At Carod Properties, we love our renters. We take pride as leading industry property managers in the level of service we provide. We also pride ourselves on the level of knowledge we continuously strive to give our investors as they manage their own properties. That said, we also feel it is our mission to help anyone that has the desire, to purchase their own home. If renting is best for your situation, then that’s the course for you. However, if homeownership is in your plan, we want to help you to put it your reach! The time to start on that path is today.
Owning a home is a lifestyle. If writing a large check, with little thought or worry, is not in your ability, then to reach that lifestyle it’s going to require some lifestyle changes. Even if you have a good saving strategy, purchasing and owning a home requires a level of money management that most people just aren’t used to. There will be costs, hidden and obvious, that will go beyond down payment and monthly mortgage. One major thing you should consider when making a home purchase is making the best down payment possible. It could improve your interest rate, as well as lower your monthly mortgage. To help further prepare yourself for purchase/ownership, here are a few major money wasters that you should consider giving up for your home goals:
- Daily Coffee Trip: The average cup of coffee shop coffee is, $3.65. Spread that over a 5 day work week for 52 weeks a year, that equals $949 wasted. No brainer! You don’t have to give up coffee, just not pay and arm and a leg for something you can do at home. If it still unfeasible to you to just say no…SEEK HELP.
- Gym Membership: No one is asking you to give up exercise or healthy living. Average gym membership is $58 per month. After 12 months of hopefully actually going to the gym, but DEFINITELY paying, you’ve spent $696. Walking/running is free. Not good enough? An investment in a piece of equipment once, can pay dividends in results for years.
- Premium Cable: (*sigh*) Many see this as a must-have. Yet, when you make your lists of priorities, home ownership is probably much higher up than 300 TV channels, at the average cost of $99 per month (not sure who came up with that number), totaling $1188 per year.
- Purchasing Lunch, Daily: The average costs of takeout lunch is $11 times 5 days a week, totals $55; or, $2860 per year. That’s almost $3000!
The numbers can be staggering when you think about them. That’s the point. If you want something you’ve never had, you have to do something you’ve never done. That’s why we said that saving for home purchase/ownership is a lifestyle, in and of itself. Those staggering numbers, and the thousand other areas you can save and/or completely cut out of your life, has to become a part of your thought process, to make that dream a reality. It may be hard, but anything worth having is worth the struggle!
