Post #43 Home Ownership Costs; Some Thoughts

I absolutely agree: how daunting to buy a first home. In my experience it has always been very difficult for most. & Yep, I’m a boomer. Who was not able to contemplate buying a home until I was past 50yrs.

While not believing boomers were superior in their budgeting ways, please consider the following. Something way bigger than the Latte Factor. When young, we often did not spend as much. Because a lot of current budget items *simply didn’t exist yet*. Consider just a few of the things younger boomers didn’t spend money on:

– smart phone

– tablet, personal computer

– internet provider bill

– endless variety of electronic gadgets (state of the art blow dryer for 100s of $? they didn’t exist yet)

– gaming or movie streaming bills, for entertainment

– many of us didn’t have any t.v. in our family home in our earliest years

– designer clothes; designer shoes; nope

– & 2-car families? No. 1 car if you were middle class

– convenience food of all kinds; most people (city or country) had a vegetable garden & fruit trees in their yard.

Do you have lots of the above in your monthly budget?

In our parents’ generation: e.g. probably no fridge or freezer when they were young (instead, an icebox)

& Friend of mine (95yrs.): family couldn’t afford a radio for entertainment in their home.

Every family I knew growing up, lived in a house. The houses weren’t all built to today’s standards (I grew up in an uninsulated house; & it certainly wasn’t built R2000). My parents could barely​ afford their home mortgage payments at first; we sometimes had food insecurity then. Some home owners couldn’t afford home insurance. I knew people who lost their houses in a fire (& they had no fire insurance).

Many of us had no down payment help at all, & that stopped us for many years. Some I knew lost their home when interest rates went sky high. Some boomers have never​ yet been able to buy a home.

Facts; & not all rosy. Yes, most of us lived in a house; many of us with absolutely no frills.