FINDING OUR FIRST HOME!

Back when I was working, nobody worked too long after they started showing, so we had time to shop around for house to live in. We thought it best to move into our first home.

Since we paid cash for our furniture, I wondered how we could afford to purchase a home. I figured we didn't have anything left and here we were facing a BIG purchase. Well at least it seemed huge to me. In todays housing market it would be very small in cost. The dollar went further back then, but you didn't make as much per week either. The ratio to what the home cost and what your weekly paycheck brought in, it was probably about what it is today.

I started to worry about how we were going to have money for this beside the cost of a newborn.
My husband told me that he had the money to put down on the house and not to worry. He was keeping a few dollars back for just such an event!! Thank heavens, because it sure came in handy. When he was in the service, there wasn't much for the guys to spend their money on, so he squirrelled his paycheck away. Remember he was over in England for 2 1/1 years in WWII
and all together in the service over three years. We were extremely fortunate, as we had the house paid off within a few months after we moved in.

We ended up with a smaller brick bungalow on a quiet street. It had a kitchen, dining room, living room, bath, 2 bedrooms and full basement, attached single garage, with a fenced in back yard. This was big enough for the three of us and we moved just about a month before the baby was due.

Now we had only a few weeks left to get the house in order, and the nursery fixed up. We didn't have an elaborate plan for the nursery, just the essentials. As far as curtains, our daughters wouldn't be caught dead with the curtains we ended up with in our first home. They were plastic drapes. Not very exciting, but they were drapes and we were all set for the new arrival!!

Thought--We finally put all the assets in joint tenancy, which one needs to think about early on in their marriage.