u/Admirable_Ice_964

Our position

• Me: 34, $250k + ~20% bonus
• Wife: 29, $175k
• Kids likely in 1–2 years; wife may take ~1 year off per child
• PPOR: ~$2.2m value, $1.5m loan
• Offset: $550k
• Shares: $130k

We currently live mostly off my wife’s salary and put mine into the offset+mortgage.

We previously owned investment properties but sold them to fund our home and offset, we didn’t enjoy the hassle of being landlords.

The goal: pay off our home and eventually own a generational holiday house in a beach area we love.

The problem is prices have exploded. Land has gone from roughly $650k to $1.4m, builds are around $700k+, and established homes are now ~$3m. I'm getting so much FOMO.

My concern is that the best cliff/beach-view blocks are genuinely scarce, so waiting until we can comfortably afford the finished house may mean missing the location altogether.

I’m considering buying the right block when it appears, holding it while we keep building the offset, then building later. Potentially putting a small/tiny home on it initially if that helps with holding costs/rental income/negative gearing.

What would you do?

• Smash the PPOR mortgage first?
• Secure scarce land now and build later?
• Who should I speak to to properly model this, tax adviser, broker, accountant, buyer’s agent?

This is definitely an emotional/lifestyle goal rather than purely an investment decision, but I want to achieve it without doing something financially stupid.

Before we got married, we had a very direct conversation about what our marriage would look like. We agreed that she wouldn’t need to work, she would have her own income and essentially no personal expenses, and I would be allowed to have a one-sided open relationship under certain agreed-upon conditions.

I know that arrangement won’t work for everyone, but it works for us. My wife knows about it, does not consider it cheating, and we have what I consider a very happy marriage and family life.

Recently I was at a conference in another city. Apparently, one of my SIL’s friends saw me kissing a woman I’m seeing and took a photo.

The photo was sent to my SIL, who then sent it to my wife. My wife told her that she would handle it and drop it.

Despite that, the photo ended up being shared in the wider family group chat, which obviously made the whole situation much more embarrassing and awkward than it needed to be.

Since then, my SIL has been extremely cold and rude toward me. She clearly thinks badly of me because of our arrangement, even though my wife has repeatedly said that I have not cheated on her and that this is something we mutually agreed to before getting married.

Here’s where the conflict comes in.

I currently pay for my SIL’s son to attend a very expensive private high school, and I also pay for a yearly family vacation that includes my SIL and her family.

I have no intention of stopping the school payments. I’m very fond of her son, and whatever issues I have with his mother have nothing to do with him.

However, I no longer want to pay for my SIL and her family to come on our annual vacation.

My reasoning is pretty simple: if she dislikes me, judges my marriage, and is going to treat me badly, I don’t really see why I should spend a significant amount of money taking her on holiday every year.

My wife is upset with me about this. She says her sister is just struggling to understand our arrangement, that this has been a shock for her, and that I should ignore the comments and continue paying for everyone as usual.

I feel like I’m already being generous by continuing to pay for her son’s education, and that a luxury vacation is a completely different thing. I don’t think I should have to fund someone’s holiday while they openly treat me like nadly.

AITA?

TL;DR SIL send a photo of me "cheating" to the IL chat and treats me badly. I don't want to pay for her to go on holiday.