A year and a half ago I was able to buy a home, I had been saving up for the down payment and finally was able to make it happen. I’ve been house poor since then. I can’t wait until I’m finally able to feel comfortable with my finances again. In the meantime, I’m getting very comfortable with eating a lot of rice.

Fortunately, the girlfriend and her daughter are moving in soon. So that’ll help a bit as she’ll be taking over some of the utilities. And the house has appreciated almost 15% in that time as well.

I’ve been able to put away some away for retirement too. If all goes well when that time finally comes, I’ll have the mortgage paid off and will be able to live with relatively low expenses. My current mortgages interest rate is 6.875%, which over 30 years has me paying pretty much as much in interest as the house. But if interest goes down I can refinance and each % point lower I can get is about $200 a month. I really, really hope that it ends up back at 3% again. Maybe then I’ll be able to put some in savings again.