TTC date in place

Last month, the house that Bill has been looking at every single day, twice a day on his way to and from work, went on the market. Just because it's been his dream for 7 years, we went to go look at it. Turns out, it's not quite our dream house, or at least not for anywhere close to the asking price.

However, going to see that house has done great things! We're totally redoing our finances as we're now looking to move within the next five years. Originally, we wanted to stay here for much longer, but we're running out of space in our home and the town isn't what it used to be. I ran through the numbers and figured out that we could get our forever home in a few years if we play our cards right. Now we're set on working hard to get all the student loans paid off this year, to get all the money for a family car (which we'll need for the next baby, and that way Bill and I will both have a car), and start growing our savings fund. This means that next year, we can start using our taxes, bonuses, and all overtime to start saving for a down payment on a new home.

We're also crossing our fingers that this is the year that Bill will get promoted to Foreman (he's a supervisor right now), which will be an automatic $200 extra a month, plus an extra guarantee for overtime. It also means paid family leave - so when we have the next baby, he'd still be getting paid a 40 hour week instead of getting paid nothing.

We figure that in this house, we can fit up to 4 kids. After that, we won't have enough room to even fit enough beds in their rooms. Our pattern is aimed for having a kid every 2-3 years, and for the first year of life baby stays in our room, so that gives us about 5-6 years before fitting here becomes a total impossibility, though hopefully we won't need all of them.

With finances going this new way, we've decided that it would be optimal to start TTC the next baby in June. Not only does that work well for finances, it works well for having a spring/summer baby that I want as well, so I'm doubly happy about the plan.

Obviously things don't always work out the way we plan, but it's nice to have some set goals to look forward to! (And I'm 100% addicted to looking at houses all the time! Zillow and realtor.com are my best friends at the moment!)