Building a Home: A Real-Life Journey of Growth & Adaptation

New House with Room to Grow

If we were to have a family motto, it would be that we’re building the plane as we’re flying it.

We don’t really have the opportunity to sit back and plan and approach things with a whole lot of intention. We just make it work.

Choosing to buy our house was the biggest thing that my husband and I had ever done.

When it came time to sign all those papers, it was kind of nerve-wracking. We were wondering if we were making the right choice.

When we were trying to get the cash together that we needed to do the down payment for the house—I think we were kind of scrambling at the time to find cash wherever we could because we felt that that’s what we were supposed to be doing.

We took a loan against my 401(k) to help us get into the house and now I have to pay back against that loan, against my own money. So, I am paying interest to have borrowed my own money from retirement and I don’t think that that was the smartest.

I kind of look at that financial decision as, like a bad haircut. Fortunately, we have time to let it grow out.

In retrospect I think that it would have been good for us to have some kind of professional guidance about the decisions that we were making.

The advice that I would give to other families like us is that it’s okay to ask for help. It’s okay to ask for advice. And it’s probably a better idea to do that before you make the big financial decision than after.