Nicer house no holidays, smaller house-holidays?

[Firstshoes]

Which would you choose?

Its entirely personal.
It would be house for me
I have so many wonderful memories from times at home.
Holidays for me are passing events.
Extending my tiny house so I was able to have the whole family here for Christmas and celebrations created some of the most precious memories with my late parents. I get genuine pleasure from living in my home. I can see the small garden everyday and get excited by plants growing, birds feeding and my dog going nuts.
And the holiday memories from camping and daytrips out in uk are just as treasured as the few trips we've made to other countries.

We compromised on our location in order to still get the house we wanted within our budget that enabled us to continue to have the lifestyle we wanted. Covid caused this, realised life is too short not to travel and have holidays, but equally you spend so much time at home, so for us, we dropped location, we lived in an expensive area that was trendy, and traded it in for a functional but not very sexy area where the type of house we wanted was about £100,000 cheaper.

5 years later, zero regrets. Have 2 holidays booked for this year, and looking at 2 others.

Totally depends what your personal priorities are.

I have lots of friends who went for a bigger house and no/very few holidays because they're homebodies and love spending time there. That's their choice.

We've always loved holidays so stuck with the house we bought 25 years ago and have enjoyed lots of travel.

Each to their own!

We downsized last year. Late 50's. One DS has gone and the other will leave in the next 5 years I imagine. No mortgage. It was an adjustment living in a smaller house but we are finally sorted.

We've spent money on a new kitchen and sorted out the garden. Our house is lovely. Small, but we don't need loads of room or space as much now.

I'm retiring this year and downsizing has enabled this.

We have 4 holidays booked. It's all about personal choice.

Isn't living in your house an experience?

Depends on your time of life and outlook. I’m still working so spend a lot of time at home. I can foresee a time in the future where I can downsize and use the primary home as a base whilst I enjoy travelling. I don’t have the time to do that at the moment.

Smaller house. Being mortgage free for the uni years has been the best decision I made, let alone all the extras that we've been able to have through the years. And it's not just the extras, if you can't afford holidays, would you be able to fix the guttering if it fell down, fix the roof if it blew off...

If the smaller house it still big enough for all your needs, nobody sleeps in the livingroom or having to eat sat on the couch for example, I'd go for the smaller house.
If you're going to be really struggling with a house that just isn't big enough I'd go for the bigger house.
I'd much rather go away/out a lot than have a big house.

Smaller house. Having been with three immediate family members as they died it hit me that none of them talked about their house and belongings, but their memories, friendships, experiences. Unless the smaller house restricted ability to spend family time together significantly my choice would be freeing up the money to do the things we want to do together.

If the only difference is the size of the house and the size is adequate to keep you neutral if not happy, I'd prioritise the holidays.

If the smaller house is also worse in other ways (location, unsuitable layout, general condition) or so small it makes you miserable then I'd prioritise the house.

What does nicer mean though? Is it just bigger or nicer area, garden, better commute, friendlier neighbours...? Because it may not be worth it for a bigger house but if it improves your daily life in many ways then nicer house is much better than a short holiday. Besides you can still have a wonderful time on a cheaper holiday.

I'd for a better house and I am sure you will have some holidays, just not extravagant ones for a while.

I think it depends a lot on whether smaller house meets your needs.

Ours is big enough for us, in a nice area, near our support network.
We could afford a large character property - more space, more curb appeal etc.
But to do this we'd be mortgages up to our eyeballs - we've decided we'd much rather have the ability to afford nice treats - weekends away, a good holiday a year, spontaneous meals out, our hobbies- as well as the flexibility to move to less well paying jobs for reduced hours if we need or want to.
For us the big character house comes with a worse quality of life, so it's an easy decision, given our current house has what we need.

Nicer house, you live there all the time. Provided it's not in need of expensive work it will be more affordable as your pay increases and childcare costs reduce.

'Holidays' wouldn't be the deal breaker for me. But financial freedom would.

We chose a very affordable house (our mortgage is £500 a month) and it means we can sleep easy at night knowing we could get part time bar jobs to pay the mortgage if we ever both lost our jobs, or could take a year off if we wanted due to ill health or to retrain.

Depends how big the house is versus your needs. We have 3DC and moved in 2019 to a bigger house (~200m2). WFH during the pandemic would have been hellish if we'd been in the old house because we'd completely outgrown it. But we live in the NE and didn't have to overextend ourselves to get a house that suited our needs, if we'd borrowed the maximum we could have bought an enormous Victorian villa but that to us was unnecessary and we wanted to be able to save money in a more accessible form than in a house and go on holidays etc.

I'd say buy a bigger house if you don't have enough space because you're in the house and garden every day whereas holidays are just a few weeks of the year. Experiences aren't just about going abroad, kids camping in the garden or learning to grow fruit and vegetables, or being able to host family celebrations etc are all as valuable experiences as going on holiday to another country.

Smaller house and holidays, unless of course your house is too small to meet your needs, then I'd prioritise the house.

I would say nicer house and no overseas as long as it's just for a few years. Experiences such as travel are important and life-enhancing so I wouldn't want to put that on hold for too long. However, I'd take the hit in the short term for the longer term benefit as you spend a lot of time in your home. I'd also think about what you enjoy about overseas holidays. For me, it's cultural experience and I wouldn't want to live without that. However, if you lie on a beach & drink cocktails, could that be replaced by a cottage with a hot tub and a bottle of gin from the supermarket? 😂

Nicer house, cheap holidays.

Nicer house

Nicer house, you can always look to downsize in the future when able when children have moved on. We are doing this so that our children have more space as I would really like them to live at home whilst they save for their own deposits and avoid the renting trap.

Nicer house.

Me too

Make a lovely lovely home for yourself for 50 weeks a year. indulge it, it's your sanctuary. Your refuge from the outside world.

We’ve gone for smaller house with savings and holidays. If we had a bigger house and bigger mortgage we wouldn’t have many savings,

I know of people who have prioritised the bigger house but if they need a new fridge/freezer or something needs fixed in the house it goes on the credit card because they don’t have spare cash, all money goes on living in the house.

life is for living and we want to experience as many fun times as we can. Our house is a little cramped but dh and I have savings to fall back on and we don’t have to worry about money, our children also have plans to have moved out within the next 5 years.