The Re-model From Hell

Well, I am going on three years living with my in-laws while we renovate our two-family house, and I am just about ready to pull my hair out of my head. Who knew when we bought a 150-year-old house with rotting floor joists and half the sill gone that we would be in a project that was too big for us--oh wait, we did...Yeah, we are basically living the movie "The Money Pit." Every time we turned around, something else that we didn't expect had to be done, and my poor 65-year-old father (aka our contractor) just couldn't work fast enough for our tastes. Here I am, still in my little tiny basement apartment with two kids and a dog--with my in-laws upstairs.

We took the difficult path of most resistance, in order to be able to own a home in this century. However, most young people are not willing to buy a dump of a house, spend years fixing it up and live with their parents in the meantime. So how are they supposed to afford to buy a house, pay for utilities and gas, and still stay above water? I know the answer--put yourself in massive amounts of debt that you will never get out of! Isn't it sad that that is the only way to live the American dream nowadays? Most people will never even pay off their mortgage in their lifetime, between re-financing and taking money out over the years.

I am on a mission to figure out how we young-uns can live comfortably and debt-free, while still saving money for retirement, our children's college funds and emergencies. There has to be a way to be a middle class family with multiple children and cars without burying yourself in debt and despair. Something's gotta give homies, and I am going to discover just what that is!