Today, I decided to give my story on why we decided to build the house that we currently have.

My Upbringing:

I come from a family were both my grandparents and parents either paid off their mortgages early or never had a mortgage.  Both never liked being in debt long, at least not consumer debt.

When we bought our house, we didn’t buy the most expensive house that we could afford.  Instead we build one that we could get by with comfortably on just my salary.  This enabled my wife to become a SAHM (Stay at home mom).

Today, my wife and kids have a strong bond, they do many great things together, including homework and special fun trips.  That stability in the life of my kids is something that was missing for both my wife and I when we were growing up.

It Came With A Price!

With only me working a paying job, it drastically slowed our wealth accumulation.  Oh sure, I still pumped a bit of  money into my 401k, the kid’s 529 plans and into a few investments in my regular brokerage account, it was still small amounts.  Based on our frugal ways and if my wife were to have continued to work instead of becoming a SAHM, we would have been millionaires by now.  But instead we decided to raise my kids this way to maximize their development to the fullest.  To date, we have been very successful with the path, and I’m very happy with the way our kids are turning out.

The key that enabled me to accomplish all three tasks at the same time (mortgage accelerated payment plan, 401K contributions, and 529 college plan contributions), was that fact that we bought an affordable house and lived frugally.  We could have bought a house that could have been closer to a Mc Mansion, but we picked the path that we thought would be best for our kids.

So to conclude, why we didn’t buy the most house we could afford to, was because we didn’t want to be house rich but cash poor.  This in turn enabled my wife to be a SAHM and for us to have some flexibility in raising our kids the way we think is best.

-MR

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