swivel
November 1st, 2007, 03:24 PM
How I paid for a house with cash at the age of 32:
1975: Born into a soon-to-be-broken household
1981: Parents give up on "Making it work for the kids"
1989: Got my first job.
1990: Learned how to steal everything I wanted in order to save my hard-earned dough.
1993: Got out of highschool and went to college
1994: Got out of college. Started working while going to a trade school (with Morbid, no less)
1995: Wife left me. Had a 3-week breakdown. Moved to Charleston, SC with a car full of books and nothing else.
1996: Met a guy who lived on a boat. Seemed like a good idea. Bought a sailboat for $10,000 in Baltimore and sailed it down to Charleston where I was going to college and working in a PC shop.
1998: Left college to sail to the Bahamas for a year. Sold everything I owned
1999: Came back to civilization, got a job with Bertram Yachts making good money and putting most of it away while living on same sailboat.
2000: Went back to Charleston to finish college, ran a ferry full-time while taking 18-hour loads. Then, dropped everything to take a boat to Hong Kong for no pay
2001: Moved to NYC to run a yacht up there. 9/11 happened right on top of me, had to take the boat back to Florida
2002: Working for a new couple in Ft. Lauderdale, met my current wife, living aboard for so many years and making decent money meant I had a little saved up. So...
...2003: When our apartment was leveled I was able to put $48,000 down on a $148,000 house.
2005: Sold that $148,000 house for $236,000. Bought a house in Virginia for $229,000 with $105,000 down.
2007: Sold the Virginia house for $265,000 and bought a house in Boone NC for $119,000, paid for in cash, closing costs included.
Now that I am living mortgage-free, I plan on keeping it that way. We will do improvements on this home, and whatever we can sell it for, plus what we save up, is what we will look to buy our next house for. Our total monthly living expenses are going to be around $650 apiece. That includes all utilities, gas, groceries, insurance, etc... We should both be able to put $1,000 in the bank every month, or $24,000 a year, combined.
I guess we will be able to retire when we are 45 or so. Move to Costa Rica, buy a little house overlooking a beach on the Gulf side, spend the rest of our lives surfing, sailing out to Providencia, scuba-diving in Belize, and taking naps in the hammock.
1975: Born into a soon-to-be-broken household
1981: Parents give up on "Making it work for the kids"
1989: Got my first job.
1990: Learned how to steal everything I wanted in order to save my hard-earned dough.
1993: Got out of highschool and went to college
1994: Got out of college. Started working while going to a trade school (with Morbid, no less)
1995: Wife left me. Had a 3-week breakdown. Moved to Charleston, SC with a car full of books and nothing else.
1996: Met a guy who lived on a boat. Seemed like a good idea. Bought a sailboat for $10,000 in Baltimore and sailed it down to Charleston where I was going to college and working in a PC shop.
1998: Left college to sail to the Bahamas for a year. Sold everything I owned
1999: Came back to civilization, got a job with Bertram Yachts making good money and putting most of it away while living on same sailboat.
2000: Went back to Charleston to finish college, ran a ferry full-time while taking 18-hour loads. Then, dropped everything to take a boat to Hong Kong for no pay
2001: Moved to NYC to run a yacht up there. 9/11 happened right on top of me, had to take the boat back to Florida
2002: Working for a new couple in Ft. Lauderdale, met my current wife, living aboard for so many years and making decent money meant I had a little saved up. So...
...2003: When our apartment was leveled I was able to put $48,000 down on a $148,000 house.
2005: Sold that $148,000 house for $236,000. Bought a house in Virginia for $229,000 with $105,000 down.
2007: Sold the Virginia house for $265,000 and bought a house in Boone NC for $119,000, paid for in cash, closing costs included.
Now that I am living mortgage-free, I plan on keeping it that way. We will do improvements on this home, and whatever we can sell it for, plus what we save up, is what we will look to buy our next house for. Our total monthly living expenses are going to be around $650 apiece. That includes all utilities, gas, groceries, insurance, etc... We should both be able to put $1,000 in the bank every month, or $24,000 a year, combined.
I guess we will be able to retire when we are 45 or so. Move to Costa Rica, buy a little house overlooking a beach on the Gulf side, spend the rest of our lives surfing, sailing out to Providencia, scuba-diving in Belize, and taking naps in the hammock.