We used to live in a $1,300 one-bedroom condo and realized that we weren’t home enough to enjoy the place since my husband was gone for trainings for most of the year and we both worked full time while studying for our master’s. When our lease was up for renewal and my husband was scheduled for deployment, we decided that it was best to move in with family to help save money from paying high rental fees. We moved into my sister’s home (who had plenty of space), and used the money saved toward purchasing our home. During this time, we also did a lot of research about VA loans and learned that this loan would be our best option with all that it offers — like better interest rates, no down payment, no PMI fees, and lower closing costs.

When choosing our house, we considered a lot of things like having family nearby if I needed assistance while he is away and making sure we found something that we can grow as a family. Once my husband returned from deployment, we took advantage of the low interest rates throughout the pandemic and purchased our dream house! I’m not sure if it will be our forever home, but we agree that it is definitely home for next seven years as we would like our future children to be close with family and the house is big enough to start a small family.