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| Heritage Shores Nature Preserve, SC |
When my wife and I worked full time during our accumulation phase to achieve financial independence and to retire early, Sundays were usually gloomy days. I realized the weekend was coming to a close, and that meant I would be going to work, come Monday.
I can’t tell you how often I felt this way as Sundays would pass, as surely as the changing seasons. The gleeful Sunday mornings when our pack (including our Pomeranian Toby) would eat our breakfasts, then carry our still warm mug of coffee downstairs to hang out in the walkout basement, would eventually change to sad realization that the day was coming to a close…
By evenings, I was researching frantically to figure out how I can retire early sooner. Our mortgage felt like an anchor weighing me down. I felt suffocated, looking for ways to make it stop…
During these Sundays, I felt a need to quicken our quest to achieve financial independence. I was looking at different ways to shorten the time to get there. And in those desperate times, these are some of the things we looked at, hoping and pleading, to stop the ever looming and at times suffocating, mortgage payment every 1st day of every month.
- Selling out home, then renting something
This was one of the options we seriously considered. As years went by, our mortgage payment kept going up. This is mainly due to my fault, as we shortened the duration of our initial 30 year mortgage to 15 year mortgage. This in turn increased our monthly payment by about $400 per month.
Taxes kept going up each year on top of that, as well as all the utilities, like sewer, water, and electricity/gas. New taxes were introduced that didn’t exist before, like taxes for community college and emergency services. All in all, it got harder and harder to keep up with ever increasing everything…
We got tired of fixing things that would break, like the water heater, the roof, windows, plumbing, hairline cracks on walls, washer/dryer, etc. We felt by renting, we can at least have one fixed payment for rent plus utilities, without needing to constantly fix/repair things that break.
So, on Sunday evenings, I would sit down in front of my laptop, then research suitable apartments for rent. We decided to look for an apartment within a 20 mile radius of my workplace, that also allows dogs. We were hoping to find a place under $1,300 per month for a one bedroom apartment.
We found handful of potential rentals and we went as far as booking appointments to see them in person. While waiting for these appointments, we read reviews of these places, and we saw some bad reviews about all these potential rentals.
Some talked about drug dealers, loud neighbors, maintenance staff that never seem to fix anything, among others. This scared the heck out of us…
These potential rentals we had made appointments to see were ok in terms of monthly payments (under $1,200) but they all had several glaringly bad reviews. We ended up canceling these appointments after that.
I continued to search more expensive rentals, but the price kept going up! I saw that our initial budget of under $1,300 wouldn’t work, for a nice place with good reviews. Realistically, we would’ve needed to increase our budget to over $1,500. Add to this figure another $200 or so for gas/electricity, internet, and pet fees, we realized all of the nicer rentals would’ve been budget busters…
Incidentally, $1,700 per month would’ve been more than our mortgage payment!
Prior to researching apartment rentals, we had no idea there are so many fees when renting a place. There are application fees, credit check fees, initial pet fees (and recurring pet fees, ranging from $25-$40 per month), cleaning fees/move in fees, and “we’ll charge you a fee just because we can” fee.
After carefully analyzing all these fees on top of monthly rental, we ended up scrapping the rental idea altogether…We figured our current place might cost about the same as a nice rental, but with much more interior space…
- Selling our home, then buying a smaller townhouse
Around year 2013 or 2014, I researched cheaper and smaller townhomes within about 40 mile radius of our current home. At the time, there were options in just developed/new townhome communities further out in the suburbs.
Some were selling for $200,000 for a 2/3 bedroom units with 2 bathrooms. I thought this might work, so I bugged my wife to check out the place. When we arrived and met up with a sales consultant, we saw that $200,000 price had already gone up to around $240,000.
By the time we would add desirable features like granite countertops, finished basements, wood floors, and stainless steel appliances, the price would easily top $300,000! This was again much more than what we thought it would be…So, we scrapped that idea too.
- Selling our home, then buying a 2 bedroom condo (Scenario 1)
I had found a condo closer to where I worked at the time, and the price was right, at around $190,000. This figure would mean we could sell our home, use the proceeds of that sale to put down at least $100,000, then finance $90,000. We would then be pocketing about $50,000 or more, towards our retirement.
Numbers wise all this made sense. The only problem was that after researching this particular condo further, I found out it sits on a heavy flood zone adjacent to the Schuylkill River. The flood zone map of the area revealed constant flooding within about 3 blocks of the river.
We didn’t want to invest in something that would be flooded inside/outside constantly. We scrapped this plan as well…
- Selling our home, then buying a 2 bedroom condo (Scenario 2)
I had found a new condo/townhome community about 30 miles north of where we had lived. 2 bedroom units, with a dining room/living room/1 bathroom on the first floor, and 2 bedrooms/1 bathroom on the second floor, were selling for around $200,000.
I figured we could do similar calculation as above scenario. Again, the numbers seemed to work. The deal breaker was when we saw a similar unit being built. We saw that these units shared spaces with next door neighbors, in an alternating manner. For example, our unit wouldn’t use the entire first and second floor going straight up, but rather our neighbor’s unit would be using up parts of our unit’s space next to our stairs.
Neighbor’s unit would be impinging on our unit, and vice versa. Our 2 bedroom unit would use 1st and 2nd floors (with shard space next to our stairs) while our neighbor’s unit would use 2nd and 3rd floors. We felt we would be hearing our neighbors much more easily in this building scheme. The thought of our unit sharing with our neighbor’s unit just didn’t sound right when buying a first floor/second floor unit.
This ended up killing this idea as well.
The end result…
We ended up staying where we were, exhausted and demoralized after realizing there were no better options out there. We really tried to make moves that would hasten our early retirement during those times, but none would materialize…
I never stopped researching though, on those gloomy and desperate Sunday evenings, hoping to still find a perfect option. I felt if I stopped researching options, then I would never be able to retire. You see, I really wanted to get off the rat race…
I was just so restless and down on those Sunday evenings. I wanted to retire so bad, so I wouldn’t have to stress about work. I’m sure it wasn’t just me who felt this way…
Long story short, my wife and I stuck around until August 2020 before jumping off the rat race. In retrospect, I’m glad we stuck around in our townhome. At least we got to build more positive equity on our townhome.
Sometimes the best option is to stay put, as tough as that may be, when better option doesn’t present itself. In our situation, it worked out ok to stay put. Had we decided to choose any one of the options mentioned, we would’ve had to pay to move, only to downsize/move again after we retired. It just seemed unnecessary to go through that twice…
Everyone’s situation is different when trying to achieve financial independence. Always weigh your options, making sure numbers work out in your favor, then use a combination of your gut instinct and your brains before making a decision.
Sometimes it makes sense to try something different, and sometimes it’s better to stay put, just biding your time. Whatever you decide, there’s nothing wrong with researching and figuring out better options. We know we did, and so should you!
Thank you all for reading!
Jake
Wandering Money Pig
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