Buying a house has been our goal since the beginning our marriage. I often hear people talk about how “they could never buy a house in the Bay Area.” Our story is proof of two things: (1) that God answers prayers and (2) that hard work pays off. Here, I am going to list the seven things we did that resulted in our current home.
1. We prayed!
This was the most important part of our home-buying journey by far. Simply put, we would not have our home today without our prayers. Our faith in God kept us hopeful in a housing market that was very daunting. When my husband and I have a strong prayer intention, we like to write it out on paper and pray over it every night. We did this with our housing goal too. We decided we wanted a house on the coast, three or more bedrooms, the ability to rent out a portion of it (to help pay our mortgage), etc. It is important to be specific when we ask God for the desires of our hearts, I have learned that He cares about each detail.
2. We lived off one income right way
We decided at the start of our marriage to live off of one income. We knew that God could choose to bless us with children at any time after our marriage began. Because of this, we thought it would be extremely hard to adjust to having a child at the same time as adjusting our finances to one income. The day we got married was the day my income became “invisible.” Everything I earned from the time we were married to the time our son was born (about a year of wages) went straight into our savings account.
3. We made a spreadsheet
I have always loved making spreadsheets! This strange talent came in handy when we got married. Using Excel, I created a spreadsheet for all of our finances. This was crucial in understanding how much we could save and for planning our future financial goals. We were able to visualize for the first time, what every dollar was going toward. Whether it be our tithing to church, a Starbucks coffee, groceries, auto repairs, vitamins, our spreadsheet had a category for everything!
“A budget is telling your money where to go instead of wondering where it went.” -Dave Ramsey
4. We made a "pretend" mortgage
We began our marriage in a tiny home that was parked on a ranch. At the start of our marriage we were paying about $600/month to rent the land. We decided to save as much as possible in the time we were in the trailer. We created a “pretend mortgage” in our budget to help with this savings goal. We decided on $3500 a month as our “mortgage” amount. This meant that we pretended our “rent” was $3500, and because it was really only $600 at the time, we deposited $2900 into the savings account every month.
5. We just saved!
The more we saved, the more we saved. I believe you can either be on an upward or a downward trend when it comes to finances. Basically, when we saved, it lead to a trickle effect of more savings. The more we saw our savings account grow, the prouder of that number we became, and the more excited we were to recreate that feeling. Same goes for a spending cycle: the more you spend outside of your means, the more down you feel about your choices, the more you want the instant gratification of buying something you don’t need.
6. We lived below our means
We had the ability to live a much more “enjoyable” life in the world’s standards during our newlywed period. Our rent was only $600 a month! We could have had fancy cars on a car payment, the latest electronics, multiple monthly subscriptions, and we probably could have afforded to eat out at restaurants most nights. We choose not to. This is what I mean by living below our means. I think a common mindset to have is “how much can I spend?” Our mindset however is (usually) “how much can we save.” Sure, having cable would have been fun, but $1 movies were a better choice for us. New cars and new phones are only “new” for a little while anyway before the excitement wears off. Buying used cars out right, and making the most out of our older phones was well worth what we received. Matthew Kelly (one of my favorite Catholic speakers) says if you learn to do one thing in life, “learn to delay gratification.” Having lived through a period where we did this on a daily basis, I can say that I couldn’t agree more!
7. We thought outside of the box
One of my husband’s greatest strengths is his creativity. When he is faced with a problem, instead of thinking, “we can’t do this” he thinks, “how can we do this.” At the time when we began our home-buying process, we were in our early twenties, had a one-year-old baby and another on the way, were living on one income, and looking in a market where the average single-family home was listed for around 900,000- 1 million. On paper, our chance of finding an investment home was slim to none! But Aaron never allowed us to give up. We changed our mindset and turned to prayer. Our prayers gave us the faith to keep hoping. We believed that God would answer our prayers if we did the hard work. And He did! Our particular buyer-seller combination was nothing short of a miracle. God found us a very unique seller, who was willing to work with our unique buying preferences. As it worked out, the house never went on the market. Because of this, we had no competition to run up against. All of this today say, God works out the details if we trust in His plans!
These are our tips to buying a home. I hope they inspire you to know that it is possible for you too! Remember that there is a deal in every market and that “with God all things are possible!” (Matthew 19:26)
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