Stuck In Your House
It’s the beginning of April and we are still in the new era of COVID-19. One of the biggest changes I have seen is that more people are quarantined to their houses. So obviously people are spending a lot more of their day at their home.
I was thinking most people would enjoy this change. Even if they where still working just from home now.
Yet to my surprise most of my social media feeds are full of people complaining about being in stuck at home. I see it in every group I am in as well. People are hating it so much that I see people saying they can’t wait to go back to work. Think about that for a moment for me. People literally hate their house, stuff, and lifestyle that much that they want to go back to work aka trading their time for money.
Disbelief
I asked myself am I really seeing what I think I am seeing? Are these people brainwashed or just stupid? I mean these people bought these houses, filled them with all this stuff and now they don’t want to be in them! Talk about 1st world problems. On top of that, they have so much free time that they want to go back to work. This is what I call an un-fulfilling life.
People hopefully finally realize a house and stuff really was never that fulfilling nor important.
Trapped
So many of these people are trapped by this culture of ours that tells us to go buy a house, it builds wealth, it means you made it in the big world. We think we must fill our spaces with stuff. That we must have that picture-perfect place and all the newest gadgets. Yet this culture could not be any further from the truth. In fact, people often get into too much house debt, spend too much on stuff to fill their place, and in the end save too little. This is why when one little thing goes wrong people typically don’t have enough savings to cover much at all if anything.
This leads people down a bad cycle of our new era of slavery.
Most people are now slaves to their house, stuff, job, debt, and lifestyle that they not only can’t afford but will never bring them happiness. This is why people are always trying to upgrade their stuff, trying to buy bigger houses, vehicles, take more vacations, and ultimately this is all just a distraction from their unfulfilling lives. This cycle forces people to go to a job every day that most people don’t like and can’t wait for the weekend to come soon enough.
I’m not against home ownership. In fact, I am considering buying a few rentals if things get worse which in my opinion they will. I’m against people being dogmatic with homeownership and thinking it’s the only way and any other way has to be wrong. I’m against the mindless consumer ideology that buying your “dream home” somehow will bring you happiness.
It’s ironic to me that all these people bought these houses yet are hating being in them.
Over-Leveraged
Even people who are investing in houses I see are losing their shirts. These people over-leveraged themselves because they let their heads get too big. They believed this stream of income from rent would always be coming in. Yet now many people have been laid off and can’t afford to pay rent or their mortgage. I also have friends who are still doing really well with their houses as investments. My wife has even lost a good amount of revenue from her rentals due to this crisis. Yet she didn’t over-leverage herself and is not affected by the lost revenue.
Nearly A third of renters didn’t pay rent for April
Pretty crazy to think 31% of people did not pay their rent. Even crazier on average about 20% of people don’t pay their rent on time. I think more people could benefit from money tracking tools like Personal Capital. Talk about a nightmare for the person owning those rentals! I often see people label rentals as passive income. I can say I have some friends that have been fairly lucky with this and have had little to no issues. Yet they are in reality the exception and not the rule. The truth is having rentals is not passive at all. I do think it’s a great path and can pay off very well if done right yet I still would not call it passive. Passive is me making $8K while I sat here and typed this post up from my index funds. Ironically that is how much my investments increased today at the close of the market. I literally never had to do anything and that my friends is what passive truly means.
Less Is More
My wife and I are still in our RV with our two Great Danes. Now I still have to go to work every day. Which are a real drag and I much rather be quarantined to my house. I love our little place and being home. I love every day I get the opportunity to create content, read, go on walks on our beach, play with the dogs, cuddle and kiss my super cute wife, listen to music and just hang out. This all has made me want to retire early even faster than ever.
I’m just curious how different these people’s lives could be if they developed a life they love, one with flexibility, freedom, and most importantly that brings long term happiness. I personally am in so much better of a financial situation because I don’t own a home. Check out my post on Full-Time RV Living. There is no way I could live for as cheaply as I do on the beach here in San Diego. I’m so glad I don’t have some huge mortgage payment to worry about as well. Not only that but the concern of when I leave here will I be able to sell it for what I want or be able to rent it out.
Instead, I’ll be planning where to move next with our flexible lifestyle living in our RV.