qualified for at the time, but it is in a nice neighborhood and is large enough that we felt we could live here for 10+ years. The housing market here is a little unpredictable...could take as little as 2 days or as much as 9 months to sell....so we wanted to buy something that we could feel comfortable living in for a few years just in case the market headed downhill.

We plan to build, but at the rate we are going on deciding where and what, I think we'll be here for another couple of years and I am comfortable with that. Had we bought a smaller home, I think I would have started getting antsy to move around the 2 year mark and may have rushed into making a decision about moving to another home.

Like Jennifer, we felt more secure buying less than what we could have afforded. I didn't know exactly what our income tax situation would be plus dh's bonuses can fluctuate so we only wanted to take his base income into consideration when figuring how much we could afford. It seems like most of the doctors we know initially bought on the lower end and then moved up around the 4-5 year mark once they were more established in their careers.

We are almost 1y post-training and I don't feel like we've made substantial improvements in our lifestyle. We did buy a more expensive house, but that's relative to our previous house and the area we're currently living in. Not to mention, we're paying both my student debt (which has been on deferment/forbearance since he started medical school) and his medical school debt. I owe as much as him so we have significiant educational debt. DH's car will be paid off by the end of the year, but my minivan, I think, is at the end of its rope and may need to be replaced. We've been repairing it as needed, which has been quite often, just so we don't have a 2nd car payment. We have under $5k in cc debt but that's because my mom paid off our scary, significant ones a couple of years ago. The creditors called her and she made a decision (without my knowledge) to pay them off. So, we owe her a lot of money, too.

I hope it gets better. We have no savings for any of our 4 kids and we're expecting a 5th one later this year. We hardly have a cash reserve fund. I have no idea how aggressive DH is doing on his retirement. I really should buy some life insurance for myself. I hate money issues.

Our only luxuries right now are a new IMac intel computer, a really nice office armoire from Crate & Barrel, and a fabulous inground pool that came with the house. Oh, I suppose this is a luxury, but I can actually buy more than just bread, milk, and eggs from the grocery store.

-Melanie

We will reach "retirement age" in 27 years. That leaves us with 20 years post training to save for retirement, put both boys through college, help with elderly parents, and pay off our debts.



:thud: