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Moving up in the world?! Better House? ... DON"T! (Internal Scorecard)

You have to take this post with a grain of salt, my wife was lucky enough to move into a fantastic home right off the bat, we shopped for more than 18 months to find a deal that was ok by frugal me and fantastic by location for her. However, we battle now, as our friends and colleagues are moving up in the world we visit their homes for BBQ's and get together, and WOW what nice homes! New this, new that, large this and huge that. Three bedrooms 2.5 bath 4300 sq ft! DANG!!! The kitchen is massive! WOW!!! Living area with 37000 ft ceilings. Mc Mansions!

So what do you do as a typical American, you go to Zillow and see what they paid, and then you look at your budget and see if you could buy that house. Diagnose where you want to live, and start looking at that ridiculous price range that you "can afford" because rates are crazy low and prices are crazy inflated. Pictures begin to show up of kitchens that are perfect, huge, amazing; I WANT I NEED!

... PAUSE ...

Those pictures you are eyeing down are staged folks, people do not live there, and if they do, they don't live like that! Look at your counters, they are full of shit, probably shit you don't need to have out but you have filled your cabinets with shit, and, therefore, you are overflowing with shit on your counters. If you don't use it daily, it shouldn't be on your counter!

Try this, "stage" your home, deep clean your entire kitchen, remove EVERYTHING from your counter-top, turn on all the lights, open the windows and even bring in more light, take a picture.


... PLAY ...

Oh wow, look at this kitchen, looks great doesn't it deary! It's in the right school district, three bed 2.5 baths, 1700 sqft JUST WHAT WE NEED! Stage your home after you have done a few projects, invite your spouse to look at the pictures as if you were going to purchase this new home. It will help you realize you have exactly what you need, and regardless of what others have, this is YOUR home, and it is awesome!

If your home is worth it, (location wise) and you are battling the same thing, try for a year to put the "extra" payment that a newer home would cost, and dump it right into your current home.

DIY folks DIY, that "extra" payment goes a LONG way in material cost! Before long, that newer home lacks character. It lacks pride of doing your work, and you are officially a more valuable person in doing your work thus you have increased you internal scorecard significantly by putting different tasks and remodels on your resume!

Be happy with what you have, it's probably enough and probably pretty awesome!

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