I chose financial freedom over home ownership. Here is why!
The posh days of home ownership....
To start, I understand this isn’t for everyone, and this is not a recommendation, but at my current life juncture, it made sense for me to do this experiment now. It wasn’t an easy decision to sell my beautiful three-bedroom, one-story home, in an affluent neighborhood with a great interest rate, but spoiler alert, I have little regret. Although, I do have my moments, like when I am needing something that is in storage and I have no idea which box it is in.
I had been dipping into savings regularly, just to make ends meet after my divorce, which wasn’t sustainable. I hung on until my baby graduated high school this year, and then once I became an empty nester I had OPTIONS! Since I was no longer receiving child support, I knew I had to make a change in order to still have retirement left when I actually retired. I was 55 so had some time to go. I was lucky in the fact that my timing was good in terms of buying real estate, so I had some decent equity in my home. My biggest concern was that I would burn through my equity and then never be able to get back into another house again, so I decided to get aggressive in my changes and drastically cut expenses by using some equity to pay off all debt and then put the rest in a high-interest savings account and a high-interest money market account so at least it would make a little money while it was sitting there, and I felt the desire to make a move.
I had been looking for an excuse to use this ever since I snapped this in Hobby Lobby a year ago!
My relationship had recently ended, so I asked my friend Carol, who was renting a house from her brother, if I could rent a room from her thinking we would both benefit from lowering our expenses. It was certainly a challenge to go from a three-bedroom home to a single small room in a smaller house, but I am making it work for now, and feel so grateful to have this option.
I had been following Mister Money Mustache for awhile and was hooked! His financial advice on saving money and investing was fascinating so I and took a page out of his book, sort of…. and took the plunge of a drastic lifestyle switch. I feel such inspiration and gratitude for his sage advice. Check out his fascinating Arizona Experiment article. It ironically popped up in my inbox as I was writing this post and it is much aligned with this one! He is an interesting mix of carpenter, engineer, investor guru, and father. MMM retired around the time he was 30 to have the time to more fully parent his son and follow his passions. That sounds amazing right?
Some general benefits...
Life got so much simpler! I went from taking care of kids, a house, and a couple of animals to a single room in someone else’s house. My pets are temporarily on a long-term visit at Nana’s house, on the farm (indoors of course) and the kids are off at college and doing well. Ginger my baby girl pooch, gets to go to work with Nana and hang with Bella her Yorkie BFF. Okay, maybe Ginger doesn’t see it that way, but she doesn’t seem to mind either. Memphis on the other hand is struggling a bit more with his living arrangement since I am his person, but I digress. Don’t hate me, it is temporary, if Ginger will have me back that is! How… it got simpler is, I no longer have to weed flower beds, mow, clean a house, or prepare meals for another human, which has pros and cons. I am far less stressed when it comes time to pay bills as I can actually pay them from what I make, if I’m not overspending. Admittedly I have over spent a couple of times on things I couldn’t buy before as well as do things like fly my oldest to Dallas from Boulder, and us going to Austin to spend some much needed quality time together.
Health benefits...
A couple of weeks after I got settled in, I signed up for a pre-made meal service. After much research, I decided on Factor. They are fresh and never frozen. You can select your plan such as keto, calorie smart, protein plus, flexitarian, and chef’s choice. I found most of them to be surprisingly delicious. To track my overall health, I bought an Oura ring, which I find fascinating in the details it provides about stress and sleep in particular. I’m now obsessed with my sleep quality. Needing a more convenient gym, I chose 24 Hour Fitness. The gym smells better than I remember from more than a decade when I was a member at this same gym. I was so relieved at both the lack of icky smells and the improvements in equipment that they had made. When searching for 24 Hour’s app they use to check into the gym, I came across this app called Butt Workout, that I LOVE as well for when I want to do a quick 10 minute exercise at home and focus on my favorite area. Let’s face it ladies, at this age we can’t do much about the breasts sagging, but we can build a decent butt thank goodness! I have been doing the Brazilian Butt Lift Challenge for only one week and can see a bit of a difference in my arse. Yay! It’s the little things truly…
What's next?
As to that, I am not sure. I am enjoying how I feel in this particular moment and the flexibility to choose from many options. If you are interested in hearing how things turn out, I would love for you to use your email to sign up and to share your thoughts and feelings in the comments as we do this thing called life the best we know how.
