I don't make much money, 57K a year. I live in NJ where it's too expensive to own a house.
I'm 40 years old, saving about 20K a year, putting it into index funds for the past 2 years, totaling 153K in a Vanguard account at the moment.
Would like to retire but I'm nowhere near what I would need to do that. I like the town of Jim Thorpe, PA. There are houses for sale for around 80K.
I was thinking of buying one in cash, renting it out through a property manager until I'm ready to move in at least 10 years from now, maybe longer.
Is it better to do the house option, depleting half of my savings, but getting small rental returns, or is it a better move to just keep saving and let the index funds grow and worry about a place to live down the road?
Jobs are scarce, so I'm not considering flat-out moving to PA, yet.
What would you guys do?