Dreaming...

[Disclaimer - this post has absolutely nothing to do with dermatomyositis!  It is just for fun].

Do you like my new house???

Well, actually it is not mine yet - it is the Kinsmen Dream Home Lottery house this year.  And I have a good feeling that we are going to win it!

Not that I'm greedy or anything - certainly the two of us do not need a 2630 square foot home!  No, we will live in it for a year (to avoid paying extra tax) and then sell it and use the money to pay off our current house.  We'd have some left over of course, so we'd use it very sensibly - top off our RRSPs and tax-free savings account contributions, pay off the outstanding money we owe on the cabin, finish the deck and fence in our yard as well as finishing our basement, donate to a few causes we support, and give each of our siblings a bit of mad money to play with.  And let's face it, since I am no saint, the hubby and I would take an extended holiday in Europe!

I'm not going to lie, it would be fun to live in that big house for a year like hoity-toity rich people (for the first and last time in our lives!)  Specifically, I would love the big library room at the entrance to the house.  It would be lovely to finally have a place to put all of our books!  We would also have some great parties, with the huge kitchen, deck, and walk-out basement.  And since we do not currently have a fireplace in our house, I would enjoy that over the winter, too.  But we'd stay sensible, sell the big house after our year was up, and move back into our smaller (but still lovely) home - albeit with a few upgrades :)

The best part of this scenario would be the removal of financial stressors from our lives.  I fully realize that we are not the hardest-done-by people in the world - far from it!  But let's face it, it would be lovely to not have a mortgage to worry about.  All in all, it wouldn't be a drastic, life-altering amount of money; we'd still need to continue to work and live regular lives like everyone else.  We'd just have a bit of breathing room.  Friends of ours from our Edmonton days won $38 million in the lottery (no, unfortunately not close friends - acquaintances from our frisbee team :) - and while it's easy to believe that amount of money would make life perfect, I think it would bring its own set of stressors.  Namely, everyone and their dog hitting you up for money.  As my hubby will attest, I am the biggest bleeding-heart pushover ever, and I would have a really hard time turning anyone down for anything with that kind of money.  Plus, we've all heard the stories of people who won gobs of money in the lottery and ended up worse off than before.

Also, let's face it, winning this house is not nearly as pie-in-the-sky of a dream as winning the lottery.  After all, this is local - someone around here is going to win it.  Hopefully it is me!  This doesn't make me greedy, does it?!