Wow, I got paged! Thanks
@ToTheMoon!
Couple of thoughts:
The deal with your husband is a big problem. All "your" money pays the bills, and all "his" money goes into an invisible account that he can do whatever he wants with? Yeah, no. I don't care if you're mustachian or not; if you are going to plan for a joint future, you need to understand what all of the joint assets are and where all of that joint money is going. Period. You cannot possibly make a reasonable decision about houses or rentals or campers or whatever without knowing how much money you have and how much money you are spending. It's not about questioning his decisionmaking; it's about knowing what you have. Again: period. It starts here.
Second: $3600/mo. mortgage is not a small house. 2500 square feet is not a small house. Now, it may well
feel small given all the people you have there. But objectively speaking, you are already spending a lot of money on your house, and your house has sufficient size. So improving your standard of living is a lower priority. Remember: a bigger house is a consumption item, not an investment. When you upgrade, you are choosing to spend more of your spare cash on consumption -- which is a double-whammy, because it both increases the amount you need to save to be able to retire at that same standard of living and decreases the amount of money you have left to save with. So at least wait until you actually need it, instead of buying because you might want something in a few years.
If you want to set yourself up for the future, you need more investments. In particular, you should prioritize any tax-deferred savings vehicles you have available (sounds like you're Canadian, about which I know nothing, so I won't try to get more detailed than that). The earlier you get money in the market, the more years it has to compound, and the better off you are down the road.
You can certainly look at rental property. But that is a LOT more work, and with kids and parents and two full-time jobs, I think you have enough on your hands for right now! The nice thing about investments is that they do what they're going to do without any actual effort on your part. In addition, I would never recommend buying a rental house without a nice, fat stack of cash to cover contingencies, like a couple of months with no tenants, or a new roof, etc.
But really, you don't need to make the perfect decision right now. You just need to make
A decision. So make the easy decision now and start investing your money (and tracking your spending!). If you do decide you want to rent at some point, well, that option will still be there.