One of the things that so many people struggle with in today’s economy is buying a home. I’ll be the first to admit it, I don’t own my home. My family currently rents a very small home with an unfinished basement. It’s a very modest home with only two bedrooms and one small bathroom, but it currently works for my family.

However, that may not always be the case. As my mother-in-law says, “it’s a good starter home”, however, a “starter” home may not always be the home we’re meant to stay in. If my spouse and I want more children, we would definitely need a bigger home. As it is, with the three of us living here, things are tight.

One of the benefits of our very small home is that rent is very cheap. That allows us to save money. However, we’ve recently been exploring moving into a bigger home, but with that move would be a HUGE increase in our monthly home spending. Even though our family is debt free, we don’t have an extraordinary amount of money in savings. We have plenty for an emergency or “rainy day”, but not enough for a decent down payment. So my husband and I are on a new challenge, to see if we can live on his income and save mine (or at least most of mine) for a down payment over the next several months/couple of years. Not only would this allow us to have a smaller house payment, but it would also give us a better chance at being able to purchase the right home.

With that in mind, I am still looking at saving money in various ways. We sell unused items on Facebook marketplace, shop second hand (especially for our daughter’s clothes), and coupon pretty regularly. However, I know we can be better about making a budget, eating out less, and spending less on unnecessary items. I told my husband if we cannot cut back, we won’t be able to afford a house payment down the road and we’re in a safe place now to make the appropriate changes if we overspend or have difficulty living on his paycheck.

All that being said, feel free to subscribe and follow along as we learn how to save even more money together!