I don’t see property taxes or home maintenance on this budget. Surely it’s not the $50 “other”? I’ve always heard ~3% of the value of the house is a good rule of thumb for an annual fund for house maintenance. If you live in a wildly expensive (or inexpensive) area that would need to be adjusted up or down. A new roof on two identical homes would cost roughly the same regardless of the land value in different areas. You won’t spend that money every year but eventually you’ll need a new roof, windows, furnace or A/C, major appliances, flooring, etc. If they happen to all need replacing in the same year you’d better be prepared. These are not emergencies, they should be budgetted as expenses that just don’t happen on a monthly basis.

I’m personally struggling with wanting to sell our home. Our property taxes and utilities total $11k/yr. Even with the mortgage gone we could rent a small apartment with utilities included for that. I can certainly think of lots I could do with the ~$600k I’d get for selling the house and I’d retire now (at 46) rather than at 65. That would more than cover our living expenses for the next 20yrs until we start collecting our government pensions and begin cashing in our retirement savings accounts.

Paying off our mortgage ASAP is a priority so that we have early retirement options, but to me, sitting “free” in our biggest investment doesn’t really seem to make sense. If I had my way I’d be off travelling so much it wouldn’t matter where I lived, but DH wants to stay in our home until he’s carried out in a box. We clearly have a lot of discussing and negotiating to do… Perhaps doing up a Dream Budget staying in the house and another selling and renting would be a good starting point for discussion.