Fluff vent: Who does that much entertaining??

You didn’t bold it, I did. I’m just wondering what that has to do with anything...

drinking and smoking are a huge waste of money. Many young adults spend too much money on those vices which keeps them from saving as much as they could. 

I just twenty for lunch, so I guess I entertain. But the real reason we blew out the wall between the family room and kitchen was so that we could see the big screen tv while we cook.

$40,000 would be a 20% down payment on a $200,000 home and there are many many many places that there's no such thing as a $200,000 home. Most young couples have dual incomes. Early career wages in a lot of industries are pretty darn good these days and significant signing and/or annual bonuses are not uncommon. That all contributes to young couples being able to save (*if* they're not drowning in student loan).

It's all about aspirational fantasizing. Imagining all the parties you'll host in your big open plan kitchen family room or sitting drinking your coffee at the little bistro table on the deck or balcony. In reality, most people don't do those things, buy they love to imagine they would with the right house.

I am a super introvert but we have people over more than I would have thought we would as empty nesters. Lots of it was family over for dinner, but my neighborhood is also incredibly social and for some reason I seem to enjoy that, which surprises me since I really am pretty introverted. I would say in 2018 we had people over for dinner or other stuff maybe 10 or 15 times, around once a month or so. That is a lot for me. In 2017 it was even more, and 2016 even more than 2017. We no longer drink, so that has put a bit of a dent into the number of get-togethers, and that is okay, too. 2018 was the year that an episode of a TV show was filmed in my house, though. There were A LOT OF PEOPLE in my house that day. I loved every minute of it and we would do it again in a heartbeat. I think the show is airing soon, actually.

Separate from that, I think open concept stuff is fine and dandy, but there are lots of people who don't really prefer it. I am one of them. We live in a house that is probably 120 years old or so, not far from downtown Knoxville. In order to get an open concept house here, you would have to do some serious butchering to one of these older homes, which are predominantly historic Victorians or craftsman. That is starting to happen because my neighborhood is now white-hot in terms of desirability, and it's always weird to see it in the real estate listings, where a renovator has come in and turned a classic craftsman into a standard suburban subdivision home on the inside. But people are buying them up, so that just goes to show that there's no one type of home for everyone, despite what HGTV seems to promote. In my neighborhood, when people come over it's expected that you give a tour if they have not been to your house before, because all of the interiors are different and everybody wants to look at the historic details that have been preserved/the way the house was renovated. My house won a historic preservation award for the great job the previous owner did. He took it from "raining inside the house" and the house broken up into three apartments to a beautiful, livable place. The house was condemned before he bought and saved it, actually. All the stories that go along with these houses are told and retold, since my part of the neighborhood is in the historic district and there's a whole separate sort of culture to that, it seems like.

This!  Every single time.  I’m lucky if I can drink a cup of tea, in the car, on the way to work!