Hi Brooke,
You kind of touched on this on yesterday’s call but I want to get some more guidance. The background is this: My husband and I moved from an apartment to a townhouse to a single-family home over the past 12 years as our needs changed and our income increased. However, the previous moves were always in a place of scarcity over resources. We made the best decisions we could given what resources we had; I strongly believe that, and don’t have regrets. The last move to the single-family was only 2 years ago and it was definitely a scarcity move. Our townhouse development was a co-op that had plans to charge all the members a large fee to do complex-wide home improvements. Were we to stay, we would have to put in our entire then-savings for a new house into the home improvement plan, with no guarantee that the improvements would increase the value of the home. (And in fact, we were right; the same townhouse is now worth 20% less than what we sold it for then). We were also about to start the process of an adoption, so we couldn’t buy the house we really wanted to live in because we needed a lot of cash for all the adoption fees, dipping into down payment money. So we took a little loss on the townhouse, bought a single-family house we could comfortably afford about 20 miles away, in a county with lower taxes and better schools. Budget-wise, it ended up pretty much being a wash- we recovered from the loss, our incomes slightly increased, and because of the taxes being lower, we only pay $200 more a month on the mortgage than we did for the townhouse. However, the house we bought was in an iffy neighborhood; it’s almost all renters, and off a very busy main road, and there’s no sidewalks. To get to the jogging path across the street from me, I have to drive and park my car because it’s too dangerous to cross the street by foot. Now that we’ve been living here for 2 years (and have our 3-year-old son!!!! Yay!!!) we are thinking differently, in that we would rather live in a better neighborhood in a nicer house with at least 2 bathrooms and with safer, more walkable streets/jogging paths. The current house has 1 bathroom, and we were planning to add another one when we moved in, but due to structural codes, we would have to do a massive addition to the home to get the second bathroom in, and there goes more money to a house we don’t really like in a neighborhood we don’t like. Also, what we didn’t predict 2 years ago was that my healthy-wealthy-grandmother would pass away and leave me with an inheritance. So now we finally have the money to put down on the kind of house we really would like to live in, in a neighborhood that would be more comfortable, and with even better schools, same low taxes, and somewhat closer to our jobs. Fiscally-conservative me would say STAY in the house we have, save and invest the inheritance, live with this house, the one bathroom, the neighbors, the busy road, etc, yadda yadda, stop complaining, and retire early. But I also have a lot of reasons for wanting to move, from what I think is a place of abundance- I know if we buy the New House we wouldn’t be strapped financially and we would be a lot more comfortable, and we would still have some money to invest. Our incomes are not likely to change much- I’m a federal worker and my husband is an administrator in public schools- but we are likely to inherit more in the next decade or so- so I’m not all that concerned about derailing early retirement plans. My question/concern is, I don’t want to get trapped into the feeling that I always want more- the nicer house/car/etc and then end up in the place I fear the most, which is being life poor (or house poor). I know this isn’t likely- I do the math- it works out- but that’s my thought loop- like, “play it straight and conservative, don’t want more than you already have.” Does this make any sense? Does this thought come from living a lot of my life so far in scarcity mode? I watched all your money videos and feel like I’m in a pretty healthy place with money. I inherited all this money over the summer and have been sitting on it- trying to decide what to do with it, and trying to just be with it and I LOVE the feeling of being able to make choices because I now have money I’ve never had before. My entire mentality has changed; but trying to sort out options is difficult for me. I’ve had to make a lot of choices in the past based on few resources or perceived ‘survival’. But now that I have the money, I’m also looking at how to have a more-improved life for me and my family using the resources I was gifted. What are some models I could do to sort all this out in my head, and/or get out of the thought loop that’s not helping me make decisions? Thank you!!! You seriously rock my world. I’ve been learning a lot this month with reading, thought downloads, and watching the videos and calls!