r/MadeMeSmile • u/AlphaNathan • Mar 01 '25

Wholesome Moments think he was surprised?

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u/scheppend Mar 01 '25

lol look at that room. they can afford it

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u/Batmansbutthole Mar 01 '25

Honestly, you say that, but my house looked like this because my dad was strict with our budget. We never worried about the house being taken away or food not being on our table. My cousins got new dirt bikes every other year and their dad had to borrow money from mine. Just because it looks like you can afford it doesn’t mean it’s financially wise at the moment or at all.

I’m grateful I learned this lesson because I have friends who are struggling to get themselves out of insane credit card debt. A lot of people these days look like they have more money than they do. It’s called living beyond your means.

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u/PlanetMeatball0 Mar 01 '25

The term house poor exists for a reason, it's just a different kind of being bad with money. Like if you have a big spacious fancy house but can only maintain it by being extremely strict and scraping by in other areas of life that's not necessarily any more financially wise. That's still over allocating the budget to one area at the detriment of others, and technically still a version of living beyond your means. Financial smart would be buying a slightly smaller or less fancy house so that you don't have to stress over other areas of life to meet the needs of keeping the house

Like if you have a nice house but a car repair or a new pair of shoes for the kids or a trip out to a restaurant one night is gonna be stretching the budget because all your money is going to the house you have not made a financially wise decision.

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u/worthlesscatman Mar 01 '25

A home is an investment and typically appreciates in value.

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u/PlanetMeatball0 Mar 01 '25

Yes very good. That does nothing to change how much money you have in day to day life though (actually would reduce it even further via property taxes), which brings me back to the first thing I said: the term house poor exists for a reason

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u/Shandlar Mar 01 '25

Well sure, but it's delayed gratification. Building networth by profiting on other peoples money you've leveraged is a great way to get ahead...eventually. It can be pretty painful for those first 5 years though, but the payoff can be life changing.

Plus the whole time you get to live in a really nice house, so there are two huge upsides to counterbalance all the downsides.

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u/PlanetMeatball0 Mar 01 '25

Plus the whole time you get to live in a really nice house, so there are two huge upsides to counterbalance all the downsides.

If "plus you get something cool out of it!" justified living beyond your means then living beyond your means would never be a bad thing because getting something cool out of it is exactly why people make those poor financial choices. Not any different for a house

Regardless of how you want to justify it, living in a house that you can only afford by sacrificing every other area of your life is living beyond your means.

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u/worthlesscatman Mar 01 '25

Somebody else who understands longer term investments

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u/benyahweh Mar 01 '25

Buying a home is not necessarily good investing anymore.

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u/worthlesscatman Mar 01 '25

Yeah I bought my first home right before the bubble burst in 07, lost big time. But all my current properties have appreciated a ton. I expect them to come down a little from here

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u/benyahweh Mar 01 '25

So you can easily see that someone buying a house right now could very well see prices depreciate significantly over time. And that is just one consideration.

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u/Different_Net_6752 Mar 02 '25

I keep telling my windows and roof that... They keep down in value and usefulness.

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u/Batmansbutthole Mar 01 '25

It’s possible they’re house poor, or it’s possible they’re just not spoiling their children. My parents made me wait a couple years to get the things I wanted and never acquired debt to go on vacation. Now they are both multimillionaires. I am grateful my parents were able to comfortably retire and that I don’t have to stress about that like a lot of adults will have to do for their parents. They can actually enjoy it.

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u/PlanetMeatball0 Mar 01 '25

Okay that's nice but we're discussing a situation that was specifically described as fitting the bill for house poor

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u/TenebrisZ94 Mar 01 '25

Nah, priorities. And a new motorbike is not a pair of shoes or a trip out to a restaurant. We have to stay in context.

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u/PlanetMeatball0 Mar 01 '25

This conversation is no longer about the post itself, context changes as conversations go on.

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u/SassyE7 Mar 03 '25

If your house looked like this and your family had very little disposable income then it sounds like you might have been living a bit beyond your means

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u/PatrickGrey7 Mar 01 '25

Just wondering what you read from that room. It's pretty basic ?