For all the big city, or small space living Bees:

I need help adjusting my expectations. My husband and I have been house hunting for....4 months. Our baby is due in July, and we still have no idea where we're living. Awesome.

We found the perfect place way back in January, went through a massive bidding war, upping our price several time to win---then went through attorney review (and paid for that), paid for the appraisal, and then in the last day of attorney review, someone came in a offered the buyer even MORE money, and they dropped us without giving us a chance to counter. I'm still a little (read: a lot) bitter over that.

Since then, every month, the market here (NYC area) has gotten more and more competitive. The stats are that each month, the market (in the particular area we are looking at) gets 1% more expensive. So now, at the end of april, things are almost 5% more expensive than they were at the beginning of January!!

We just moved to this area from Dallas last summer, where in the suburbs, we could literally be living in a 4500 sq ft, 5 bedroom McMansion with a 3 car garage, swimming pool, etc.....for for that price, here we can get:

-A 1,000 sq ft 2 bedroom apartment with a tiny kitchen
-or a 1190 sq ft 2 bedroom that is right next to a major highway and the "view" is another building about 20 ft from every window in this unit.
-a really nice 1290 sq ft unit that frankly, will be a "stretch" for a budget. A little scary, considering we have a kid due soon and daycare in this area is insane and will also be a "stretch", alone with all the other many baby expenses.

My husband grew up in a developing country. His family had to sleep in concrete bomb shelters with every other person in the neighborhood (sleeping on the floor on straw mats) and he didn't go to school for a year because of his country's civil war. Then they escaped and lived in a small apartment while he grew up, and his "bedroom" was the living room until he went to college. So, he's very pragmatic about the whole thing, and just wants to go with the cheapeast unit (for financial reasons), even if it's much smaller.

I would *never* have categorized myself as "spoiled" until meeting my husband, but I *do* think that babies and baby stuff takes up a lot of space, and I'm terrified of buying a 1000 sq ft space and feeling like it's really small and we don't have space for anything. The kitchen is small, very few cabinets...the closets are small, the living room is small---the only plus is that there is a small gym in the building and everything has been updated inside.

Seriously...Bees.....we are so far apart on this one. He thinks we can make do with a very small space if it saves us money (but he also wants to have a second LO 2 years after this one comes---so, we'd be a family of 4 in 1000 sq ft). I want to stretch our budget and get the biggest place (it also has the most convenient location, big closets, gym in building.

We're at a stalemate. I know that if I HAD TO, I could live in a small space. I mean, I work in public education, and the first condo I bought and lived in happily (alone) was only 590 sq ft.

But with kids...I just feel like we're going to regret not having more space. I'm really torn on this one. Would I like to have more spending money each month or buy a new car or have more money for vacations? Sure. But if the tradeoff is feeling cramped all the time as a first-time mom....I can't figure out if the tradeoff is worth it.

Full disclosure: Right now, we really don't live on a tight budget at all. We take multiple vacations a year, if we want something, we just buy it--we don't clip coupons or even really try to buy food on sale. There IS room for us to save some money other places.

Everyone we know keeps telling us to move out to the suburbs, but I really don't want to---my husband already works long hours, and if we live further away, the baby and I will see him even less. I'm willing to sacrifice space to have more time with DH.

Advice? Anyone here living with 1-2 kids in a tiny place? How do I adjust my expectations and stop thinking about the McMansion we'd be living in if we were still in Dallas? (haha....but seriously).

I guess I just never pictures myself raising kids in this kind of....small space. And part of me (okay, maybe I Am spoiled) can't believe that people in our income level have to. Ugh.

By the way, DH has also commented lately that we'll just "pare down" and go without things like a Rock n Play, or maybe we'll just have an umbrella stroller instead of a real stroller (um...won't work with an infant), and that changing tables, dressers, or even a closet specifically for the baby are unnecessary. And keep in mind we have bought absolutely NOTHING so far for the baby...no crib, no clothes, no diapers. Nothing.

So I think both of us have unrealistic expectations about what having an infant will actually be like.

HELP! I'm starting to freak out.