I finally hit 20% down and it felt weirdly anticlimactic
I spent two years saving up for a 20% down payment on a $275k house in Columbus. When I finally had the $55k saved, I realized I was just handing over all that cash and getting nothing back except a slightly lower monthly payment. What convinced me to change my mind was a guy at work who put down 5% on his place and said the extra $200 a month was worth keeping his savings for emergencies. Has anyone else been surprised by how little the big milestones actually change things?
UGH, okay so this is EXACTLY what my friend Jenna did and it was a total mess. She had like 60k saved up, bought a house with 5% down, and then her water heater died like two months later. She had to put the whole thing on a credit card because she didn't want to touch her savings. Now she's paying interest on that AND her mortgage, and she complains about it every time we grab coffee. I mean, I get wanting a big safety net but honestly it just made her life harder in the end.