Buying a House

Nate and I have been talking about what the next steps in our life are going to be. I'll admit that I figured they'd be engagement, marriage, house, and kids. Well, in the last few weeks Nate has been thinking of looking into buying a house before we get married. The $8,000 tax credit plays a big part in this. He looks at this tax credit as an opportunity of money to lose (i.e., if we don't buy a house we're losing out on $8,000 of free money). I look at this as more of an emotional decision in that I always figured we'd get married then as a married couple look for a house.

I'll admit that it's weird sometimes doing married couple things without being engaged. For instance, tonight we went to a First Time Home Buyers seminar at GESA Credit Union. It was apparent that Nate and I were together and so I felt weird being at a home buying seminar without a ring on my finger. As if people were looking at us and thinking "not married, shouldn't get a house". I think we've basically narrowed down our options to two choices. A) We wait to buy a house until after we're married, and B) Nate buys a house with his own money (my input on the house is to buy is as if we were married) and then I move into the house after marriage. There are pros and cons to each option, and depending on who you ask, one makes more sense than the other. I suppose if you look at the options from a purely financial standpoint instead of an emotional one, one option does make more sense. I'm just not ready to take that leap yet. Still thinking things through.

So that's what our main discussion for tonight was. Although, using my awesome girl powers I did sneak in a few wedding/marriage discussions! :-)