I am 34 yrs old, my husband is 39. We are late bloomers in life, and did not have stable, higher paying employment until our 30's. My husband is a permanent federal employee and makes $62k a year, he will make about 80k in the next 5-6 yrs. I work as a contractor, $51k a year with the contract ending in spring 2023. We rent a small apartment ($950 a month, 800 sqft) so we can save money. We have always lived in apartments. In 6 months we have saved $15,000. Our goal is to save $30k for a down payment. We would like to adopt a foster child eventually instead of having biological children. My preference is to adopt once we own a home, this way the child won't have to change school districts. My student loans are the only debt we have-cars are paid off and no credit card debt. My student loans total about $48,000. I have 4 loans, two are federal loans and two are private loans. The private loans are $12000 and $13000, while the federal loans are $6500 and $16000. The interest rates for all 4 are between 3-4%. We are considering the following options:
Option one: Pay off student loans first then save for a down payment for a home. Our dream home (3 bedroom, 2 bath, 2 car garage rancher) would cost $260-300k in our area. The other option for a home would be 180k-200k if we get a one car garage single family home or a townhouse/condo instead. The problem with this option is that I may be unemployed by the time we are ready to buy if we pay my student loans first. It would also mean putting off adopting a child for a longer period of time, or adopting while living in an apartment (we would have to get a bigger/more expensive apartment in that case).
Option Two: Buy a smaller/less expensive townhouse/condo/apartment for 70-100k so the mortgage would be less than renting (500-700 a month). Pay this off pretty quickly while paying off student loans, later on we would then save for a down payment for our dream home and use this as a rental for extra income. The advantage of this is that even if I become unemployed, my husband would be able to cover the entire cost of the mortgage and all of our bills. The downside is our child having to change school districts potentially once we move again, also it means living in a smaller space for longer.
Option 3: Buy the dream home first, then pay off student loans. We may also decide to buy the cheaper 180-200k rancher or townhouse/condo instead, not as nice as our dream home (and older), but more affordable. Buying the house first would allow us to have a home sooner and we could foster to adopt sooner. The downside is if I am unemployed it would be more of a challenge financially, but my husband's income might go up enough to cover it. I also would hopefully not be unemployed for long, but it's hard to predict.
We are really struggling with the best thing to do financially and emotionally. I feel so far behind in life, still renting in our late 30's and not having a child yet, but I also don't want to put us in a bad financial situation. I would like to have a home paid off before we retire. We lived in poverty for all of our 20's. I made $12-$14 an hr until I was 29. Now that we have more money, I want to be responsible, but also enjoy what we have. The later we buy a home, then we may put off adopting. I do have concerns about being too old to be parents if we wait too long. What do you think the best thing to do is?
Submitted December 05, 2020 at 02:25PM by Critterling https://ift.tt/37CTOqC
