Our American Dream. The Story So Far

It all started when I was a twinkle in my father eye...
Just kidding I couldn't possibly go down that road. For the past 6 years I've been working in the trade show graphics industry. For a time things were going great. Colleen and I bought a house three years ago, because that's what you do right? You get married, you buy house, you have kids, happily ever after right? The portrait of the American dream. We bought in. It seemed like the right thing to do. Fast forward, and the economy took a dive and the housing market crashed. We worked hard to get where we are so naturally we wanted to fight to stay there. The problem is that while or income stays the same our bills keep going up. I haven't seen a raise in years, but the house is just becoming more expensive each year. Now I wouldn't mind the struggle if someone told me that in a year or two things would turn around and get a little easier. The reality is the value of the house dropped by nearly $50,000. So while everyone always says "paying rent is just losing money, a mortgage payment is saving your money as an investment" I know a bad investment when I see one and paying a large mortgage on a house that's worth $50,000 less then I'm paying is just a bad investment. It's no ones fault,  know one could have predicted what would happen, but we are faced with a choice. Keep spending every penny we have and living to work, or try and get out and make a change. Well to be honest, we're just tired of being broke. We figure that were young enough and we don't yet have kids so if were going to make a big change now would be the time to do it. So that's what were doing. There is a number of circumstances that would make us think otherwise, but we are not happy where we are and that's the bottom line. So despite popular opinion we're going to temporarily put the american dream on hold. We have always said that if you don't like something in your life then change it. Well it's time for us to practice what we preach. We've been looking for a while, and we're ready for a fresh start. Our sites are set on completely turning our lives upside down, and moving to the west coast. We have a long road ahead of us, and anything could happen, but as of right now we have nothing to lose. We'll have to take this journey one day at a time and see what happens.
-Lenny