I know it is hard to believe but you have to realize that in the last 4 years all our cash has gone into the remodelling. The idea to buy such a big house was driven by the fact that when we both sounded like a very good deal and we decided to buy a house that we would never have to move from once we had children and so on. we have no other debt other than the loan and all the cash we were back saving went into buying mu new used car after my last one broke down. we are actually very conservative with money and in the last year I started to work (about 44000 a year) and my husband had a rise, so we are doing much better now and I expect we will be able to start saving money soon as we have no more extra expenses in the house unless we want to sell (changing the floor in 2 bedrooms and a bathroom that we never use)