Vent on everyone pressuring me to spend more than I’m willing
My husband and I are in the process of planning a build for summer 2027 or 2028. We have purchased the land already and are aggressively paying it down. We have all the quotes from the builder and everything is basically set in place.
I am not willing to take a loan out for more than $300k and ideally closer to $250k and we are only building a small 800 sq foot cabin (basically an accessory dwelling unit). This will be our forever home.
Our combined household income is $180k/year and everyone from our parents, to siblings, to realtors, to the builders all keep pressuring us to build a larger, more expensive house.
We don’t want to though because we don’t want to pay the extra cost in taxes, mortgage, insurance, heating, utilities, maintenance, or air conditioning. We also don’t want to clean a bigger house. We have been living in a 500 sqft place for the last 5 years and haven’t had an issue with it, and we would rather put any extra money into retirement accounts so that we might retire earlier
Anyway, I just wanted to vent. Thanks.
Edit: since everyone is asking, no, I will not be having children. I’m 40 and my tubes are tied.
Once we can’t live in it anymore due to not being able to take care of ourselves or die in it, it will be inherited by my niece who can either sell it or rent it out. It will be 3 miles away from the local university (an accredited institution that is a land, space, and sea grant institute) in a very desirable neighborhood with covenants that allow a second home to be built on the 1.5 acre lot. The lot is surrounded by walking and hiking trails, with beautiful mixed birch and spruce forest facing south, in a neighborhood with mixed families ranging from university students, to young parents with children, to multigenerational housing units where grandparents live. The university owns the land south of the lot which is completely forested and used for arctic studies. Affordable lots in this area are almost nonexistent at this point and will definitely be completely gone in the next 20 years.
I don’t need to sell it in my lifetime as I feel like I will love living there and never leave unless I have to, but I figured it would be a nice little perk for my niece to inherit.