<p>
</p>
<p>I’m only 24. Far away from buying my first house. I expect to buy a house in around 6 years. At my pace I should easily have $100k by the time I’m 30. Therefore, spending $40k on a down payment won’t be too bad.</p>
<p>Let’s also remember that you can’t take the money with you “to another life” 
</p>
<p>So if I save $20k each year for 30 years I have $600,000 but if on day one of year 31 I die, what did I give up in order to save all that money which I don’t get to spend?</p>
<p>Yes saving is important; I think most of us would agree with that. But spending a little money is okay too…</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>You repaid it with interest.</p>
<p>If you don’t have the money, don’t buy the item. It’s very easy to understand, but so many people don’t understand this.</p>
<p>Do you live at home? or are you throwing money away on an apartment?</p>
<p>I bought my house at 25. It’s not that much of a stretch.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I never said spending a little money is bad.</p>
<p>But what if you live to 90? To 100?</p>
<p>And what if you don’t? No one in my family has lived past their early 70s. Most die in late 60s. I might be abnormal, but I doubt it given my health problems.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>My ex just bought a house at 22. Not a bad time to do it considering the terrible market.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>What if one day you were laid off from your job? What if you get sick and can’t work? Then what happens? What happens if you have to take a huge pay cut when you are just trying to save? </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Bingo! Why not save money in your 20’s so you won’t have to pinch pennies for the next 30 some odd years? I sure as heck wouldn’t want to pinch pennies for 30 years just because I wanted to live lavishly in my 20’s.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Right YOU don’t want to. WE DO NOT WANT THE SAME THINGS. Why is it so hard for you to understand that different people want to live differently? For me, I’d rather spend it while young and then save for a long time. YOU could like something different. That’s fine. There is nothing wrong with either method.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>You don’t know how long you are going to live. Nobody does. If you have that mindset already, then I feel very sorry for you.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>There is everything wrong with your method. Every single person who I know who spent lavishly in their 20’s and 30’s are struggling in their 50’s and 60’s and have to work basically until their die because they don’t have any money saved.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I have a roommate and pay $300 a month. I would rather “throw away” $3,600 a year on an apartment than buy a house right now.</p>
<p>You’re right no one knows how long they’ll live. Thanks for helping support my viewpoint that I’d rather spend and do things I want when I’m young and healthy-ish. Good night!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Good luck with that.</p>
<p>The major problem with living large in your 20’s and then saving is the time value of money. Basically, if you save up from age 21 on, half of your retirement comes from the money you saved 20-30 while the other half comes 30-50 or 30-60 or something like that. The money that you save when you’re 20-30 makes up a huge percentage portion of your retirement savings.</p>
<p>The second problem is that a person who lives large when they are 25 doesn’t necessarily stop wanting to live large when they turn 30. You might say vacation with kids isn’t as much fun as without kids. Having kids, I think vacationing is even more fun. Then you have daycare, and clothes to buy for your little ones, and furniture. And then houses and nice cars to tote your family around. And then there’s college savings, and you might want your kids to go to private schools or summer camps or private colleges or who knows what. </p>
<p>But the point is - your desire to spend money doesn’t stop at age 30. It just gets bigger.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>You’re not throwing your money away on rent. It’s buying you a place to live.</p>
<p>If you buy, you stop throwing your money away on rent. And then you start throwing your money away on interest + taxes + insurance.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Exactly.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That’s very, very true. Even more true if you have kids in your 30’s.</p>
<p>It would be terrible to start with nothing when you are 30.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I understand what you’re saying, but if I put a $40k down payment on a house I would have $0. And owning a house is very expensive. Once I save about $40k-$60k more, I will definitely buy a house.</p>
<p>“You should ALWAYS have at least an 8 month emergency fund. If your expenses are $2k a month, you should have $16k saved in either a savings or checking account you can easily access.”</p>
<p>Well, that sounds pretty painless. But what about if your expenses are 10X that? Is anybody really going to have $160K sitting around in an emergency fund, earning 0.002% interest? I don’t think so! I’m comfortable having a large HELOC available, and enough 401K funds that I could borrow from (but only if I was completely desperate, haven’t had to do so yet).</p>
<p>Sure, if you’re only paying $300 in rent and you are happy where you are, that sounds like a great deal. On the other hand, a consideration is that the real estate market is picking up, yet there are still foreclosures and short sales available. Interest rates at 3%, how long will that last? I recently bought a condo that went for 260K five years ago for 75K…rents for $1200. Three bedrooms. Live in one, rent the other two, you got all your condo expenses paid for, including interest and condo fees, plus maybe a nice little cash flow. Living for free, in a potentially rapidly appreciating asset.</p>
<p>Then again, that involves taking a chance. Worth it if you know you’ll stay there no matter what the market does. I bought my first house at 23, seemed great at first, but when I had to move, the tenants destroyed it and I had to take a loss. Then again, my roommate introduced me to my husband, so I think I came out ahead on the deal.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Most people either rent the place to live, or rent the money to buy the place to live.</p>