Would you choose to have a smaller home so you could have more experiences or holidays?

[AutumnCandle]

Just that really

Generally speaking, definitely yes. Although not a family of four in a one bed.

Depends on what you mean by smaller. The DCs have their own bedrooms. We could have chosen to move house for a bigger garden but have decided holidays and experiences are more important.

Yeah, I mean like choosing a 2 bed if you have one child. Or a 3 bed if you have two children. Rather than going for more rooms than you need and having less money to do fun things

Yes, that’s exactly what we’ve done

It wasn’t on purpose but we bought a house well within our means (mortgage 2x annual income), which we overpay religiously.
It’s a 3-bed detached for 2 adults + 2 young children.
I often browse property but honestly I love our house, location and neighbours.

The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced a bigger house would just be vanity at this stage of our lives.

Yes

Smaller homes don’t necessarily mean cheaper. You could have a small home but in an expensive area. I live in a flat with my DC and DH, but it’s in a very expensive area.

No because I find holidays bloody stressful . Everyone has different priorities though. Could totally see why some would do this

This makes perfect sense. Why have more to clean, heat, pay council tax and decorate than you need?

It would depend. We spend a lot of time at home and I like having space for everyone to do their own thing.

I'd choose not to upgrade or have huge amounts of space in order to have nice holidays, but wouldn't give up a useful spare bedroom for it.

Yep this is what we’ve done. I mean I wouldn’t want to move anywhere smaller than we have at the moment - 3 bed semi with 2 children so they have their own bedrooms, but we deliberately haven’t kept buying bigger and more expensive houses like other people we know because we’d rather spend the money on days out / eating out and holidays. Those things are far more important to us.

I wouldn’t, no. I love having a big house, day to day more space makes life easier. I enjoy having nice things around me. I’d be the opposite, I’d sacrifice holidays for big, nice house.

No, I spend significantly more time at home than I ever would travelling (especially if you factor in how much annual leave you get) that I think more space inside and out is more of a priority.

We have two children, we both WFH a couple of days a week, and we often have family to stay.

So we have a four bedroom house so that we can have a home office which doubles as a spare room. We also have two reception rooms which is nice so one is more for the kids and their toys and one is more an adult space. It doesn't feel like we have unused space. We can afford one nice two week holiday abroad and then usually a shorter break as well.

We could manage with a 3 bedroom house with one reception room and it would allow us to take two nice two week holidays abroad but we would rather have the bigger house.

I wouldn't want a 5 bed and no holidays though

I would. Life is more than 4 walls.

Yes we did. We relocated and bought a 3 bed semi even though we could've bought a 4 bed mortgage free or took out a new mortgage for something really huge. We value financial security and disposable income over a large house that we don't need. We enjoy a lovely lifestyle with multiple holidays a year.

100% yes.

We have done this. We could afford to stretch ourselves and move to a bigger more ‘wow’ home but we choose to stay in our cosy smallish home as we’d rather travel and have holidays.

There is a big beautiful world out there 🌍 💗

I wouldn't go smaller but I'm definitely happy to stay where we are, and not go bigger, so we can enjoy a decent quality of life.

Us too. House is no bigger than we need but it means we have more disposable income for holidays and we also have a campervan. We have lived in a bigger house prior to this one but it just meant more rooms to clean, a bigger garden to tend to and more maintenance.

Yes we have. We could afford a bigger house but it’s big enough for our small family, and allows us to have a better lifestyle. I know a lot of people who are mortgaged up their eye balls and can’t afford to have a life, we didn’t want that. Our house still wasn’t cheap though, worth £420k.

Yes, we always kept our mortgage lower than it could have been and had great trips with DC. Now we are empty nesters, mortgage free and the trips are even better 🤣

I wouldn't sacrifice a home I loved for experiences/holidays, no. I have both a home I love and it happens to be big, but I love it because it's given me the lifestyle I want - country living, animals, place for the children to roam, easy access to all the things I love doing, a beautiful garden I enjoy. I wouldn't trade this for a smaller mortgage and more holidays/days out, if that's what your asking.

I live in and enjoy my home and my lifestyle here every day - not just on the weekends, not just once a year for a holiday. But no, I wouldn't want a 'bigger house' just for the sake of it being big, if it didn't give me the location and lifestyle I wanted on a day to day basis.

Exactly what we did. Live in a 3 bed semi with one child, mortgage was paid off a bit ago. Mortgage was only £200 a month when we did have it. We could have afforded a mortgage of 1k a month but had no desire for a 4 bed detached house with bigger outgoings.

No, personally I wouldn't. I spend a lot more of my time at home than on holidays or days out, so to me it's worth having the extra space. Also a house is an investment for the future.

However, I am quite frugal in other ways (I don't spend much on clothes / makeup etc) because I'd rather spend it on experiences than "stuff". I just don't extend that to houses!

Yes. Did it. Never regretted it. (And been mortgage-free for 20+ years).