As you know, it’s all about timing. We have two young kids now and we both work. To comfortably afford a decent home we would have to move pretty far away from all of our family and friends. I’m not going to move far away to still overpay for a ****ty house in a not so great area and then still not be in a position where my wife doesn’t have to work. Meaning now instead of having my parents help watch the kids when necessary I would be reaching to out to strangers/ daycare. I work in Production which is based in LA/ Hollywood so a long commute would be a terrible lifestyle change/ suicidal with the Hours I work sometimes. My wife works in Marketing from home but that’s tough when you have a 1 year old so it’s a fluid situation where I have to be pickier with jobs or ask family for help with watching the kids.
Most friends/ family our age are either pretty House Poor, overpaying to rent a condo or house, or got some financial help from family. It doesn’t really make sense in our situation to move to another city in Southern California if home ownership is the goal. If a move were to happen it would really only make sense to move out of state where homes are considerably cheaper and where you get a lot more bang for your buck. At least the sacrifice of leaving all your family and everything you know is “worth it” then. There’s a reason many people are waiting so long to get married and have kids. It’s not uncommon for people to get married in their mid to late thirties and have their first kid when they re pushing 40.
It appears that I prioritized marriage, kids and family to money and career and I guess I’m just going to have to live with that “decision” for now.
when i went through that i was commuting 1.5hrs each way and had a newborn at home. We rented a townhouse for a year after having the baby. The drive sucked, i woukd stay late at work just trying go minimize it etc. we didn’t live there for friends, closest family was 90mins away.
We dropped the wife’s work that required us to be both in VA and Baltimore (wife commuted an hour in the opposite direction i did) and moved to what was at the time… the edge of the earth.
No friends, family was now over 2hrs away, but it was closer to my work and we could afford a townhouse. You pickup, start new, and make something. Lived in that house for almost 10yrs, made great friends, had more kids, the community and area grew and developed, and liked it so much we held out to buy a sfh in the same neighborhood.
now all my kids have grown up, my closest family is still 2+hrs away, but I’ve now lived in this area longer than what I consider’where i am from’.
life is about choices and sacrifices to push to what you want, or coping with what you are dealt. I’ve been lucky that we haven’t had catastrophic setbacks in my life. But if we never made changes- we’d never benefit from them either. It was hard spending over 60% of my takehome right on a mortgage with a toddler and a second kid on the way. But i pressed to succeed and eventually my earnings grew and it got easier.
i also took a job that was a hourly part time role, fought to full time, multiple promotions, created new roles, and turned it into a 20+ year career. While others around me are still doing the same job they did 10+ years ago.
progress doesn’t come by default. Nk matter how empathetic arguments people make about where peopke ‘should be’… unless we are in a commune everyone doesn’t move forward the same…. And certainly not by just existing