My House Doesn’t Keep Up With the Joneses and That’s Okay
“Keep up with the Joneses” – Try to emulate or not be outdone by one’s neighbors (Google-Oxford Languages)
Before the days of social media I wasn’t as aware of what the “Joneses” even had. Sure, I had neighbors. I read magazines and watched television. But I wasn’t being constantly bombarded every time I turned around by some designer or influencer encouraging me to buy this or change that in order to secure my standing as a successful adult. My social media feed is plastered with opinion posts full of both helpful decorating tips and harsh criticism for anything that might “date” my home. Supposed “news” articles are no better.
Here’s the deal. When I was growing up a house was a place to live. It was a shelter over one’s head that provided some creature comforts. My childhood home, BTW, was probably around 800 square feet and featured two bedrooms (I shared one with my sister) and one bathroom (bathtub only, no shower) and a kitchen without a dishwasher (other than my mother). It was an old farmhouse that my father gutted and refurbed in the 1960’s shortly before I was born. He lovingly constructed the kitchen cabinets himself. They were still functional when we sold the place in the summer of 2021 after Mom passed. I did a lot of living and made a lot of memories in that house!
Needs vs. wants
Our perception of what we need has changed over the years. Some change is good. I’m thankful most of us no longer live in one room log cabins with dirt floors like the pioneers did. I’m happy that I don’t have to stoke the furnace with coal to stay warm during our harsh Midwest winters.
However, based on what some would tell us we require, I wonder how I survived childhood without serious emotional trauma. (That might be a bit facetious, but you have to admit Americans today have a much different view of “needs vs. wants” than we did even 40 years ago.)
Even someone with my fairly simple but fully adequate beginnings can find themselves salivating over the latest trends. Modern and up-to-date is pleasing to the eye. Upscale is appealing. The latest and greatest is enticing. I’m not immune. I’d like to deny it but I’m guilty of trying to keep up with the Joneses, too, at times. But why?
My house is apparently not good enough
I was scrolling through Facebook this morning and saw a click-bait article titled “Tacky and Dated Kitchen Design Mistakes We Should All Stay Away From”. It encouraged me to read on to find out how to keep my kitchen stylish and modern. Clearly, I didn’t have enough to do because I clicked on it and it kind of made me angry. Not angry at the author, but angry that we as a society are so materialistic. (“We” includes me.) And it caused me to write this blog post.
Several things in my current home are on the author’s hit list. There are too many appliances on the countertops, a microwave over the range, descriptive signs, and speckled granite. But the one that stood out the most was that because my cabinets are 10 years old, they are “a bit dated” and need at least a new coat of paint in a neutral color if I don’t have the money to do a more thorough refresh of everything.
What???! Seriously, we are supposed to refurb our kitchen cabinets every ten years?? Do they not hold dishes as safely if they’re dark-stained wood?
And why would I want to cover my perfectly good but apparently dated maple kitchen cabinets with a neutral paint? Paint that will chip. Paint that won’t look as professional as the original stained finish. What if that neutral color goes out of style again and I need to paint them a different color? Or I need to strip them and re-stain them to whatever flavor is on trend at that moment, which might be the dark walnut color they are now?
But my post isn’t really about refurbing one’s kitchen. I can ignore one click-bait article. It goes deeper than that – it hit a nerve. I have allowed the notion that I need newer and better to affect decisions I’ve made during my 30+ years being a homeowner that I wish I’d made differently after the fact. I’m sure most of us have, but some can be more significant than others. Let’s take a walk down Tammy’s path of home ownership and compare what she thought she needed to what was truly sufficient…
House #1 – my first taste of home ownership
I bought this house as a young married mother in my early 20’s in 1988. My husband and I just wanted a house – something in a reasonably safe neighborhood – and with a back yard where our kids could play. The one-story ranch built in 1950 was 864 square feet with three bedrooms and a small bathroom. We paid $48,000 for it and financed it with an FHA loan. We were ecstatic with our 9.75% interest rate (yep, you read that right! Most rates were still over 10% at that time).
We weren’t ecstatic when after a substantial rain in 1990 we found our basement was prone to flooding. I also wasn’t a huge fan of the homemade plywood kitchen cabinets or the wallpaper in every room. But with professional waterproofing of the basement and some serious sweat equity gutting and refurbing the kitchen we had ourselves a pretty cute little place. (Yep, that’s the lovely cabinets in the first photo below and the refurb in the second. Also, an appearance by my oldest son and his beloved “Dolly”.)
So what did we do? We sold the house…because we were both working full time, it was on a fairly busy street, and we thought we needed (or deserved) something bigger and better.
House #2 – the potential money pit
House #2 purchased in 1994 was a craftsman-style bungalow built in 1925 and added onto in the 1980’s (enlarged and refurbed kitchen plus 3rd bedroom and 2nd bath) with a total of 1,200 square feet and three bedrooms/two bathrooms. Prices had gone up considerably and we paid $84,000 for this one. It came with a lot of interior personality and a double-deep lot. It also had needs and those needs would have cost more than we were willing to invest. You know, like when you buy a car and it’s nothing but trouble and you realize you have to cut your losses and get rid of it? That was this house.
That bathroom in the photo below still had the original claw leg bathtub. Yes, it was vintage and cool. But the tub had shifted and the drain leaked into the floor to the point where it rotted a sizeable section that we had to tear out and repair. That was just one small issue. (Oops, I also see the issue of almost no toilet paper!)
Professionally inspecting a home before purchase wasn’t as common in my area in the early 1990’s. It might have saved us some grief though. We opted to sell after four years vs. lay out more money. Plus, we wanted to move the kids to a school district that I was more confident was well-run.
House #3 – supposed to be the forever home
We decided to bite the bullet and build house #3. Friends of ours were building in a new development in a suburban school district and after touring the model home I was hooked. It was 1,600 square feet and had an upstairs (I’d always wanted but never lived in a two-story), a gas fireplace…and an attached garage!
We paid $129,000 in 1998 for this house and it should have been my forever home. It checked pretty much all the boxes (roomy, newer and good school district) and was a great place to live for 18 years. Even after my first husband left and I went through a divorce and my household income drastically changed, requiring a refinance so that I could remain there by myself, I would have had it paid in full by 2025. With where things stand today it would be awesome to be looking at being out of debt in three more years!
But no…we sold it
So what happened? Why did I move…yet again??
Well, I married the terrific Christian hubby I’m with now and both he and I were making decent money. My mother, with her bad hips, could not do stairs. She struggled to even enter my house when she visited. There was no way she could spend any appreciable time there because all bedrooms and bathing areas were on the second level. I let myself believe we needed to look for a one-story ranch somewhere in order to make it easier on her, in case she ever needed to stay with us for a period of time (i.e., after hip replacement surgery, which sadly she was never able to have). We are no spring chickens either – the promise of fewer trips up and down the steps was speaking to my knees.
There might have also been a neighbor couple who liked to host parties for their friends, too. They’d sing karaoke in the basement until the wee hours – so loud that it made our bedroom floor vibrate. I was tired of being their next-door neighbor.
Since our son was just finishing kindergarten it seemed a good time to make the move.
But I know I was also influenced by this notion that I wanted something different. Those other reasons (which likely had work-arounds) simply provided the excuse I needed to justify upgrading again. I was tired of my “dated” honey-oak (woodwork, doors, cabinets, fireplace mantle, built-in’s, and stairway spindles). Then there were those white laminate countertops. I wasn’t satisfied with the home I’d just finished raising my two adult children in. And I knew my current husband was always a little uncomfortable living in the house that my first husband and I built together. (I look at these photos that the realtor took when we put it on the market and I realize how nice it really was.)
House #4 – wish it was the forever home but…
So, in 2016 we bought house #4 – a four year old 1,400 square foot ranch (yes, smaller – initially) in a different suburb (I wish we’d stayed in our previous school district) for $255,000. Yikes! This was a big price increase (although to be fair, our prior home had increased in value as well). This house had an unfinished walk-out basement that we immediately contracted (for another $35K) to have finished with a family room, bedroom and bath, giving us a total of just over 2,000 livable square feet. I can’t fathom needing any more than that. The three-car attached garage never gets used as a third garage stall but is great for storage. We don’t have a proper place in our yard to build a stand-alone storage shed.
I’m happy in my current home. It would not be considered large or upscale per se but it truly does have everything I could ever want (two fireplaces, granite countertops in kitchen and baths, a basement wet bar – we don’t drink or entertain, main floor laundry, four bedrooms, three bathrooms, and the larger garage. If I had my way this would truly be our “forever home”. That was the intention when we bought it. We’re comfortable here. A couple photos below show the kitchen (taken when we were touring the home – countertops aren’t nearly that empty and organized now) and my cozy basement family room.
But then things get complicated. Unless something drastically changes in a positive way either with our finances or the economy (or both) – this will not be our forever home after all. We bought a house in our early 50’s and took out a 30-year mortgage with every intention of paying it off in 15 years. I look back and say “not our brightest move”. This is still five years longer than what we’d been looking at had we stayed in our prior home though it seemed doable since we both had decent jobs.
But…the only thing constant in life is change
God is in control and I’m not. A few months after we moved here, I was informed that my accounting position was being eliminated. I stepped into to a non-management-level job at a much-reduced wage with a new company, partly because I wasn’t doing well with the stress of 50+ hour workweeks and also because it was hard on my family not knowing when I’d be home at night. The new position was a true blessing but it did change the timing of our our planned mortgage payoff. And then God allowed me to fall and break my shoulder in spring of 2021 which resulted in complications. I ended up resigning my position to concentrate on getting healthy again. I am by choice not yet working.
I’m not angry or bitter about how things have played out over the past few years. I’m much less stressed when I’m not working (duh!). Physically I think it’s better for my nebulous unnamed inflammatory issues – whatever they are – as well. It’s allowed me to be more involved in the lives of my husband and my younger son. I have energy to keep the house tidy and organized which also reduces my stress level. I’m able to volunteer for events at church when others aren’t available to do so. And, I finally found the time to start this blog that I’ve contemplated for a couple years. I truly feel I’m where the Lord wants me in life right now.
So what’s the problem?
We’re currently living on a single income with some help from savings. Starting next year I’ll be dipping into my retirement funds. Layering in the market crash means we will likely run out of money before we pay off our mortgage in our 70’s. (The accountant in me still uses her Excel spreadsheets but now they’re focused on our own finances.)
I have two choices. Go back to work at a well paying job (not easy to find as a woman in my late 50’s with an AA degree – age discrimination is alive and well in the workplace) which will up the body stress factor again and reduce the energy I have left to give to my family at the end of the day. Or, we plan on selling our home once our son graduates in six years. We can use the equity to downsize to an older condo or townhome in a cheaper area of town and eliminate our mortgage payment. This might also allow us to move closer to our grandsons who are currently a couple hours away.
The moral here – there are two actually:
First – had I stayed in house #1, it would have long ago been paid off. I probably would have been stashing some decent cash in savings. We could have lived off of my husband’s income now. The cruddy economy wouldn’t have been as stressful. Even if I’d wisely stayed in house #3, my mortgage would have been gone in 2025 and we would have been in a more favorable financial position. I’m all for home ownership but I encourage you to honestly ponder your present situation before you take out loans for major upgrades or you purchase a more expensive home. Are you doing so because you need to or because you feel like your current home isn’t good enough. A paid-off mortgage is a big deal, especially when your financial picture or the economy can change on a dime.
Second – I am honestly at peace with moving to a smaller and older place so long as I’m in a relatively safe neighborhood. While I enjoy the comforts of my current home, having “stuff” is not what drives my happiness in life. I also no longer care as much about what others think. God reminds me that he has provided sufficiently for me. I slept just as soundly in house #1 as I do in house #4 (probably more so, since my sleep quality has declined with age). If I end up going back to laminate countertops and honey oak, so be it. Having a non-leaking roof over my head, heat and A/C, functional appliances and running water would still position me as more fortunate than many in this world (and that makes me sad, too)! True contentment shouldn’t come from having the latest and greatest, regardless what those around us would have us believe. I pray that I will always remember and appreciate God’s provision for my life.
Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in and abundance of possessions”.
Luke 12:15
Rather than trying to keep up with the Joneses, let’s focus our efforts and energy on the One who really matters – Jesus Christ. Let’s look to Him (not the media or the Joneses) for direction in our life.
