To get several things done every year when you're in your thirties might be possible if you don't drink or smoke, eat out much at all, have a very modest wardrobe, no extra "toys" like boats or four-wheelers, and your idea of a vacation is camping out. You just can't have it all and have to prioritize, leaving a lot of other things by the wayside, if you want to do up your house in a few years. Forget about expensive presents to anyone, jewelry, classy perfume, any of those extras that for you may make life worth living. You need to be focused on that one thing, that is the sad truth.

I'm semi-retired and happy enough with my home. But whenever I get an idea to do something that would make me MORE happy with my home, the house reminds me that there is a roughly 7-year maintenance cycle of re-staining exterior; pruning large trees; sealing the driveway; repairing loose stonework; replacing window glass where there are broken seals; heat pump replacement; hot water tank replacement; and more. If I realistically budget for those maintenance cycle items, there is little room for anything else. The only aesthetic "indulgences" I've had in the past few years are repainting the interior (20 years since the last paint job!) and adding a backsplash in the kitchen.

I read a financial article recently about how it doesn't serve us well to compare ourselves financially to "the Joneses," who somehow always seem to have more free cash than we do, and bought a nicer house, and take nicer vacations, even though they seem to have jobs that should put them in our income bracket.

I live in the San Francisco Bay Area where houses are ridiculously expensive and I would wonder how my colleagues at work would afford to live where they did in the houses that they owned. I ended up concluding that either a) their spouses made a lot more money, b) they weren't saving for retirement or other goals, c) they have inheritances I didn't know about, or d) they were seriously overextended. And with that realization, I stopped worrying that my house wasn't as nice, or in as nice a neighborhood, because I have retirement savings and college savings. I'm good.

I remember my SIL saying when they moved back here that he earned about the same amount as DD's friend's husbands, but the friends did not need to save for retirement as they had wealthy parents and would inherit, they did not need to save for education as the grandparents even paid for nursery school and would continue to pay for private school and college, and they also paid their children's initiation fees to private clubs and their club dues. With that kind of discretionary income, they certainly can lead a far more lavish lifestyle than most of us ever could.

I use to feel my parents had so little when I was growing up. We had used cars and modest decor but great vacations but I was snotty wondering why I drove only a used omega 3 Buick when kids at my HS had bmws. Never occurred to my biased brain that to even have my own car in HS was beyond fortunate. I also griped as to why we had a 70s orginal kitchen still when others had the latest and greatest.

Now as an adult without any college loans and with parents who retired before 60 it all makes sense. The others dove deeper and deeper into debt but my parents lived below their means. In the immediate present they seemed behind financially but in actuality they, and I because of their fiscal practices , ended up far ahead!

Television is NOT REAL. It's make believe, shows scripted and produced to promote the sale of items in commercials.

HGTV, for the most part, is not real. Don't believe it.

Total fantasy like all TV.

I know someone who is a real estate agent in Barcelona who has done 2 episodes of House Hunters International. None of the drama is real. It's all decided before hand and scripted.

Hey Adkhiker, thanks for writing this. I realize that comparing yourself to others causes lots of unhappiness, and I try (and overall do fairly well) not to do too much comparison. But, but, it must be said that the homes and renovations so many people live in (not just HGTV, but in real life, too) confuse and frustrate me. By that, I mean, I do rough calculations about the cost of the house and their incomes based on profession and other pertinent info, and I just don't understand how they can afford it. Yes, some people bought real estate at the right time and others have familial support, but those situations still don't explain A LOT of what I see.

I am grateful for what I have and know it is very good in the scheme of things, but I often just wonder if I'm doing something wrong........

here is the big question, how many of those homes have you been in? i hear all over about stone countertops, yet I read that roughly 60% of us still have formica, and i have seen many with tile, stainless, etc, so how many was that again?

Then there are the entertainer homes, where it is all in the public areas the rest are scary.

We have managed to do most of our updates with assistance, saving tons, but it still did not get much done.

the joneses of your mind are so much easier to keep up with i think.

I once lived in one of the most expensive towns in my state. I worked in social services (read hard work for less money) and my then husband didn't like to work so we were always struggling. The children my son and step children went to school with lived in large homes, got a Volvo or BMW to drive at 16, and went on expensive vacations several times a year. We lived in a modest home, my son got a job to be able to have a used car in his Senior year, and we rarely went on vacation. My son and his step-brother turned out to be great human beings with a practical view of the world and a great work ethic.

My wonderful DH and I bought a home in 2004 so my mom could come to live with us and we could care for her. We tackle one project per year...new fence, new roof, garden shed, rock retaining wall, etc., but have deferred projects when some other problem surfaces. My DH paints one side of the house every year or so. We love our older cherry cabinet kitchen, but we have formica countertops, wood floors that need refinishing, some ceiling work to do/redo. Our home is 68 years old and there is always something to do. This year it will be 3 exterior doors, next year new back fence, year after that something else. We have a mortgage, but pay everything else off every month and hope to stay that way. We won't go into debt for cosmetic changes to chase a trend.

TV is entertainment, not real life, and always has been.

Two of my co-workers did major renos last year. I was astounded at the numbers they were discussing. I couldn't understand how they could afford it. We love doing renos, but did like you and tackled one project a year. During one conversation, I realized my coworkers had taken out massive loans to do the work. My DH and I always saved and paid cash (we did two larger projects when we rec'd a small inheritance).

I think it is just different views on carrying debt. We are not comfortable with it, but it seems many are doing it.

Also, we had a house fire and ended up having to gut the place and do a total restoration. Everything was done from top to bottom at once (with insurance money). While we would never be comfortable with large amounts of debt, I can really see the benefit of getting it all done at once and then just enjoying it instead of constantly being "on the job" and never having a finished product to sit back and enjoy.

TV is fantasy. We live in reality. Learning to budget, plan and self-restraint are hallmarks of a mature, functioning adult.

Homeownership costs money. But, you have to live somewhere. We just plan our projects. We understand what we can accomplish and when we will need expert help. We always have something going or planned. Setting priorities and organization is key.

Envy will kill you. Just don't go there.

Wow, the posters above me sound like the grumpy farts denouncing avocado toast as the reason millennials can't afford to buy a home. If you can afford a loan and the interest rate is good? That's a means of accomplishing a goal - if that goal matters to you. If you can't afford the loan, don't get it and keep working at your job, get a raise, whatever you can do. Things cost $$$ so you make some conscious decisions around what you spend on, how you save, whether you have kids, and what you do for a living. These are the decisions that you make. None of it just happens to you.

I'm not rich but I'm lucky enough to have the means to take out a loan. I have no interest in sitting in a 1960s home for 10 years. My surroundings matter to me. But you should see the amount of work I've done to get a good quality/price ratio *everywhere*, down to the robe hooks. (Fortunately, it's fun being a bargain shopper.)

Many people are lucky. Some are born into wealth. Some buy at just the right time. But if you have a home to renovate? You're also lucky. Focus on the process of creating what you want, not HGTV.

Thank you to everyone who has responded so far! I appreciate everyone's insight and shared experiences. I also appreciate the humor and the good laughs.

I know that HGTV is just for entertainment. I mean, I actually spent a few years working in real estate - so I saw how many people lived and I know from a logical view that the majority of people are just like my husband and I - hard working, living in modest homes, hoping to make a few updates here and there when financially feasible. I also grew up relatively poor when I was young and I know first hand how fortunate I am that I don't have to worry about whether or not the electricity will be turned off or whether we will have enough for groceries. We also aren't swimming in debt. In fact, at 32 I just paid off the last of my relatively small student loans (I went to a state school and commuted to save money.)

I know envy is a terrible thing to feel, and I really do try not to compare myself to others. In the grand scheme of things I know that I have everything I could hope for - I have a roof over my head, my health, a loving husband and food on my table. But it's hard not to wonder when I walk through the homes of some of our friends, wide-eyed... "HOW???"

For example, we are friends with a couple with a young son. Before he was born, they decided they needed more space, so they sold their first home (which they had completely renovated and was larger and nicer than our current house is now) and bought a 3,800 sq. ft. colonial in a gorgeous neighborhood with a pool and a huge private yard. This was a year or two after they had bought their lake house, which they had also renovated, along with a boat. Now, I don't know exactly how much they make, but we've heard enough to know that it's probably, combined, about $40-50k more a year that we do. And they have child care costs. And they go out to eat more than we do.

My husband and I are thinking of having a child soon and I am looking around our home thinking is 1,400 sq. ft. enough space? And I know "of course it is" because my family of 4 grew up in less. But looking at my friends I worry that my kid will go to visit their house to play with their son and wonder what my husband and I are doing wrong that we don't have a sprawling yard and pool and lake house.

Sometimes I jump on Zillow and look around at other houses to see what's out there. But I can never find a house I like as much as ours at anywhere near the price point we paid for it, which is how I know that we made a good buy. We put a little extra toward the mortgage each month, and we are both saving pretty aggressively for retirement so I know that some day having less now will pay off. It's just hard to keep one's eye on the prize when being bombarded by images (even here on Houzz) of all the things I don't have. And it's not the things themselves so much that are the problem - it's that those things are equated with SUCCESS. So it's not the lack of a granite kitchen that stings so much (I can and do cook just as well in a kitchen with Formica) as the perceived sense of failure I feel because I don't have a granite kitchen. Does that make sense?

Blogging is an occupation. A job, at certain point. When a blogger has enough readership(which might take years to build), companies become interested in collaborating and advertizing with him/her, and offer all sorts of freebies and give deadlines, to finish this or that project and write a blog post about it where benefactor company would be mentioned. So somebody behind the scenes helps a lot with real cost of things, and actually many bloggers are very transparent about it, breaking down the prices and all.

HGTV is, as everybody already said, a scripted entertainment. Turn on British shows-they have some semblance of reality in them. Then maybe it seems to me because I don't live in Great Britain..))

IRL in order to get to some point of their lives people can afford something, they work, and work, and work, and work..and add luck to it too, all sorts of such luck, because many work and work and work just as hard and it's not like they end up especially blessed for it either.

I never owned a car in my life-during years when I drove, we shared one car with my ex..and we bought it old of course. And we were in our late twenties-early thirties.

It was a lot of public transportation. Which absence is sadly felt where I live right now..:)

Beforehand, we were lucky he worked in hi tech and it was such a boom that companies leased cars to their employees. So by the time I had my second kid-I was 27-we had a car to bring the baby home ourselves:)

Our climbing on property ladder started with us winning a lottery for subsidized housing for young couples(not in US). Or else we'd still be climbing lol.

we waited for more than two years for this crooked apartment to be built..we worked full time jobs, payed mortagage, a rental, and astronomical childcare (it becomes "free" when a kid goes to pre-school, but before that, the cost of it beats college costs))

All my friends had parents around to help them. My parents lived in 3 hour drive from us, and had to take care of my elderly Grandma. His parents lived abroad)

We went with mostly hands on and started buying some normal furniture slowly, when his job took him here.

Then you're back to rentals, garage sales, and-as my job, I had to leave it behind-starting allover again,

(we had two more of back-and-forth, but I must say that as hard as it was on me-taught us never to be in debt, if we could help it)

My second husband with whom I happily share my life now, wasn't doing that much back and forth and didn't have kids. He arrived here as a young man to work on his doctorate, in early nineties, 120$ in his pocket.

He spent money exclusively on some very basic things-roof over his head, bills, cheapest food he could get. He did travel-as cheap as he could- and helped his family, friends, and everybody in bad circumstances he met, because as somebody who values freedom and independence most of all, it upsets him to no end when somebody isn't free-and some of it can be helped with money.

All the rest, he saved, saved, and saved. When I moved to be with him, he rented furniture-because he didn't have(and frankly didn't need) furniture beforehand. He had a mattress, an old desk, cardboard boxes of different sizes and a TV. a TV btw was a gift from his old girlfriend who just could bear to look at the very old black and white thing he had beforehand.

He's a highly skilled professional in a field that has money. That's how he was able to save too.

Because I was also professional but my field..lol,. lets just say I could work all my life and work and work. Never ever it would translate itself to a townhouse in HCOLA, then to a house, gut remodel of that house, paying rental for MIL, then buying condo for MIL(to be frank the amount of properies abroad we had to sell to swing all that without borrowing, is not too shabby either..me and him have different "abroad", but we sold all we could afford to sell)..private schools for kids, colleges, that no one though is happy to give you financial aid anymore because your life looks too good especially on paper, medical bills that are like, wow, thank you good insurance and now I'm your slave, because lets face it..you/your family members/several of them have some chronic condition, expensive treatments, no other way of controlling it? you're not free. not exactly. you work where you have great insurance. you live where the good hospital is. it's much harder to just up and go and pursue your passions or whatever.

do we live like the majority of other parents in this private school live? hell no)) we're, like, hanging in there, in comparison to these folks.

do we live probably much better than other 95% of population? very well maybe

is it because I worked so hard and all that? uh-uh. I did work hard when i could, in my profession as in random jobs when I had to, and I studied, and dragged my young kids back and forth, country to country, coast to coast,while trying to preserve my own sanity-and their well being, sense of identity, you name it.

the rest is others' people hard work, their sacrificing their dreams too (because my DH for example would make a great college professor. He just decided the money is not enough there. To feel as free as he has to. So he feels free in one aspect of bein--but very tied in another ), and, frankly-sheer luck. Can be gone tomorrow. Ruin comes hard and fast. That's why we also don't touch most of the money at all. Seeing how things here work...

And that's why we seem like we don't need any financial aid from colleges))

now, why I wrote all that? hell if I know

ah. I was thinking I'd also prefer my own joneses in my own head..rather than all sorts of scary people that I dream of in the nights. And these scary people, they're very real, they're at least as real as joneses..)) I'd pick joneses every day...))

You all understand that people have different circumstances, right? While i agree hgtv is totally scripted, it doesn't mean that people in real life can't do major renovations all at once. Some people have family money. The salaries in big cities are really high (the couple who bought our last home were 33 and *each* making $300k as associates in a law firm -- which jobs are a dime a dozen in big cities like DC, NY and chicago). It's not unusual in those cities for people to get a bonus that can pay for a new $80k kitchen reno. Ditto to the comment above that housing values have gone up so much in the big cities that within 2 years of buying your $800k starter house (which in the DC suburbs is not a particularly nice house), you probably have $150k equity. Also in those big cities, big renovations usually recoup their costs and then some. So doing the renovations usually makes a lot of financial sense. Plus some people purposefully buy a house under their budget and get a loan that covers the renovations they want. The end result ends up costing them less than if they had bought the already renovated house (because, as noted, renovations in these cities recoup their costs and then some). People have all kinds of different circumstances that make doing a huge reno a perfectly reasonable decision.

1. It's not smart to take out loans to do home renovations.

2. HGTV and whatever anyone says on a blog is...skewed at best.

It's hard to comment, but same people live way below their means and then spend money on big ticket items.

Have you done a review of your income/expenses, especially the "small items" that add up? Things like itunes, bought lunches, lattes, a new iphone every two years? Do you pay credit card interest, impulse buy clothes and little trinkets, etc? What car are you driving? How frequently do you eat out? Do you go out to movies, bars, exercise classes? Do you buy books and magazines?

Oh for cryin' out loud! Smart people take out loans to renovate their homes every day! Debt is a tool that can be used wisely or foolishly. Just make sure you do the math.

If you need to take out a loan to "renovate" then maybe you purchased above your means...In fact, yes. You purchased above your means.

Hgtv and blogs enable that kind of thinking, also.

And, agree to disagree, einportlandor, but saying, what amounts, to "everyone does it" doesn't make it the right or smart thing to do.

Thinking this way is part of why the economy is in such a mess...

@pennydesign:

No, taking out loans doesn't make the economy a mess. Poor fiscal planning and subprime loans make the economy a mess. If I buy at a low cost and take a home equity line to renovate, that's a good idea. I save on property taxes in CA.

Sure, taking out a $500K loan on a single family Kansas City home renovation is not smart. But an anti-loan ideology can also lead to poor financial decisions. Saving in the short run is a terrible idea in my market. I'm close to people who squirrel away money in savings accounts and investment accounts rather than taking out a loan, but don't consider the impact of inflation.

I think of my home as an investment and a high priority for spending. And trust me when I say I can't speak for anyone else's decisions but I know I'm doing the economy a service with my renovation.

@tiggerlgh: Absolutely. Any investment can go up and down. That said, housing in select markets in the U.S. is less volatile than the stock market.

Apologies for not reading all the comments yet; I had to scroll down to add my own.

I've pretty much given up on watching HGTV any more because of pretty much what adkhiker says @ the top there. I tend to assume that the preponderance of these couples (and singles too) w/ such hefty loans are the scions of wealthy families, IOW members of the lucky sperm club.

It now seems to be one giant infomercial for real estate and home improvement vendors on that channel. I miss the days of shows that had a lot more variety and realism. FWIW, I think a lot of those type of shows are now on DIY Network, etc.

@anita...please read what I said...I did say that thinking this way is "part of" why it's such a mess here...Part . Of.

If you don't think so, then I'm guessing you're rather young.

I read the comments of others...I simply don't get why I'm not afforded the same courtesy...Reading comprehension issue??

Oh well...

@ carolb_w-fl: "the lucky sperm club" -- Cute - I hadn't heard that before!

I read recently that a large percentage of Americans would be hard pressed to come up with $500 if they had an emergency. I find that totally shocking. I can see why, though, when a large percentage buy their teenagers $100 tennis shoes, eat out a lot because it's convenient (even fast food quickly becomes expensive), ride around in huge, gas-guzzling pick-up trucks, six-packs of beer and steaks are regularly consumed, and there is the need to buy the latest in clothes and shoes when their closets are already bursting at the seams. Somehow we think we can have it all and still remain solvent and have the ability to afford house payments. You have to have goals, set priorities, resolve never to be in debt except for your mortgage, and give up the things that cost too much and keep you from reaching your goals. It's not hard, and you can still be happy doing this (and certainly have greater peace of mind), and I always wonder why so many people have no restraint, have maxed out their credit cards, and live from one paycheck to the next. That's not living, it's treading water and hoping like heck that you don't sink. Obviously those are not the people you see on TV home shows, but there are way too many of them living that lifestyle.

oy

ingrid_vc so. CA zone 9: “and I always wonder why so many people have no restraint, have maxed out their credit cards, and live from one paycheck to the next. That's not living, it's treading water and hoping like heck that you don't sink.”

Wow. You DO realize many people live this way not because of having “no restraint” and spending money on $100 ‘tennis shoes’, but because they actually cannot get work that pays an actual living wage to support themselves and families, or have run into something like massive medical debts and/or disability. Some may resort to credit card debt rather than let their families go hungry. As someone who one in my early years was in a family where they were treading water and hoping not to sink, and again when I was out on my own years later for a while, having money for home renovations was not a priority at all, stretching that paycheck to have food to last an entire two weeks was. It was miserable, and no, it was not because we were choosing to buy gas-guzzling trucks, beer, and steaks. And yes, it was hard.

Financially, things are much better for me these days, as they are for the rest of my family, but I hope I never become so far removed from myself and reality as to not recognize my current privilege, and where I assume the financial constraints and misfortunes of others are always “their fault” for “not making better choices”.

Not sure why it's okay to get a mortgage to buy a house for $800k, but it's not okay to get a mortgage to buy a house and do renovations for $700k but the result is a house that is worth $800k? I think a lot of people on this thread seem to not understand finances -- neither how to make a good financial decision or that some people have different finances than others.

An hour after I posted here, I got a call from the bank that holds our mortgage. They offered us an equity loan so we could go on vacation, redecorate, remodel, or just have some fun. I almost laughed, but the gentleman was so sincere (no really, I know who it was) that I just said "no thank you, we're just fine the way we are."

So as one of those "grumpy farts" that the poster above referred to (hey, thanks for that), there was a time when we had CC balances to pay down slowly, medical bills we couldn't afford to pay, 10 year old cars, and it was a BIG DEAL to spend $25 on a night out. Now that we can pay our bills on time every month, we still don't choose to go into debt unnecessarily. Life can come at you fast and you just never know what is around that corner.

I had paid off the entire mortgage on the 984 soft townhouse I bought in 2002 by 2010, and the value of the place was more than double what I paid to buy it when we sold (for above asking) in 2017. I paid cash for new paint, new carpet/floors, and removal of the popcorn stuff from the ceilings in 2016 while still putting a little in the retirement account and of course paying bills and normal expenses. My car was 11 years old when I sold it before we moved, we don’t go on vacations and only in February of this year did we begin as foster parents with two kiddos placed in our home. I do not like owing money, we pay any credit card balance off monthly, and were able to buy our present home with the proceeds of selling the previous one plus a lot left over so we could do a few updates (paint, carpet, floors, counters, and two appliances that replaced the broken/malfunctioning ones that were sold with the house) and buy me a car - the mister’s truck title was included in the offer of employment/compensation to sweeten the deal enough to ‘lure’ him from his prior employer.

The townhome still had the tile counters in the kitchen that were there when I bought it, the only change to the cabinets was the color they were painted. It was staged to sell so all of our furniture and such except for the mattress, clothes, tv and my work computer were packed into a POD. When it was being shown I took the dog and myself out to the car to wait, if there were several showings scheduled we drove to a park nearby and I would wait for my agent to call and let me know they were done. There wasn’t much of a need for a ton of expensive updates for the place to sell, SoCal happened to be a hot market for townhomes or other types of ‘entry level’ homes especially at the time. I think people can get themselves in way over their heads with loans and credit, just because you make plenty and have some semblance of job security *now* doesn’t mean it can’t change on a dime. Another recession or major health crisis is all it would take, particularly for those without health coverage or work in certain industries.

HGTV gives an unrealistic look at buying, selling, and renovating homes - it makes for good tv but that’s about all. Unfortunately people watching only see the ‘glamour of new and shiny’, it’s so easy and looks so simple, why can’t they also grab a sledgehammer and get the open concept floor plan of their dreams! It’s more difficult and kind of a dream killer having to remind them of the fact that there are a lot of things that never make it out of the editing room and their home is not the same as the one whoever the tv person is just demo’d the walls in...Businesses that sell things have a vested interest in convincing people they need to buy what they are selling. It’s a matter of taking the time to decide whether you need or just want to buy what they’re selling. If it’s a want, ideally you’ll have first prepared your finances for the inevitable pressing home repair/replace need that will pop up after you decide to start the work for the thing you wanted done.

Rai Kai, I was not referring to people like you who have to struggle to overcome what life throws at you, but believe me I know quite a few who are in the category that I describe who complain they can never keep up, and yet do the things that hold them back. They have health insurance, make a good wage, but spend up to the limit of their paychecks. There have been times when I've had to watch every penny, but not having children has made it less difficult for me, and I know it's much more of a challenge for those who do. I have great empathy for those who struggle to make ends meet, as my parents did when I was growing up, but there are also many people who are not frugal because they have good jobs and somehow assume that their situation won't change. When a large part of the population don't have $500 to fall back on then I do think they don't use their money wisely.

At one time, we had CC debt that was staggering. It did not happen due to high living, it happened due to repairs on very old cars, house repairs (old house), transportation to and from college for children (had to fly - no car), transportation for my husband to and from his job 1200 miles away (school holiday time) etc. It all added up as we were paying the minimum monthly payment.

Fortunately, when we bought our house we took out a very small mortgage - less than $100,000. We had owned the house for about 20 years and the value had increased and our mortgage was getting paid off. We refinanced our house at a lower interest rate, did a 15 yr mortgage, and took enough cash out to pay off every single one of our credit cards. Our monthly payment was actually lower than before.

Never again was a credit card not paid in full each month. Of course, it also helped that both children were now out of college!

I have since refinanced 3 more times - better interest rate each time, and took cash out to use for home improvements/maintenance. Each time it was a fixed rate, 15 yr mortgage. Each time, my monthly payment was lower. The last time I did this was 2 years ago and that's when I remodeled my kitchen. With interest rates rising, I won't be refinancing again. I also don't need to - my house is now the way I want it (took over 30 years to accomplish this!), and it has new roof, gutters, HVAC, hot water heater - you name it, it's in good shape.

I have no problem with debt used wisely. I'm not a fan of Dave Ramsey as I think his philosophy is extreme. But I think that CC debt is insidious. If one has to go into debt to buy groceries or ones meds, then a major lifestyle change is probably in order.

My UPS driver told me just this week that he pays ZERO for his family's health insurance, and their family annual deductible is $200. If I had a ton of debt and someone in the family had health issues, I'd quit my job and get a job at UPS sorting packages (that's the entry level for most UPS jobs and they promote rapidly). Our local GE plant is also another place with the kind of job benefits that are unheard of these days.

Sometimes one just crunch the numbers and see what will work best. But CC debt is NEVER the best way. A lost job, a serious illness - one will quickly be making that minimum payment. Looking at a recent AmEx bill, I can see that I owed about $4100 that month. If I made the minimum payment of $81 and MADE NO ADDITIONAL CHARGES, it would take me NINE years to pay off that bill!!! NINE YEARS!!!! Thank goodness CC bills now have that info on them - I wish they had when we were getting so wildly in debt - we might have looked for other solutions - we were too dumb to know or didn't want to know.

If I can't afford to pay off a bill when it comes due, I don't make the purchase. Being debt free (with the exception of a reasonable mortgage and perhaps a car loan), is a very nice way to live - no panic/anxiety attacks in the middle of the night. Most people can do it if they re-set their priorities, make some sacrifice and get some good financial advice. But for many, the idea of giving up an expensive cable TV package, their expensive smart phone package, eating out, vacations, new clothes, is just too big a sacrifice in their eyes. They just don't realize that one job loss, one illness with huge co-pays, could put them over the edge.

I'm always amazed to see so many house foreclosures in suburbs where the average house is over $2,000,000. How did it get to that point? Did they somehow qualify for a mortgage that was WAY more than they could afford? Of did they lose that 7-figure job but have zero savings? They simply had to be living WAY beyond their means, and then some catastrophe happened and they had nothing to fall back on. The housing market in these suburbs still has not totally recovered from 2008 so selling a house is not something that happens quickly. But I wonder how long did they wait to try to sell before they hit foreclosure?

I have a grandson going to college in the fall - the same Ivy his mother and father attended. I well remember taking DD there and seeing the row of tables lined up, hawking CC's to incoming freshmen. We forbade DD getting one - she had a debit card. In the fall of her senior year, we allowed her to get an AmEx card that required payment in full each month - she needed to start establishing some sort of credit history in order to rent an apt after graduation. She told me that many of her friends were graduating, not only with student loans (she had none - 4-yr Army ROTC scholarship), but with $5,000-8000 in CC debt, mostly spent on beer and pizza!!!! I'm assuming they will tell DGS the same but am taking no chances - I'm telling him NO CC's! He's a saver so I think he will listen.

I recently read that David Rockefeller said that his father (old JD Rockefeller) gave the boys an allowance, but they were required to save 1/3, give 1/3 to their church or to some charity, and live on the other 1/3. Good advice to a child!

It's my view that a lot of people, perhaps the majority, do not in fact have a good understanding of financial issues.

You need to have a roof over your head, absolutely true, and that generally means going into debt for a mortgage. That is "good debt" because it provides you with a place to live, and potentially (but not necessarily) some future capital growth. It is not good debt, however, if you buy a house that exceeds your capacity to repay the debt comfortably. And many people do overbuy. "Wants" exceed "needs" and that's not a good place to be.

The same goes for loans to undertake renovations. Yes, if you need to take out a loan because the roof needs replacing or the plumbing is faulty, then that is an essential, even though it adds no value to the house. Taking out a loan to update a perfectly functional kitchen because you want a different look is not good debt, in the sense that it will likely add less value to your house than it costs to redo.

Spending money, and paying interest to do it, even when interest rates are low, only makes sense as an actual financial investment if you expect a return, and most home renovations don't give you that. Of course there are factors other than financial when it comes to renovating, but ignoring the financial realities can put people in risky territory. And too often, folks don't actually do the numbers, because the desire to have everything we want, and have it right now, seems to have become inbuilt in society.

Beyond all of this, the fact is, houses aren't necessarily the good investments people imagine them to be. Add the cost of the interest on the mortgage, plus all the expenses of home maintenance, insurance, utilities, property taxes and the like, to the original purchase price and suddenly that big profit you thought you made fades away. You'd get more return investing in an index fund over 20 years, than in a house over the same period.

So you have to think of your house primarily as shelter and not an investment. If you do that, then you can balance how important your short term "wants" are against your longer term financial goals. By all means, enjoy your current life, but don't mortgage your future to do it.

My DH and his ex kept refinancing to take out the equity in their home to buy things like cars that depreciate quickly. By the time they got divorced, the housing market deflated, and we met and got married, there was no equity in the house at all, even after we spent thousands on needed repairs in the four years we lived in the house. So much for refinancing.

since then we’ve bought and sold four more times, and made lots of improvements as we had the cash to pay for them. I focused on keeping the house ship-shape and making it comfortable and attractive. We made a profit every time we moved (for his job) and traded up to a nicer house.

I’ve seen in my thirty-something step-kids and their friends that they feel they should have everything NOW. New cars, regular mani-pedis, every electronic device known to man, several vacations a year, the most expensive cable plan, etc. I remember getting my first ever pedi at around age 45. When I was young, and then when we had the kids with us, there wasn’t money to waste on unnecessary things. Even on a good income. Retirement saving came first. Rainy day cash was always on hand. We never paid a cent of credit card interest.

Some people have lots of extra money to spend on renovations. Some go into debt to do it. Some save until they can pay cash. Everyone has different circumstances and values. I don’t know how much help the people get when they have their renovations done as part of a show. Personally, I don’t think i’d Be able to turn control of my home over to a tv personality even if they were subsidizing the job.

Many of the renovation budgets I’ve seen are completely unrealistic. As quite a few of the shows I’ve seen film in my area it’s not a regional difference I’m equating. I long ago decided that the budgets are not what layman would be paying, they are probably charging for materials but significantly discounting the actual labor. The production company probably covers that as a cost of doing business. When I see a show where they overhaul a kitchen, the master bed and bath, a family room and the exterior for $50k I know it’s wrong.

Annette nailed it. The budgets are complete fabrications on those shows.

Annette nailed it, I'd just put "for sure" instead of "probably". Our project manager worked for some HGTV show at one point..)) told me about it. told us "don't believe a single word, it's a show"

"Spending money, and paying interest to do it, even when interest rates are low, only makes sense as an actual financial investment if you expect a return, and most home renovations don't give you that."

This is only partly true. We pay for a lot of things that do not give us a financial return...vacations, new clothes, cars, etc. If you EXPECT a return on your investment, you have to approach your remodel much differently than if you are simply paying for the enjoyment of living in a newly remodeled home. At my firm, we take a much different approach to the design process when our client tells us they will be in the home for less than five years than when they tell us it is their "forever home". When it comes to remodeling, it's less about cost and more about value. And one person's value is different than the next.

Anglophilia - "I have no problem with debt used wisely. I'm not a fan of Dave Ramsey as I think his philosophy is extreme"

I agree that Dave Ramsey is extreme but I'd argue that if one follows his baby steps correctly, then financially speaking, they'd be in good hands. I know first hand after following his advice for over a year that I'm better off financially. Before I knew I about him, I had some savings but not very much. I was "normal" and just doing what most people do - spend what they make... Fast forward, and I've paid off all debt expect for my home and have more in savings than I ever imagined. 2 years ago I couldn't imagine my life without a car payment. It was actually weird to me to think that one could drive a decent car without a payment. Now I'm doing just that! I use to be the queen of 12 months 0% interest. Now I pay cash and never see 12 months worth of bills on an item. If I want something, I save up. Sure, I could go finance it. But that was the old me. The new me learned the meaning of "NO" and it has served me well.

Just the other day my tax guy said I owed almost $2800. The old me would have panicked and wondered where this money is going to come from. The new me (the one that follows Dave Ramsey) just transferred $$ out of my savings and wrote the check. No stress. No panic. I much prefer this route.

In today's society, especially millennials (and I'm one of them) it's as if no one understands the concept of "No" or "waiting" - everyone wants it NOW! Why do you think the market is so hot everywhere? It's not just because the economy is doing well, but it's also because we have a generation of millennials finally buying their first or second home and they are NOT going to wait.

People use student loans to buy cars and take trips. People finance gas and pay interest on it. People rent their washer and dryer when they could have bought one on CL for what two months worth of payments would have cost. People do stupid on steroids (This is a Dave Ramsey line).

Sure, some people have it together, actually make good money and can afford nice things. But my guess is a good portion of people don't. And when the next bubble burst we'll know who was financing their gas, washer & dryer, and home renovations.

My advice: Start saving. See what it takes to run your household for 3-6 months and then start saving for that amount. Don't rely on credit cards, HELOC, or mom and dad. Start saving now. Savings = peace of mind.

I use to want to be the Joneses and keep up with what's cool. I know what's cool now - $$ in the bank, paid off car, equity in my home. It's stuff you can't see but gives you peace of mind.

The Joneses are an illusion anyway.

Brava, Briana -- I wish I had your skills!