Guest post from Erin of The No Drama Mama
Sometime in the past eleven years, the home my husband and I purchased in our early twenties silently worked its way from our five-year plan “starter home” to our forever home.
Considering the housing market plummeted, it’s become paramount that we find ways to fall in love with the house we have and not the idea of a bigger, better house out there somewhere.
When you look around your house and find your list of grievances is stacking up (making the idea of moving feel like the only option) here are a few ways you can fall back in love with your starter home:
1. Clean
I personally don’t love cleaning, but every so often (when I feel like my house’s limitations are annoying me) I spend a few hours cleaning up. I usually find myself feeling a lot less fed up with my house when I’m done.
When you spend time improving your surroundings, it’s harder to distance yourself emotionally from a place you put sweat equity into.
2. Declutter
When you purge unnecessary things, you often find that you have a lot more usable space than you thought. I often say that many times when you think you have a “space problem”, what you actually have is a “stuff problem”.
When my husband and I needed to find space in our two-bedroom townhouse to add an additional bedroom, decluttering the basement opened up the perfect space. Decluttering and renovating turned a storage space into our beautiful master bedroom.
3. Make A List of Positives
Staying in love with your current home requires making a conscious effort to remember the things that made you fall in love with it in the first place.
Did you love the open concept design? The wonderful neighborhood? The spacious backyard? Write it all down. This should help you focus on the positive aspects of your home instead of dwelling on its shortcomings.
4. Think About Your Long-Term Goals
Think about your long-term financial goals. How would a larger mortgage affect those goals? Will it make it harder to travel? Will it make it harder to help your children with college expenses when the time comes? Would you like to pay off your home early and see some life-long dream fulfilled?
I constantly remind myself that when my family found transitioned from two incomes to one, our lower mortgage payment kept us out of financial trouble. If we had bought a much larger home, we definitely could not afford for me to stay at home with our children — and I am grateful for that!
5. Consider Renovating
Think about whether or not a renovation project or two could give you the extra space or functionality your home is currently lacking. It’s usually vastly cheaper to renovate than it is to move to a bigger home.
6. Consider Utility Bills
When my husband and I first moved into our home from our apartment, we were shell-shocked by the utility bills. Since our apartment had heat and hot water included with the rent, the first winter in our new home threw us for a loop and we felt pretty house poor at the time.
The mortgage is not the only cost to consider when contemplating buying a bigger home. You have to think about the higher costs for utilities too.
I still look at larger houses in awe, but now it’s more like, “Wow, look at that beautiful large house! I bet it costs a fortune to heat in the winter!”
Sometimes bigger isn’t always better, especially when it comes to heating and cooling costs!
7. Cultivate Community Ties
For years after I moved to a rural county in upstate New York, I thought about “home” as simply the geographical location of my house. It took years until my oldest child started school to really form community ties.
That was also when I met neighbors who would become my second family. Now our families are so close, we’ve practically taken an oath not to move out of our neighborhood unless we move together.
Do you have strong community ties? Is a bigger house worth it if it means losing those ties?
If you’re holding back like I was, I strongly encourage you to explore your town and surrounding areas. Shop local stores, visit the library, and perhaps join a service organization and give back to your community. A house is just a building, but a community creates that feeling of “home.”
Home is where your heart is and when you make room in your heart to be grateful for what you already have, you can fall back in love with your starter home.
Erin Johnson is the author of “So, You’re Broke? 18 Drama-Free Steps To A Richer Life.” You can find her blogging at The No Drama Mama.
Pamela says
We are just beginning our search for our “starter” home, we have rented but have never purchased and many of our considerations are on this list. We live in the very Northeast, Central Maine, heating and electric cost are a major factor. It also will be the only home we buy, barring any catastrophes, but we have three growing children that need space now but will eventually leave, so we do not want a large house that will be too much after retirement. Its frusting but we will know its meant to be our home when we find it.
Kris says
We rent, so unfortunately we can’t make many improvements to our home. Even though it’s very small, it’s old and drafty, hot upstairs in the summer and cold in the winter. I struggle to find much good about it. We have also had some major maintenance issues, and our landlords have not usually been very responsive about taking care of those. It’s all we can afford in our area, though, so I try to make the best of it. It does force us to keep decluttering so that we have enough space. It’s tough sometimes, and I hope we don’t have to live in it forever. Sometimes the best I can do is to be thankful that we have a home, such as it is.
Erin says
Kris,
Finding contentment is really hard sometimes. Could you find another rental just a little outside your current area that would be affordable and give you more of the things you need in a house? I know how you feel having an unresponsive landlord. We lived in our apartment for a year with a leaky roof and black mold in our spare bedroom. He didn’t fix it till we moved out. Best of luck to you!
Kris says
Thanks. No, we’ve looked, and there is nothing cheaper anywhere nearby. This is the best we can do for now. Due to some family health issues, our finances have been pretty tight. Our living arrangements wouldn’t even be so bad if we didn’t have to work so hard to convince the management to fix things when we have problems.
Amy says
We have lived in our current home (also the first one we ever purchased) for 12 years. Right now, I am planning a few simple fixes for one room I really HATE! I bought a few cans of paint, a pretty but steeply discounted new ceiling light fixture, and some new artwork to replace the old pictures that have been hanging on the walls since we bought them for our first apartment 20 years ago. So far I have not spent much money, but the project is coming along nicely and I am excited about it. I love the way a few cans of paint can freshen up a drab space. Oh! I also picked up a free table a neighbor was giving away, and plan to refinish it as well, to help spruce up the space.
Erin says
Amy,
It sounds like your on your way to a very cost effective room makeover. I wish I had decorating skills like you. I totally agree that new paint does wonders. Good luck and I hope you love the room, or least find that you don’t hate it anymore.
Jen@FrugalSteppingStones says
We bought our house in 2005 with the crazy idea that 2000 square feet was not enough and that we would build something bigger eventually. This past year we have come to the realization that we would rather retire early and live without a mortgage payment. What seems small with a million kids toys crowding it seems like plenty once we banished most of them to the “toy library” in the basement and sent more to Goodwill.
Erin says
Jen,
I hear you on the toy front. Nothing makes a home feel smaller than an army of kids toys everywhere. I still have some much needed toy decluttering to do this summer. My older kids have all their toys in their room, but the toddler still has rein of the living room. I think you’ve got the right idea. I too hope to pay off my house early. Debt free is definitely the life I’m after.
Laurie says
I bought my home 17 years ago knowing that it would be my forever home. My mindset was quite different from others in my last 20’s. I have the $15,000 to put down so that helped. For me it was all location with good schools. I adopt both of my babies from China in my 30’s and paid cash for both of their adoptions 4 yrs apart. But again my mortgage was what I could afford. So as a single mom of 2 girls I knew I had to be able to afford everything on my nursing salary. 17 years later I am 11 years from paying off my home when I am 55. It does need some updating but I can do that later. I am so glad that my original decision was spot on. It is mine and it is our humble abode as I say. We have been able to afford many nice vacations and lots of extra’s. We are simple people and keeping of with the Jones never really has crossed my mind.
Erin says
Laurie,
I wish I had your kind of forethought when I was in my 20s. Sounds like you’re able to provide a great life for you and your girls because you made those great decisions young. I think it’s great you can take nice vacations with your girls. I would rather have trips and be able to do fun things with my kids than have a bigger home. Besides, they’re going to grow up and leave the nest eventually and then we won’t need to downsize.
Denise says
Love this post! We set a goal about five years ago to move about this time. Due to lots of “life,” that goal has been changed…. possibly permanently! I’m learning to embrace the home we have and following your suggestions definitely helps. I always feel so much better after a good round of cleaning and decluttering! I can’t say that about the power bills…a drafty old house creates some monster winter power bills! 🙂
Erin says
Denise,
That’s what happened to us too. By the time our “five-year plan” was up we already had two kids. We had some crazy drafty doors so we replaced those right away. My husband was able to make storm windows out of plexiglass. Any renos that you can make to improve energy efficiency will be well worth it.
Angela says
Love this post! I just purchased my “starter” home two months ago (I’m a 26-year-old single woman, does that still count as a starter home?) and I can’t imagine living in anything other than my modest house down the road. Thankfully, after finding communities like MSM and Dave Ramsey several years ago, I worked extremely hard to get my finances in order to be able to get to this point, and while I could have *technically* afforded more house, I’m so glad I learned to make peace with less. I’d so much rather have a smaller home that is well maintained and decorated to my taste than to have something bigger that I struggle to keep up with!
Erin says
Congrats on purchasing your home and having the foresight to buy what you could comfortably afford. I think a lot of people get sucked into thinking they can handle the larger payment but quickly find themselves house poor. I bought in my early 20s so it really was the most we could afford on our entry-level salaries, but as they’ve grown and changed over the years, I’m so glad we didn’t have a larger payment.
Krystal @ Little Light on a Hill says
I loved this! We were in the exact same situation. We bought a five-year starter home right before the housing bubble burst and found ourselves “stuck” in that house. It was less 1,000 square feet and our family of four was literally bursting out of it! I could vacuum the entire house without having to change outlets. It was t-i-n-y. Tip #4 was my biggest motivation. Knowing it was helping us reach our goals and dreams made me so much more content.
Now, we are in a larger home. While I love the added space, I sure do miss the one plug-in vacuums. 🙂 But our diligence and contentment led us to our forever home and our debt being paid off. It will be so worth it one day!! Be blessed.
Erin says
Krystal,
I love that you could vacuum without changing outlets! It must feel pretty great that your practice of contentment helped you reach your long-term goals!
Maryalene says
We spent 14 years in our “starter” home and probably would have stayed there forever if not for events beyond our control. It was built in 1922 and was about 1100 square ft. I had a love/hate relationship with it.
When I wasn’t feeling too great about it, what helped the most was to think about all the other people who had lived there. I’d tell myself this house was probably a big deal to someone in 1922 and it should be a big deal to me too. That line of thinking always made me feel a bit of kinship with the women who had mothered in that house before and then living there felt like more of an honor than a burden.
Erin says
Maryalene, That’s a really cool thing to do. It makes you feel like you are part of the legacy of the house.