I thought that too... Paid off two houses earlier this year. Now my taxes and insurance are over $1000 a month. Yeah, that's less than the mortgages but jeez they get their hooks in you any way possible.
Life can throw some crap at anybody any time. Two years ago mine blew up. Lost all. Homeless in a van.. Not much romance in that when your 60 and trying to live on 1100.00 a month pension after a while, then a mild stroke in October set me back a bit. Shook my confidence even more, but most importantly, gave me a dose of reality and helped me get my head out my ass and quit feeling sorry for myself. Kid is off doing his own racing gig now, marketing, training and so on. I did something right there anyway. A couple weeks ago finaly got tired of it all and then got a break.. There is a saying that if you want to keep something you have to give it away. My calling came in. I am teaching advanced mechanics to kids at Job Corps. Pay is okay, benefits are excellent, they offer pensions... Maybe save a kid or two. They need welding instructors.
As crazy as it sounds, I bet MH would be an excellent teacher. Those kids would probably relate well to him.
Ya and that shit NEVER goes away....it just goes up. That's why I sold the damn house. If I ever decide I want to crawl back on land maybe I'll find a cheap shack to rent or buy.... I guess it's OK if the property appreciates faster than the 1K a month but.....
Still better off to not be shitting out 3 to 5% in interest down the drain on the big stuff or worse be in credit card debt at 9 to 18%... We currently stack money away at an alarming rate and have been for the last decade or so...
Tristan hit it on the head. Yeah, it's my fault for not paying attention to how much of the payment went towards the T&I portion of the monthly. Reality hit in a big way.
Yes and we still managed to save a high priced executives salary worth of money again... Ohhh and only one payment was made on the Porsche....
Everybody has their own take on how to live. I have one work friend who spent every dime as soon as he got it. Didn't borrow much and didn't save any either. He had all the cool toys and lots of fun while it lasted....then retirement hit. He's OK but no extra cash so he's liquidating his toys for pennies on the dollar. My Dad always had me save 20% of everything I made. Did that religiously (well except when the kids were in college). I had, have plenty of toys, nothing like him, but I haven't been bored either. Funny thing is I'm also selling off a lot of the "stuff". Tired of all the maintenance. Who was right and who was wrong? I ask myself that a lot. I've no worries and he has some. On the other hand much of the moolah will probably end up with either the retirement home or the kids so there's that.
Where do you live? I ask, because on my primary house, taxes and insurance are over $9k/year. We have a second home out of state at $2.2k/year, so my focus is to retire there. If a decent place could be had for half that on t & i, I might have to reconsider where I retire. EDIT*Nevermind, I just re-read it and realized that figure was per month.