Why are you selling your house? I love your house. Don't you love your house anymore? Isn't your house big enough? Wait, you're building a smaller house, on a much smaller lot? Can't you afford your house anymore?
When we listed our current home about a month ago, these were the questions I started getting. My answer to these questions starts with, "It's part of the plan."
My husband and I have this plan. Our plan is to own lots of land, build our dream ranch house, own horses (and other animals), and enjoy life! But that plan isn't in within imminent reach.
This is where the current house situation comes into play.
{tangent}
We are both firm believers of budgeting and we follow the Dave Ramsay envelope budgeting system. We budget every penny and then we do our best to stick to that budget. So when we tell the kids "we can't afford that" what we really mean is, "we haven't budgeted for that." We budget every penny. Sometimes doing this makes me FEEL poor. Then I have to remind myself , no. I know what "poor" is.
Poor is when I was a single mom raising three kids working full time and still not earning enough to make ends meet. Poor is when I couldn't sleep at night because I tossed and turned wondering where the extra $87 would come from to pay my suddenly higher heating bill by 48 hour deadline so they wouldn't shut me off. Poor is figuring out creative ways to turn the last $5 in the checking account into groceries for another week. Poor is having to tell your kids you have to pull them from their extra-curricular activities because you can no longer afford gymnastics, soccer, swimming, etc. Poor is the tears, the stress, the physical pain that sits in the pit of your stomach because you cannot afford anything ever. That is poor. Maybe not the poorest of poor. But it's still poor.
{Anyway - back to the plan.}
We sat down and calculated the following scenarios: If our income and expenses do not change for the next ten years, how much money will we have in savings? How much closer will we get to The Plan? The answer was not as close as we'd like. Then we asked ourselves what we could cut. The hard truth was, we didn't want to cut anything from our budget. We felt like we have already done a great job cutting excess from our budget, that the items left are important to us, even if they are not dire necessities.
So, we're downsizing our mortgage in order to increase our savings at a faster rate. With the new build, we are sacrificing will be our bonus room, the size of our rec room and the size of out lot. Our new lawn is going to be oh so teeny tiny. BUT-- I am giddy we will get a walk-in pantry, a 3rd car garage, bigger bedrooms (every child still gets their own), and we will still have 2 family rooms, plus a formal front room. Honestly, the sacrifice doesn't feel so harsh at this point.
We also just learned the school our youngest will be attending is way cool. They have technology in every classroom, instead of a central computer lab. "Computer" will no longer be a place the kids "go" once a week, but rather something they engage in regularly. They also have rolling chairs and rolling desks with white boards in the classrooms. The district is using this school as the "beta" for future schools. They've done extensive studies with the way kids learn and they are finding, especially with the ever increasing numbers of ADHD, Autism, etc., that mobility is a huge part of learning. This will be interesting to see how well he does in this environment. Of course, he is most excited that the outside looks "pixelated" like a minecraft building. haha.
We will be closer to the older kids' friends, Eric's parents (not that we were really far), and closer to many of the friends I moved from a few years ago.
All in all, it just feels right. This new house is a stepping stone on the way to the big dream, to The Plan. Now, we just need to find a buyer for our current house!
Pic of the new "cool" school:
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