Introducing the first in a new series of posts where I give common personal finance advise in an easily digestible list format of tips, reasons, things, and so on. In these posts I will tell you how you too can be rich, good-looking, or perhaps just plain awesome by adopting these insights, which I read about on the interwebs somewhere. Also watch out of link bait posts with titles ending with a question mark e.g. “Can you really afford not to have a car?” (You know you want to click on them so you can disagree right?) Bear with me, eh? 😛
In the first post I will give you a list of reasons why you should not be tempted to live in something small.
1) If you live in a house with only one room you might discover that the person you married to cherish and love forever actually gets on your nerves after about an hour or so of being together. Sure it’s fun in the beginning of the relationship but a year or so after marrying right out of college, it’s time to get into a bigger house. A big house immediately solves the problem of having to spend time with your spouse as you would both have to be out working most of the time to pay the mortgage and thus only see each other a few minutes a day; less if you get extra bathrooms.
2) If you had children you may find that the playful laughter of children is somewhat overrated and that you do not particularly enjoy having the little tykes running around your legs, leaving a mess everywhere and never cleaning up after themselves. Sure you could show them how to behave but after working all day (see point 1), it’s probably easier just to have them be in their rooms too. This is most easily accomplished by installing TVs in their rooms or buying lots of toys for them. Actually, just forget about the toys and give them an xbox. Having a TV is considered a basic human right and this extends to everybody in the family.
3) In fact, in a little house you just might find that your family is a bunch of inconsiderate bastards and that they’re not overall fun to be around. They’ll be talking when you want to watch TV and watching TV when you want to talk. Obviously the best way to deal with these personal conflict is to separate people like we learned in kindergarten. You can forget about that in a little house. This is only possible in a bigger house. You may think that maybe you could all learn to get along and talk to each other, but lets face it. Talking usually gets you into trouble, so isn’t it easier just to go for more space? In fact, get a separate room—and install a TV in there—and you can escape in there when you are too tired to deal with the issues of (1) and (2).
4) Having a small house means that there is never enough room to put all the things you have bought, because small housing forces you to take one item out every time you put one in. Where would the FatMaster 2000 Exercycle go if not the extra bedroom? Where would you put your extra clothes if not on the FatMaster 2000 turned Clotheshanger? Where would the plasma screen go? A bigger house is a great way to compensate for a lack of organizational skills and shopping restraints, because when the house overflows, you can just move your excess stuff into the garage and park your car on the street. Who has time to organize and shop sales anyway when there is a mortgage to be paid and lots of things to be bought to keep people in their respective rooms?!
5) You probably know this already but all those interest payments are tax deductible, Sure there will be some snooty person who live in a small home and probably bought his house in cash who points out that paying the bank $100 to save $25 in taxes is a stupid idea, but you can just stick your fingers in your ears and sing lalalalala and he’ll go away again. Besides, real estate is a great investment. It always goes up, so you should buy as much house as you can afford.
Bonus) Given your college degree and those 60-80 hours you are putting in every week, you deserve to live in something bigger. If thisfeeling of entitlement does not convince you, what will?
