How did our parents do it???

Embarking on mommyhood is very exciting to me. I am thrilled to be carrying my son right now and can't wait to meet him. I just worry about the stress I have also been carrying lately. Living in Florida after the housing bubble burst has been really been hard on our family. We bought our house two years ago with the intention of selling within two or three years. It was going to be our starter home. Housing prices were pretty much guaranteed to go up a few percent each year. We were going to take whatever equity we gained in a couple of years, sell the house, and use it as downpayment for a better house.

Well, the bubble popped and our house is worth thousands less than we paid for it. We have a loan that was not intended to be a longterm loan. Interest only for ten years was going to be okay if we were just going to stay in our house a couple of years. Now that there is no end in sight to our housing dilemna, we will have nothing paid toward our principal. It's basically like we are paying really high rent right now. This was not our plan.

We have an empty rental property on our left that has been empty for months now. I'm not complaining, as the management company does not seem to put desirable neighbors in there. The house on our right was built just a couple of years ago. It was originally purchased for $205K the same year we bought our house. Now the house is empty and is selling for $129K or less, depending on what offers come in. So that will kill any chance of our house ever increasing in value again.

We are in a rock and a hard place. Big time. Hubs has been struggling with his job due to the poor economy. People are not in the position to buy right now. No one is moving into new houses and if they are, they don't have extra income to purchase what he's selling. It really feels like a recession nowadays. I don't know how we'll get through this.

I know people have gone through worse times and managed okay. We will be okay, in the end. I know we will. I just wonder how we will get there. And until we get there, I just sit back, bewildered at how our parents ever did it. My mom and dad had three kids by the time they were my age. I'm almost thirty and we're having our first baby.

How the heck are we gonna do this? How the heck did our parents do it? Keeping my chin up as best I can. Hopefully we will find out, and it won't be as bad as I worry.