Home ownership year 4

so this post on Emily's blog (check her out, she is a great writer) got me thinking about the i want, i need, and the home makeovers.

When we first moved into our house, we knew there were some upgrades that we would need to do. The water heater was 20 years old and not functioning properly (it isn't good when the home owners freely admit something like that). there were holes of various sizes including one big one) on the plaster walls. there was a 4 foot drop out the family room door (they had torn off most of the deck). The wood siding on the garage was rotting and falling off. the original upstairs bathroom sink seemed to jump out and attack your toes every morning. These along with a need for insanely organized closets and a dislike of many of the paint colors drove a mad dash of need and want purchases in the first two years.

Now that we have entered year four the changes and upgrades are far fewer. Last year when we were told our ac was leaking freon and the possible fix could buy us most of a new ac, we ended up replacing the heat and ac. Did we need it? Maybe... our house is hold and the furnace and ac were underpowered... which meant, even functioning it was either freezing in the winter or sweltering in the summer, but we could have just fixed the ac and moved on. (Bill and I are super happy we had the money to just get new ones).

This year, my one goal is to spruce up our down stairs bathroom. and maybe finally get pictures in all the empty picture frames around the house.

I think, though, had Bill and I bought a bigger house, or if we had two cars, we might not have been able to afford all the fixes and upgrades to our house. With our income drastically changing soon, we will have to be much more careful about where we spend our money, and our definition of "need" will probably change. I think that Bill and I will have to tell ourselves "it will be out of public view in the basement" more often and the spend-y life of DINKs will be coming to a close.