Earlier this week, Eric wrote that he’d put an offer in on a house in an adjacent neighborhood. He and his wife live about a half mile from me now, so I was both excited for them and intrigued. Where were they going?
Still biking distance away, he assured me.
Neat!
I looked on Redfin to see if I could tell where they were going (I’m a sucker for those photos in real estate listings, what can I say?) and couldn’t find it.
But while I was on Redfin, I thought I would just look.
Here’s the thing: you can’t really just look at real estate. That’s like just looking at a room full of free puppies.
Anyway, that part of the story is still in progress, but the point is, if we wanted to buy something, today, we would have the down payment because we’ve saved almost $75,000.
Now, we weren’t necessarily saving it for a down payment, but our space is a little tight for Brent. I’m happy in a tiny home, but he is not a small man, and would like a little more space to spread out. So we’ve been talking about the next step.
Last week we wandered into an open house, where the sale price was $600,000. That gave us the impression that we’d be in tinyhouseland forever, which made us a little sad.
The point is, though, because we’ve saved half our income this year (!!!), we have more options.
We’d be in a position to move without a contingent “we sell our house, then we buy yours” situation that would almost assuredly mean we’d be the least attractive offer any seller had ever seen.
Why Save Half?
Why, indeed.
When we talk about saving money to our friends who don’t talk about money all the time, they wonder why we’d save half.
I think the answer is pretty simple: the more you save, the more you’re in charge of your own money (and, if you want to go there, your own destiny). If you work for someone else (which most of us do!) and you only save 10-20%, you’re leaving a lot up to someone else.
But if you save 50%, or 60%, or more?
You get to make all those decisions.
Yourself.
There are those who would argue that it’s simply not worth it to scrimp and save in order to shave a few years off retirement, and frankly, I’d agree.
You didn’t land on this blog post to find ways to reuse plastic bags.
Living frugally doesn’t mean living like a monk, though you’re certainly allowed to do that, if you want.
Life shouldn’t be about deprivation. It shouldn’t necessarily be about indulgences, either, except on Thanksgiving, where all bets are off.
Life is so short.
So, so short. Losing my mom before she turned 60 shows that life can be swept away from us even before we knew what we were losing.
But saving half, while still living a life you enjoy (filled with conscious spending, and automatic savings!), will help you hit the sweet spot.
If we end up buying a new place, we’ll have failed at our mission to save half.
But will we really consider it a failure?
I don’t think so.
The new home in question is not perfect. Perfect isn’t in our price range.
I like that. Maybe I’ll make it a quotable.
But it is something we can consider, even though we already own the condo.
