To always live in a cheaper house...

[PuckeredAhole]

...so that we can afford to travel and not feel poor at the end of the month?

We could have a more expensive house than we have but we want to travel with the kids and do days out. But am I missing out having a great house? What do you prioritise? I just don't want to get to retirement and a) be in a mediocre forever home thinking we could have pushed ourselves more (e.g. me work full time) or b) living in a huge lovely house but not having shown my kids the world or being able to buy them the latest gadgets or have a nicer car. First world problems, I know.

@MissBennet I should have said, you do need to buy wisely. So far, my initial outlay of 99k has grown many, many times over the years. Doer-uppers, as an earlier poster mentioned, do it yourself and keep moving. It's only way to stay ahead of the market. We had the Council Tax suspended on our current house because it was considered uninhabitable.

@kittymania you really have to scrimp and save in the beginning, you can get so much free stuff in London and shouldn't need to spend much out if you budget and plan. I used to seek out free furniture (before Freecycle -- in 2001) to furnish my ex council flat (one bedroom was rented out to cover the mortgage which really helped). Study areas carefully, and try to identify where the cappuccinos are heading. Useful to know where the art community is heading (they find affordable places further and further out and eventually the cafes open and area gets "gentrified"). I have found this helpful and moved a few times, always at least doubling the buying price (the market helped of course).

essentialhummus I really feel for you. We nearly did that but like others finally chose to live in a house less than the top of our budget. DH was very attracted by the huge big renovation job but I grew up in a large, old house, and just didn't want it.

We have enough bedrooms for the children to have space, and we have a spare to help with working from home and family to come and stay (none are local).

The mortgage is paid off which means our bets are spread in terms of investment for the future. We both work in the private sector, and I work in HR, and so we're both very realistic about the fact our lives could tumble very quickly.

Also, I love our house. Absolutely love it. We've been in it 4 years, have it just the way we want it and I can honestly say that in that time I have never walked into anyone else's and thought "ooh I wish I lived here."

I love travelling too, but my favourite bit about it is always coming home.

We bought a cheaper house, you never know what's around the corner and would rather not be mortgaged up to the eye balls. I have many friends who have taken maximum mortgage who then find they struggle when on maternity leave, or paying childcare, holidays etc despite being on good wage as house is a noose around their neck. You never know if redundancy, sickness etc is going to happen so would rather be careful plus smaller house cheaper to run

@frikadela that's terrible. I am really sorry to hear you are in negative equity. I can only advise about buying in the SE, things are very different in other parts of the country.

1bighappyfamily yes and when I look at rightmove for properties we could afford if I went full time and top of budget...I don't like any of then. I just think I'd rather stay put and avoid the hassle. I think that's quite telling.

I didn't take anywhere near the maximum mortgage available, I'd be constantly stressed about redundancy, illness, large unexpected bills.

Instead, we decided not to compromise on area, but size of house. So we're in our ideal location, but a property that is smaller but perfectly adequate for us.

This way, all being well, we should be able to live a bit. We also have the option of extending in future if we need to, and if finances allow.

YANBU. We live in a lovely home which we no longer have a mortgage on, and last year we nearly bought a much larger 5 bed with some land - it was our dream home, but when push came to shove, we realised we'd have no spare cash and would have to tighten our belts to live there. Staying here, we have well over 2/3 of DHs income (Im a SAHGranny) free for travel, cars, luxuries etc and we are able to save and help our kids out. If we had moved, we've had almost taken a backward step and would have had very little free funds.

Puckered. Absolutely. I have a degenerative condition and having to use a wheelchair more and more. I want to squeeze every drop of enjoyment out of my life while I still can.

Enjoy your retirement tinkly. All the best!

We've had this conversation so many times. We could have afforded a much bigger house over the years but have been risk averse. Now one dd is about to move out with her boyfriend and the other will finish university next year. In about 3 months we will get some money which will pay off our mortgage (big bonus) or we could move. We're 53, I've had cancer and we would be very comfortable if we stay. But we are stalking rightmove as although this house is big enough and in a really great place it's not beautiful outside and we have a seriously vile neighbour. We could have nicer, but would still have a mortgage. I know we would regret giving up the chance to be mortgage free though and have some great experiences instead.

Yanbu. We bought a house for 70k less than our max mortgage offer. I don't think we'd have had any kind of life. We have a decent sized house in the area we wanted and can afford a few treats each month. I'd rather that than have a bigger house and no fun!

I say aim for "big enough, nice enough, in an ok area".
Why give yourself more house to clean, heat and pay tax on if youre happy as you are?

We didn't want to live in a "guilded cage"

We invested in our house rather than holidays etc. as we're not bothered too much about those. We have a home that we love and intend to stay in. A lot of our friends have done as you have. No problem, each to their own but I have noticed how those same people make huge judgements on how wealthy you are based on your house and therefore assume that you can also afford to do all the other things and pay more for stuff which gets right on my nerves.

It also pisses me off that I should pay more taxes (such as council tax) based on my house when I put all my money into that rather than disposable luxuries.

Each to their own - depends on circumstances and what you want and what your priorities are.

I know people that spend a lot of time at home, so it's important for them that they have nice and large houses - fair enough.

I also spend a lot of time at home, but debt being manageable worries me. We're selling up at the moment to gain more space (flat to a house), but the houses we are looking at are based on a maximum of 3 years of one salary alone. As DH and I both earn very similar amounts, this means that we can manage if one of us becomes unemployed or has to take a salary cut. We could take on a much bigger mortgage if we wanted and buy somewhere very big. But we don't need it and I don't want a house that's unnecessarily large. I'd rather have somewhere that gives us exactly what we need, with no spare rooms, and have a manageable mortgage and income left at the end of the month to go into savings and pensions, than to extend ourselves up to the limit and worry about being able to fix the boiler if it packs up.

We can't afford what we want in our current area so we are moving counties in order to find somewhere affordable.

It also pisses me off that I should pay more taxes (such as council tax) based on my house when I put all my money into that rather than disposable luxuries.

Disposable luxuries which incur tax.

We're still in the house DH and I first lived in together 14 years on. We could afford something bigger but this is home with so many memories and we don't want to bankrupt ourselves with a more enormous mortgage.

We're the opposite.

I'm very much a homebody and I need space as I'm an introvert.

We stretched ourselves to get a house with a bedroom for each child, a room for DH's hobbies (music and martial arts), a study for the books so the living room can stay fairly minimalist, and a utility to keep boots and washing away.

Having lived in a cramped semi with not enough space and a tatty, tiny kitchen and bathroom, hearing the neighbours, it's been life changing to have a house that suits our needs and looks beautiful.

I appreciate we're very lucky to have had the choice, but it meant buying at the top of our budget. We don't often have holidays but we do have enough left for treats and days out and extra curriculars.

It's just different priorities.

@MissBennet I should have said, you do need to buy wisely. So far, my initial outlay of 99k has grown many, many times over the years. Doer-uppers, as an earlier poster mentioned, do it yourself and keep moving. It's only way to stay ahead of the market.

Hmm. 'Wisely' is a difficult one to define and call in the context of the batshittery of the last couple of decades.

You need to have got it right, certainly. It's just that there are a lot of people who've made what objectively were unwise decisions who've got lucky, and vice versa. Eg you'd have made loads if you'd taken the silly and irresponsible decision to buy a shithole in some dodgy area of Zone 1 or 2 on a 125% IO mortgage with no repayment vehicle that you lied about your self-employed income to get in 2007. You might well have made a loss buying a modest, stress tested property in the same year that's since fallen. I mean, 15 or even 10 years ago, nobody could really have called just how hard successive governments have tried to keep the bubble inflated.

We had a 3 bed semi, but DH got made redundant 5 times in 8 I was already working full time, plus a second job, we downsized, 3 bed cottage, as we still had 1 DD and 1DS still at home, (2 flown the nest) it was a doer-upper but we paid cash, were mortgage free in 3 (incredibly harsh) years, did this one up, moved downsized, 2 bed bungalow 10 minutes from the sea, but not much over an hour from the kids. It was rare we had enough bedrooms my kids didnt need to share, they were perfectly happy with that. it amazes me on these "home" programmes how much space people think they need. My DGS (5) asked me last week "who bought this place, you or GD, said we both did, he asked why did we by a place with only 1 toilet. It was built in the 60s, quite normal then, we had a utility room in our first 3 bed semi, and a downstairs loo which was originaly outside when we moved in,DH put in a wall and door so it was inside. Have never had an en suite. I do like a "nice" house, its open plan, which was popular in the 60s, and folk love their kitchen diners now, so what goes around, comes around.Lived in a mobile (park) home with first DD, people used to say eew, a caravan! I had a kitchen/diner, and my bathroom was big enough to house a twin tub washing machine. Had a maisonette at one point, with 3 DCs but pretty big, people just have these fixed ideas. My late Father was pretty rude, when we got the cottage, my childhood spent in a 2 up 2 down, Lovelly Mum died, he re-married, just the 2 of them moved to a huge 4 bed bungalow, and his nose went right in the air! My 2st H re-mortgaged house several times by forging my signature, insured me for a large sum tried to kill me, house repossessed, negative equity, left me with a huge dept, never be in that position again.

Not the same at all Formerly. However, I didn't say I shouldn't pay them rather it pisses me off. I tust I'm allowed to own my feelings?

I agree, we have a flat and it has enough room but housing costs have sky rocketed around here and we'd never be able to afford to live close to schools and shops in a house. So we have taken that compromise. In future, I can see it being better as some people downsize from a large family house in the future anyway when children have left home. We have three bedrooms and two DC anyway so it is Ok, even though it is a flat and no other families nearby. I can see as they get older location is just as important, no need for ferrying around as they can walk everywhere, which makes a difference as I don't drive. It depends on your own circumstances. We have had family illness and redundancy in recent years and couldn't afford much more than our small mortgage anyway. I'm so glad we didn't try and move to a 'house with a garden' when the children were little as we'd have struggled I think.

I work on the 'need to have' rather than 'want to have' principle with cars and houses. We had a shared ownership two-bed, I really wanted at least 3 children so we threw everything we had at a 3 bed end of terrace which needed everything doing. Despite not having the money to do it for the first five years, we eventually got there and extended into the loft, got a new boiler, new bathroom, kitchen etc and it is lovely.

That's us done now for life and I feel very lucky to have been able to do it, although I did find living in a not very nice house for five years a bit of a challenge!

We invested in the children's education and paid school fees each term that were worse than the mortgage! Those and clearing the mortgage were our priorities.

The feeling of being mortgage free in your early to mid forties is worth driving 15 year old cars and all the other financial sacrifices we have made over the years.