After almost two years of homeschooling, I realized that though we’ve got one foot out the door we are still very much inside the box.
We still live in a house we can barely afford (despite Hubby’s generous income), we are still spending as many as 12 hours a day apart doing things we don’t necessarily want to be doing and we are not any closer to paying off the mortgage.
This article from McLeans magazine illustrates our concerns.
It worries us. Our only real asset is the equity we have in our home (we don’t even own our car) and we have to work very hard, with little reward, just to keep it. We can’t afford vacations, we can’t afford more than the occassional meal out and our taxes are going up another 5% next year (after equally significant increases in the last two).
As our taxes increase and the value of our home decreases we are starting to lose money. We can’t afford to do that. The stress of the whole rat race has just become too much and Hubby and I have decided to just get out of the box altogether and be done with it. At least for a year, let’s call it a grown up time out.
We are going to put the house up for sale in the Spring, pay a year’s rent on a modest place and bank whatever is left. Hubby is going to take a year’s sabbatical from his career and we are each going to get part-time jobs to cover living expenses while we figure out where to go from there.
We’re considering it an experiment. While we still have the equity to back us up (a decent down payment on another home in the bank) we might as well take the opportunity to really explore our options and of course, spend more stress free time together.
After a year, well, we’ll just see where we are and decide then how to proceed.
It’s scary for sure but not nearly as scary as just staying here and watching our money and our quality time just disappear into nothingness.
Wow! I understand (every so slightly) about the stress you must feel watching your investment slowy disappear (mutual funds, anyone?). My worry is I’m not even in the “house as an investment” game yet, and I worry when I do make the move to home ownership I’ll be paying a mortgage for eons. I applaud your decision to consider your options, though I hope if you decide to move it won’t be too far away!
That sounds like a prudent decision. And I like the way you put it: a “time out”. If you’ve devised a way to step back from the daily merry-go-round to evaluate your patterns, and consider your options, that’s a neat trick!
Generally we engage in too much “doing” and not enough reflecting. I’m sure significant insights and wise decisions will emerge in due course.
Meanwhile, it’s a good thing you’ve already started clearing out unnecessary possessions!
Kirsten – Hiya! I obviously finally figured out how to de-spam your comments…phew. Yeah, these days a mortgage is not really the sound investment it once was…I don’t see that improving a whole lot in the near future. We have no plans right now to move out of town.
Stephen – I don’t know about neat trick it just seemed like common sense. The way it’s going, there’s a good chance we couldn’t afford to try this out in a few years. It might not be life altering and we could end up with another mortgage at the end of it, but in the meantime…it’s still a year off.
Great decision, it sounds like. House payments can become such a burden and such a stress. Hopefully the market is doing pretty well by then.
We have a real estate agent coming out next week to look at selling ours, although for different reasons. We outgrew ours two kids ago and have another on the way. I’ve always been happy we chose to not listen to the bank about what they said we could afford. We actually pay less for our mortgage than we did for rent. But I’m still anxious and feel sort of trapped because I know when we sell (if it even sells…it sat on the market for six months before and we gave up) it won’t be as much as we want, making the down payment a bit tough. And there is no way we will find a place to rent for $435 so that we could bank any difference to save for a down payment.
But I am rambling now.
I hope all goes well for you and you can soon get out of this burden!
Dana – Thanks. That’s just it, I don’t know how long we’ll be able to afford to take a chance like this and I’m thinking that stepping back and really evaluating our choices and decisions will help keep us from making the same mistakes again.
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