We Own Our House!

The outside of our house with our wedding sign, the tree we got as a housewarming gift, and the tree we planted when we moved in :-)

 It's hard to believe that just over two years ago we were renters of a tiny bungalow in West Midtown. We had rented the house after we got engaged and Eric moved in right away while I waited until after the wedding. It was an old house and in terrible repair but we thought it was perfect for a young couple just starting out.

We went on our honeymoon about a month after the wedding and returned home in the midst of an ice storm to find that our rental had been put up for sale, no one had even bothered to tell us! It was a little unnerving to think that the place we called home could be taken away from us just like that and it was then that we started to think about buying a place (prior to this we had no interest in buying a house, it was the furthest thing from our minds).

Over Christmas we happened upon a house that had gone up for sale in my parents neighborhood, the same neighborhood I had grown up in. We went inside to check it out and were instantly in love with the high ceilings and massive windows. We made an offer and by February of 2011 we had closed on the house.

The house quickly became a home and as part of our financial plan we put as much extra money on our mortgage as we could. We already had a 15 year mortgage instead of the standard 30 and the house was pretty cheap to begin with so it wasn't long until owning the house free and clear became a very achievable goal. Well, last week we made the final payment and we finally own our house for real! This is such an amazing feeling, I'm still in shock over it.

The people we dealt with at the bank kept saying, "congratulations! When will you be moving to a bigger house?". Seriously? Is this what people do? We just paid off this house. A large part of building life long wealth is not buying junk you don't need. Not only do we not need a bigger house but we love the house we have. We've been a young married couple here and brought home our first baby to it's walls. We are pleased as punch to live here and even happier to be full, official owners (not to mention completely free of debt). Naturally we went out for Pizza to celebrate :-)

Celebratory pizza at Marietta Pizza company, our favorite pizza joint!

 Now that we won't be making house payments any more (woo hoo!) here are the next steps in our life long money saving plans.

1. Invest! This isn't really my forte but Eric does a lot of research on the topic and is excited to start investing. We are still young enough to be able to invest without too much worry and plan to start with moderate to low risk investments.

2. Save for retirement. We are both guilty of not contributing to our 401ks as of late. We plan to start putting at least a little away for retirement.

3. House projects. Our house being so cheap was great for us but it means there are still a lot of things to fix and improve around here. We plan to take some of the money we would used for house payments and use it for house improvements instead.

4. Start a travel fund. This one is certainly more important to me than to Eric but I really want to set aside a little bit for travel and vacations.  

5. Continue to live frugally and accumulate wealth. That one speaks for itself. Since we started making an effort to live frugal and save more money we have been more and more satisfied with our quality of live. We plan to continue to look for new ways to save money and to love the things we have instead of lusting after new stuff.