Being Satisfied With What You Have

I found myself over at Get Rich Slowly today reading his post called: “Bigger Isn’t Always Better: Remembering to Appreciate What I Already Have” and a number of things came to mind.  First the synopsis.  JD took the long route home yesterday which included walking past a number of large “mansion” type houses.  As he walked along, he found himself thinking about what it would be like to own a beautiful, large house like the ones on his walk.  I’ve done exactly the same thing a thousand times as well, as I’m sure you probably have too.  (trick:  Walk through neighborhoods that aren’t as nice as the one you live in.  It totally changes your perspective)

JD ultimately realized how fortunate he is in his CURRENT home and situation.  He references lifestyle inflation which is incredibly important to pay attention to.  It’s so easy to slowly increase your spending as your income levels go up.  It’s something I’ve battled for all of my adult working years and it’s why we’ve managed to keep our spending at 47% of our after tax, after investment income.

A few things came to mind as I was reading the blog post.  First, along with a large house like that comes large expenses.  Even if I could afford to buy a “mansion on the hill”, I probably couldn’t afford even the most basic expenses.  Heating and cooling a place like that would cost many hundreds of dollars a month.  Taxes on a $2.3M house would be exorbitant.  Even paying to keep the landscaping looking decent would be a significant burden.  And the list goes on and on.  For all those extra expenses, would I find myself content?  It’s doubtful.  There is always more to covet.

Secondly, I’m not sure I’d enjoy isolating myself on to a gated estate.  I’m a social person and actually enjoy conversing with my neighbors.  In a house like the one JD highlights, I’d basically be walling off the rest of my neighbors and would probably, at best, just get a wave as I drove by the people near me.

The bottom line is that I’m pretty darned happy with where I’m at in life as well.  We have a nice, reasonable house to live in that has a new roof, new siding and should be ample to last us through raising our daughter.  There is plenty of room (2700 sq feet) and we have nice neighbors.  While we could upgrade to a nicer house in a nicer neighborhood, I don’t think the economic tradeoff would come close to being worth it and I know as soon as I got there, I’d find myself yearning for the bigger, nicer house down the street.  It’s really not about the houses at all, but rather, it’s about managing your expectations and being happy with what you have.