I'll try and post. I had a big long thing typed up, but the forums are hosed.
slag, Details schmeetails 🙂 I've got an 8 foot firewall between the two of us, I own my property, and I've got 1600 square feet of living space. To get a solo standing "house" with the same dimensions and ammenities, I'd be looking at paying nearly $25,000 more, and would be in a less preferable part of town. Technically it's a townhome, but for all intents and purposes it's a "house".
jhu, my gross earnings alone are just a few thousand less than their combined income. I also have the advantage as well that about 10% of my income is from self employement and I use that as a tax shelter and a way to write off 12% of my house payments, utilities, and property taxes, as well as 50% of all expenses of one of our cars. They don't have that luxury. Also, visgf works 20-30 hours a week, which ends up putting us 10 to 15 thousand dollars a year higher than them.
Ok, met with my friend(the hubby) last night. Wifey was away at work.
Basically here's how they operate. Neither of their families really had any money and neither of them ever got the toys and doodads that they wanted as kids. So now that they have money, they feel obligated to buy anything and everything that they've always wanted, but never had. They've each got their lists - Him, a dog, a four wheeler, a pickup truck. Her, dishes, bedroom furniture, nice clothes, ect. When the bills are paid, all excess money goes tword items on the "wish list".
Bad, bad, bad practices.
And yep, it is as I thought. Envy is REALLY fueling this house buying fire. Both of them are jealous of what we and another couple have. I basically told my friend that you have to live within *YOUR* means and not mine.
Luckily, he pretty much agrees with me that $120k is too much, and that they should be looking in the $80k-$90k range. This would be a fairly new, nicely equipped condo. At that point, their mortgage would almost be cheaper than their current rent, and they would be building equity, but not stretching themselves so thin that they can't afford to start saving for their future.
The bad part is that he's the rational one. She's not. She wants to live a fairy tail life, and she's taken his testicles with her. He's not affirmative enough to make her realize that this is a bad move. I hope that my thoughts agreeing with her husband's would point something out to her, but I don't think it's going to happen. I think I'm going to have to have a second gathering with her and go over these things all over again.
:frown:
