I don't get this. You have more house than you need but since you're paying the proper amount for someone who would need it your budget is frugal?
I'm not judging your budgeting etc. just having trouble wrapping my brain around the above logic.
No problem, no offense taken.
I was responding to this comment, from A854321:
A854321 said:
How can you possibly rack up $10K a month expenses?
My point was that for a normal family, $10K is not an extravagant amount for a monthly budget. I demonstrated that even for my wife and I, with no kids, and pretty conservative tastes (rarely buy new clothes, drive practical cars, no fancy club memberships), we're already at $8K/month.
Now as for our house, I guess I rationalize it by telling myself we forego other "luxuries" to live in a home that I would consider pretty gratuitous for a childless couple. 4 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, hardwood floors throughout the entire main floor, 9' ceilings in the basement, corner lot (read: bigger backyard), granite countertops, the whole she-bang. I love our house.
But to be comfortable with our budget, we skip other things. Like I said, I take the bus instead of driving a BMW. I wear a Timex instead of a Rolex. Bluenotes jeans instead of Mavis (or whatever a fancy brand of jeans are). I bag my lunch every day instead of eating out. We don't go on fancy vacations every year (just the family cottage in PEI for a week of relaxing). And the big one: we've chosen not to have kids.
I'm willing to make those sacrifices for a comfortable savings level (I'd always like to be saving more, but we can reach our goals at our current savings rate) and a house that is relaxing and ample for everything we want to do. We can take in family or friends if they want to visit, we have an exercise room, a woodworking shop, my wife has a winemaking room, tons of storage in the basement, a plenty-wide garage for changing my own oil (see? frugal!), a big backyard for playing frisbee in the summer... I simply value all those things more than I'd value looking rich by wearing rich clothes or driving a rich car.
However, (and getting back to my original point), families with kids (and who thus probably live in a house like mine, but with a better reason than me) and who
do think they need to drive a BMW and wear Versace and eat lunch at fancy restaurants all the time, surely you can see how they could easily be spending $10K/month without even thinking they're overspending?