Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Oct. 5th Spending

Total spent...$0! Yay!!!!

Yesterday was a whirlwind day that didn't leave time to spend. Although, I do have to admit that I went phone shopping, but no luck.

I just read an awesome post over at Mrs. Micah's about purchasing a house v.s. renting. I know that there is a ton of discussion out in blogland about it, but I really like how she spells it out. Buying a house is looked upon as an investment by most people, and when you sell the house for more than your purchase price, most think that they made money. But Mrs. Micah reminds about the cost of interest. You may have sold your house for $75k more, but if you paid $77k in interest, it's not a profit, but actually a loss. Not to mention the amount of interest you would have made if you had invested that money.
It definately helped me to put it into perspective, and give me something to threw back at people when they tell me we should just buy a house to save money.

3/15 NSD

4 comments:

Brooke said...

i'm gonna link over in just a second, sounds like an interesting read. jay is pushing to find a house before the tax credit expires, but i'm not sold on the idea - especially losing 20% for a downpayment out of our savings nest.

Live Simply- Live Well said...

i need to check it out. i heard a quote on t.v. the other day that said "people used to think about homes as a place to live, not an investement." I want a home to grow in and to live, a place that is hopefully paid off so that I can live my last years peacefully, not worried about paying my mortgage or paying for my medicine that month. Plus, I want to hand it down to my family to use as inheritance for them. I feel that a home should be a blessing, not a curse.

Lucy said...

Great point! It can be sooo frustrating as a renter to be told over and over again that you're "throwing your money away." Well, if that money is providing a roof over my head and a time to save up for a house, then I don't think that's wasted money! We are buying our first home now, but it's certainly not an "investment." We want to be able to grow our own food, raise more animals, etc--things we can't do in a rental around here. So I guess you could say it's an investment in our life, but certainly not in our future financial life.

Serendipity said...

That is a really good point about the interest on a mortgage that people don't think about. And sometimes in certain areas, it's really hard to break into the real-estate market. I always think taking the time to save up a down payment is a great idea as well, because look at what has happened to alot of people that were quick to finance everything and anything.