Good morning and thanks for reading my question. I’m a 39 years old, and I’ve been happily married for 10 years. My husband and I have 3 children, an 8 year old and 6 year old twins.

In 2001 we moved to Hampton Roads VA as Newlyweds, because we were dual military. When we got here we bought our first house, and it was a HUGE house. The house had 5 bedrooms, and 3 and half bath. I mean this house was huge. I loved that house, but I didn’t like cleaning it. We started accumulating furniture, and things to fill this house. Before you know we were in debt up to our eyebrows. Then we started having children, and then things got even tighter. My husband went to Bahrain, earned per diem, and we were able to pay off the majority of our debt with that first deployment.

In 2007, we made the decision to downsize our lifestyle. We sold most of our excess things, and we sold our huge house. Since then we’ve been living in military housing. We miss the spaciousness of our old house, but we don’t miss the bills that come along with it. I retired in 2009, and I’ve been working at a local barbershop. I make $ 800 to $ 1200 a week, not including tips. We’ve been putting 50% of my wages aside for my retirement, and the rest goes to household maintenance. Plus we put away $ 1500 a month from my husbands paycheck for retirement and 3 college funds. We’ve got a pretty decent nest egg. We find that we like living without debt or accumulating things. I know our kids love that we can afford to send them to special camp, and pay for karate every month.

I know my husband and I don’t regret doing the things we did to make sure our children have a brighter future. We plan to open a small consulting business out of our home. We want to be there for our kids. Besides each other, they are the most important people in our lives.

Do you think that it’s wrong to downsize your home or lifestyle for your family?