I was talking to a friend of mine recently and he was talking about how happy he is to have just paid off his home. He is in his early thirties and has a wife and two kids. Then he started to complain about work. His drive to work is over an hour each way. He puts $30 in gas in his tank twice a week. So he is spending at least $240 a month in gas to get to work. I know this because I started asking him a lot of questions. My mind was swimming with ideas of the freedom of not having to pay for shelter. I’ll share our conversation with you and some of my thoughts.
Being Free
Food and shelter are easily the top two costly things in life. For many rent and their monthly food bill run neck and neck. For my friend, Mike, he just eliminated the mortgage. He now has a paid for home and with that a sense of freedom that comes from not being in debt. Debt has been consuming my thoughts recently and I will be writing an article on it soon. Without this debt you are able to do so many more things.
Why Bust You’re Ass
The point I was trying to get across to Mike was why bother wasting ten hours of your life every week driving to work with the mortgage paid off. Not only would he not have the mortgage to pay but would be saving the gas, wear and tear on the car and would have more time with his young children. He argued that he could not find a job locally to make the $14 an hour he makes at his other job. I told him it didn’t matter, he would be saving money by not driving so far and seeing his family more. On top of that if he made less money he would drop down in the tax bracket and give the government less of his hard earned money. Not that he has even looked if there is a $14 an hour job around, hes comfortable and change is scary.
The conversation ended with us both still having our own point of view. Not that I’ve given up, I am going to keep in trying to convince him my way is better. My end goal personally is to buy land outright, build a tiny home, and keep on writing for Survivalpunk and do some farming. If anything I may get a crappy retail job pushing carts. Something active and with no responsibility. That would only be until the farm was making me money or SP was making the big bucks. I have no intentions of working till I drop dead.
What would you do with a paid off mortgage? Is yours paid off? Let me know in the comments!
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Things change when you have kids. Income security becomes a lot more important. Not that any job is secure, but it’s harder to consider walking away from something you have when you have people depending on you for what the income provides.
I guess not having kids I don’t think that way. Also my thinking was it’s better to spend time with them over make more money.
You have to strike a balance between work and home life. Luckily my job pays well and allows me a flexible enough schedule that I’m pretty happy and I get to spend a lot of time with my family. But when the going gets tough and I’m feeling a bit unsatisfied with the career, it’s very difficult to allow the mind to wander as far as I would have before the kids came.
I used to struggle with bills and killed myself at a job that didn’t look at me as anything other than a number. I walked away from a salaried corporate job working 50+ hours a week, 401k, medical and dental plans….
And when I did, I also walked away from ulcers, migraines, and a lack of respect.
I now work 3-4 hours a day for myself, having built up a reputation for quality work at a fair price. I don’t make as much per year, but I do make more per hour, and have lots of time to do what *I* want to do.
And guess what, I still struggle with bills like I did before, but I now I realize that time is more important than money.
They realization came when I was offered a 5% annual raise, but I asked for a 5% DECREASE in the time I put in. They laughed and said it doesn’t work like that.
Screw them. I am now sitting in my underwear at 9am, and won’t leave the house for another two hours. I’ll be home by 3, since I have two jobs today. I do what I want at my pace.
And I get to spend more time with my wife and kids. They see a different me now, too. I’m more relaxed and interactive with them.
What is more important, spending time with those you love to build memories, or shaving off 1% of inefficiency so that a shareholder that live “in The Big House” somewhere can get a better dividend on his investment?
Just sayin’
Peace,
db
Thats great DB! I’m glad you had the courage to tell them to screw off. Soon both of us will be full time bloggers enjoying life.
My fiance and I are currently living in a crap shack apartment while we go to school and work. We are paying off credit card debt and both vehicles are paid off. I drive an older model VW Jetta TDI and it is the vehicle we “usually” take on trips. Before I met my fiance I lived without debt. NONE. I had rent, food, utilities and fun. I cannot tell you how terrifying it was to realize that I could lose everything because she had credit card debt and car loans. We could have lost everything just because our hours got cut at work.
Never again. Never again will I live like that. Once we’ve graduated we are going to look for better paying jobs and start house hunting. We are looking for land in areas where are jobs are vital, even though we’re still in school. We aren’t looking for a “fancy house” something in our budget and rural. We want to have everything paid off in less than 10 years. Then… it’s easy sailing…
Good job Vince! The only debt I have is my car and it drives me crazy I want it paid off now!
Had the same situation here, more or less. My Wife was used to just buying whatever, going on vacation wherever, and simply charging it. Go to the Bahamas this weekend? Sure! Thanks, visa!
Every weekend! SURE!
No thought went beyond covering the minimum to keep the cards going.
It was not the way I was used to doing things. She has gotten better, but it is still an issue at times. It is 2013, we started making headway in 2001, and it has taken this long to almost get above the floodwaters.
I cannot even imagine what it would be like not to have a mortgage.
As far as work goes, I’ve had to drive as far as 40 miles one way, and as little as 9 miles one way. That shorter commute (at my last job) definitely increased my quality of life.
Unfortunately, depending on your career, that is just the way the cookie crumbles. My best friend recently found employment, after being jobless for 2 years. His daily commute is 140 miles, round trip. He took the job, mainly because he literally ran out of money.
14$ an hour? I make 21 an hour and I am pulling my hair out trying to find a place to buy that is the same as my rent.
I lost my job in February, after being with my company for almost 15 years.
Until I was let go, I had no idea how much I was hating life, due to the job. Most of my physical maladies were stress-related, as it turns out.
I am on unemployment, thus a lot poorer. BUT, as of now, much happier.
What did I learn? I will take less to drive less, do something better, work for better people.
I never understood why my husband was so thrifty until we had been married many years. I wanted what my friends had, new home, new car, expensive vacations. Instead, he kept his eye on our income and bills. He paid our home off in approx. 15-20 years instead of 30 years. He bought nice secondhand cars and paid cash. He saved for vacations and we took our travel trailer and traveled for 2-3 months at a time. Our family wanted for nothing, but we didn’t have a house of “stuff.” We watched family and friends take inheritances and waste the money. When we received money from family inheritances it went into our savings. We are now retired, not one bill, other than utilities and insurance for our home and cars. Our older years are worry free. Our friends that got all the good “stuff” are now unable to retire because of debt and little or no savings.
Congrads to your friend for paying off his house! When you have kids you cannot just quit a job that pays well and possibly offers insurance (no mention of that but I am guessing).
That’s why I keep telling you to find your land and get going because it is much easier to do when you have just yourself to worry about.
Hi, just found your blog. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
This post is a little old but I felt the need to comment anyhow. I remember when I was single I could burn up every dollar to my name and when the reality of a $0 bank balance hit me I would simply revert to survival mode. I’d eat canned food, ramen, kool-aid and wait to build my balance up again. Those simple days are long gone now that I have a family. I make almost $18 an hour with my wife working as well for $9. With two kids at home and another with my ex-wife it’s hard to live off this income. We rent a house, so we’re throwing that money away. We have one loan balance on my truck, other than that no credit accounts. Everything else goes to utilies, food, and gas.
We have poor credit due to medical bills and a couple credit cards we had separately before we met. But, I actually feel good about this because I don’t want to ever finance another thing again. My goal is to by land with cash, install utilities, live on the property in an RV or continue renting as we build a small started home. The thing is whenever all the bills are paid everything we save goes to the unexpected expenses (car trouble, tags, etc) or things like birthdays, Christmas – you get the point, probably common to most people!
It’s difficult to figure out how to get a leg up on a “just getting by” lifestyle. I’m not skilled or educated. So going into business for myself seems to be a difficult venture. The long road of saving cash to pay off debt and plan for the future i a hard road!
Planning for oneself is pretty simple. Planning for a family with seemingly countless variables, the wife not necessarily on board with the frugality and such all contribute to stalling the progress.
I’m probably venting a little here! But the fact is, freedom is possible. Setting a family budget, reducing utility bills, smart grocery shopping, actually having a savings account, putting together a plan to work towards, goal setting. All these and many more surely can put you on the road to freedom from creditors, government, wage labor, and poor health!
Currently I’m trying to figure out how to supplement my income by doing some form of side work. Not sure how to go about it though. Ideas would be great!
Again thanks for the blog and bearing with my comments!