The Money Mustache Community
General Discussion => Throw Down the Gauntlet => Topic started by: Money Badger on October 11, 2018, 07:35:08 PM
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As MMM has espoused, downsizing/rightsizing primary residence can accelerate FIRE and enhance overall sense of calm and happiness (Jean Luc Picard style). For those who did this, how much was your total sum debt $ reduced plus liquid equity $ freed from downsizing? And it's perfectly OK to vote that you sold just to give the keys back to the bank if the house was underwater since that can be a life saving / financially enhancing move as well in many more cases than the bankers would like us to believe (particularly in major systemic / employment downturns). Will keep the voting open for 30 days and see how this goes...
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We downsized our rental house and netted enough savings to buy a new Jazz with cash in under 6 months.
[can never buy in this market because it would be an $8-10k a month mortgage payment, even w 20% down]
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Those are some impressive brackets there.
However, I am another renter who got a roommate because it was cheaper to share than to get a studio.
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We downsized twice in the last 8 years. Went from roughly 800k to 450k then Roughly 450k to 255k but put about 60k in the current house so that =$ 450k we roughly put into investments.
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I should also add I sold our paid for Cabin we were not using for 335k that went into investments as well.
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@soccerluv0f4, That's some impressive "liquification" of equity there... You are hereby awarded the first "500K+" bracket vote in the poll!
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We downsized so that we can live on one of our salaries. Got rid of the car since we plan on staying downtown in a rental with walking distance to both our jobs and to daycare for our son. This in combination with 5 year worth of savings has made me confident enough to take the leap and switch careers by going back to university. Scary but it feels really good! My colleagues at work are expressing a mixture of fascination/curiosity/envy/ridicule. In the country were I am at you can have a leave of abscence from work when going back to studying. Nice to have that as a safety net of things do not work out as planned.
All in all, I am super-proud that me and my wife has come this far together financially.
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Welcome to the MMM forums jonjon! Your likely single handedly ending the banking, automobile and petroleum parasites..., er, industries clutches on you in one fell swoop... And making the world better to boot with your studies and lifestyle choices. Honored to have you post here first.
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Oh, I dream of downsizing. Not going to happen right now because the current house size works for our size of family but once the little birds fly the nest, downsizing is on top of the to do list.
IF we were to downsize right now we would probably walk away with ~$100k but I am not convinced that we could buy (even a downsized house) for less than what we currently owe so the debt number probably wouldn't change in addition. I would really enjoy sticking that $100k into investments though.
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Optimized from a 1,650 square foot 4 BR to a 1,260 square foot 3 BR in a safe but less swanky town that is within walking distance to train station, library, post office, supermarket and restaurants and eliminated all mortgage debt (just shy of $100,000).
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We downsized twice i missed the poll date over 7 years. First time from 800k to 450k then to 255k but put 6Ok into it. So it helped us alot not to mention all the tax savings etc.. We have more to do in the house were living in but definitely helped us when we retired.
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We had to upsize to accommodate my MIL and her pal Al Z. Heimer. We sold two houses* for about $1.1M total and paid about $900k for one single-story clown house. Happily, it's 3.5 blocks from DH's work. It's value now is $1.4M+, so when Al Z. is gone, we can downsize again. We will probably have to spend about $1M for a 3+2 fixer, ideally about 1600sf. So, $200k the first time, and maybe $500k next time?
*Each house was two-story, with no downstairs bedroom. Boo.
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@Dicey, No matter what else happens... You guys are good human beings. Al Z. and it's evil little brother dementia both suck.