Eyeballing 15 with a zero in sight

Okay, in response to a small note on Sal's blog... Let me first address how extremely debt averse I have become. I despise borrowing money. I've become more of a budget stickler. This last month, I wanted to see how much I could save up by collecting amassing all the quarters from our cash purchase change. (i.e. spend cash and throw the change in a bucket but dig out all the quarters.) Well, I got $50 in about 3 weeks. I'm not sure what the current percentage is, but a little more than a year ago, we lived on 23-25% of our income (with a goal of less than 6% in time.)

All that is said... I hate debt. We've saved more than $ in becoming debt free. My wife says she has saved 3 hours per week in paperwork & book keeping by not managing debt. My wife & I have become much closer (ergo... a daughter is on the way. No, I won't explain any further.) I really believe that the borrower becomes slave to the lender. Not just indebted to... I mean SLAVE.

We are expecting to save up cash for our next house and just PAY for it. There are those who call this dumb (i'll explain the mathematics of that decision later in this post) but let's just suspend the modern logic of borrowing and just go back to an old world BC mentality. Just how many folks do you know who have houses paid off that lose their paid-for homes in foreclosure? How many debt free folks get repo's?

I am of the firm belief that if you cannot pay cash for something, you can't afford it (with an acceptable exception made for real estate... but would still prefer paid for period!) Okay, now the explanation of the title: Rebekah & I have discussed the idea of our next home purchase being a land purchase. Buying the land and building on it.

Well, I found 15 acres for approximately $100k. It has a 5 acre pond (i.e. 10 acres + 5 acre pond) and 2 build sites alloted in the land. I'm about to salivate it looks so awesome. It's in a small town (even better) and would be perfect if up-fitted with gazeboes and such for weddings. All this coming as we're expecting our first child within days. We also don't have the cash budgeted for that size purchase. I'm just praying that the Father lets it hang out there long enough so we can purchase it. But, then again... it's just dirt (ok, mud if you count the water.) but it's pretty dirt. And I still wouldn't borrow money for it... partially because we'd have to borrow a good sum to build there. Not in the mood to grab a building project that tends to go 10-30% over cost as fuel, concrete & commodities are all headed higher in the midst of home buying season.

nope. Pete's next purchase will likely fall sometime around... oh... Thanksgiving of any given year... Maybe December. LOL.

just hope the housing crisis gets a little worse before it gets better.