<prompt> Human: Between my wife and myself, we make about 105,000 annually. We have around 50k savings. Im 42 and shes 43. We have two kids remaining in the house who will both be out of high school in three years. Our only debt other than our mortgage is an 8k car loan which was one of those 0 finance deals. We pay off credit cards every month.Our current house is a rather small condo. There are issues with the complex which are slowly being worked on by the association. Depending on where you look up, my condo is worth between 88k and 95k. I bought it at 100k near the height of the dot.com bubble. The 88k comes from someone who actually sold a condo at that price within a year or so.Ive refinanced a couple of times, once to lower my rate, and another to go from a 30 year to 15 year. Im two years into that 15 year and have 75k left. I try to pay extra every month to add to equity and get it paid off sooner. So our savings is decent but our equity is limited.The house is adequate for just my wife and me. Its cramped for the family, but we moved them in when the bubble burst and she had a bad balloon mortgage she should not have gotten from a disreputable company that took her for a ride. She short sold the house and that was well over 7 years ago so its off her credit. My credit is pristine around 800 or so, and her credit score is nearing mine now.My wife wants to move into a larger home. Weve found some possibilities but all are in the 200k range. Some goals she has in mind:1 Shes worried about the kids after high school. I want them to strike out on their own because thats what I think a parent should push their kids to do.2 She wants a better place to entertain friends and family. I agree this would be nice.3 She doesnt want to move from the township. The average house price in the area is 200k for something from the 50s or 60s that might need some work. I find that this is extremely limiting because in 3 years it wont matter if we are in the same school district or not.My main worries are going into a new mortgage at our age. If we got a new 30 year fixed mortgage, it would be paid off when I was 72... or less if I pay a little extra. the thought of continuing to be in debt until then doesnt make me feel great and would mean using all of our savings to buy said house. She wants to travel to Europe at least once and vacation with other extended family at some point. I want to visit college friends this summer.Am I being TOO cautious? I obviously havent spelled out my budget here, just looking to get a sense if my gut feelings are warranted or not.  <response>: Your annual income indicates that you should be able to easily afford this.Your lack of progress on your current mortgage leads me to believe there are some spendingbudget issues going on. You should have been able to pay off a condo for 100k on your salary within 10 years. My advice would be to only get a house you see just the two of yourselves living in. Most people in their 40s and 50s are downsizing. If you want a nicer house, fine, weigh it against what sacrifices youll have to make in your cash-flow to make that happen, but Im not sure if bigger really makes all that much sense at this point. 