A testimony from Katie
On May 8, 2014, a fairly new dream for us came true. My husband and I paid cash for a house!
We knew that our long term rental agreement would be coming to an end, but the thought of committing ourselves to a 30-year mortgage seemed very scary and frankly, suffocating. We were weighing our options for the better part of last year, all the while I was perusing a local real estate company’s website.
A house listed at $10k caught my eye, but because I thought it was in a not-so-nice neighborhood, I dismissed it. When the priced dropped to $8k I showed my husband. We drove by and were pleasantly surprised by the neighborhood. We made an offer that day and set the closing date a couple of months out so we could save up.
We are not wealthy at ALL. My husband works full time at a non-profit and I work part-time at a different non-profit. We have two kids of our own and are currently raising my two nephews after my sister lost her battle with cancer.
Even still, we were able to save up the $8000 and paid cash for our fixer-upper home!
Here is how we saved:
$2500 = Tax Refund
$2000 = Savings Account
$500 = Paypal cash earned from using Swagbucks. Yes, Swagbucks helped pay for our house.
$300 = My husband’s mileage and phone allowance. (He gets reimbursed monthly.)
$3200 = 3 months of my salary. I normally do not earn this much in 3 months but I have a very understanding boss who let me work extra shifts and also found some helpful but unnecessary work for me to do.
So all that amounted to $8500, which was the cost of the house plus closing. We lived off one income for those three months, we cooked everything from scratch, and did not so much as wish to turn on the air conditioning. It’s hot here!
We are currently restoring the house back to it’s 1940 glory — and we are NOT going into debt to do it! We will use my earnings to make needed updates.
For instance, the 1940′s electrical system is not up to code and we are currently replacing it. Everything we use to repair the house is recycled, upcycled, hand-me downs and we have had a few gifts along the way. We hope to spend this Christmas there.
MoneySavingMom.com has helped us immensely over the years and I would never have even thought of paying cash for a house if I had not been reading this site. If you are interested in following along with our house progress, you can do so at our blog, The 8K House!
Have you saved up and paid cash for something — large or small? Submit your story for possible publication here.
