Our 5 First Impressions of Home Ownership

We have lived in our house for well over 17 months at this point, and we’ve been talking about our first impressions of home ownership a lot.

Since we moved into our house, a few things have changed in our lives, including the cities that we both work in (cutting down on the commute for both of us), a few financial goals and a few bills. On top of those things, we got engaged and are getting married in just a couple of months. We’re going on a long honeymoon and home ownership has not hindered us from doing these things in the slightest.

Here are a few first impressions of home ownership:

Home ownership is both more and less expensive than I thought it would be

I thought that we would have to make some sacrifices for home ownership. We factored lifestyle into our budget when we were looking at buying our house, and while we realized that we wouldn’t be giving anything up as we had been aggressively saving for home ownership when we were doing this budget, we thought we’d have to put travel and other plans on hold to reach our goal.

We moved into our new home in (very) late 2012, and 2013 was my most well-travelled year yet. I visited Winnipeg, New Orleans, Toronto, Niagara and Chicago. I ramped up the spending in other areas, such as my websites and entertainment, and of course home maintenance.

Turns out we didn’t have to give up as much as I thought we would

Our bills are much lower than what we budgeted for; we thought natural gas and electricity would be much more costly, but turns out that our wood burning fireplace saves us a pretty penny on heating, and we don’t use much more electricity.

One thing that shocks me for being more expensive than I thought it would be is spending on the house. Yard care is quite costly, as are all of the little reno projects we’ve taken on.

There’s no place like home

I had a bad attitude toward renting, and I still do. My preference was always to get into my own home. As somebody who is a complete homebody, I never felt in my element in somebody else’s place. That being said, there was part of me that got cold feet when I was signing the papers to take possession of the house. After all, I am a notoriously antsy person. I need constant change and excitement in my life; it’s part of who I am. I wondered whether the permanency of home ownership was right for me; would I want to get up and move somewhere new in a matter of months?

All of that worrying was for naught. It turns out that I only had a penchant for moving around so much because no place I ever lived in felt like home. I can’t imagine moving out of our house at this point. I truly love being at home, love entertaining and having people over, and there is nothing better than coming back home after a long day or a trip.

It’s a big commitment, but not that big

Signing the papers, I remember thinking about how big of a commitment it is to buy a house. Unlike renters, home owners can’t just up and leave or move or even quit their jobs that easily.

I have to put a lot more thought and consideration into the things that I do that would impact my financial life. I can’t just quit my job without anything lined up, or leave on an extended trip without a lot of planning.

The commitment is a big one, but having a house does not exclude me from doing the things that I want to do (whatever those things are). I’ve been reminded that, should we want to live somewhere else for awhile, we can always rent the rest of the house out. There’s always the freedom to sell if something changes (though this is not the best financial decision).

Options for freedom are still there; they didn’t go away when we bought the house.

Owning a home is a lot of work

I had a notion of this going into it, since my parents had always owned homes when I was growing up, and we were on chore duty. I think you don’t quite realize how much work you do on your house until you go away for a period of time.

We went away for a week recently and noticed how crazy the weeds had gotten. We don’t make a big production of pulling weeds every single weekend, but I guess because we were gone and couldn’t just pull a weed when we noticed it from the garden as we walked by, they added up.

The lawn needs to be mowed regularly, bark mulch needs to be distributed, the house needs regular cleaning. Things like gutters and garage doors and driveways need to be maintained. Who knew that a pressure washer would come in handy like it does?

If you don’t have the capacity for extra work, don’t own a home!

I love our home and yes, I even love yardwork. I know, I’m nuts. Home ownership is certainly not for everybody, but it’s definitely for us and I couldn’t be happier with our humble abode.