I paid off my house in 2004, and since then my house related costs of insurance (high deductible of course) low property tax (thank you Prop 13 in California), and some home repairs/maintance costs probably averages about 450$ a month, much lower than the 1800 $ a month it would cost to rent the house. So, this has created a 1300 dollar a month margin that I've been ploughing back into saving for the last 10 years. Coupled with other surplus income over the years, I've been able to amass about 250k in new assets since 2004. This from someone normally earning about 45K a year from my job as pizza delivery driver.
What I'm now seeing is that my normal household expenses have been increasing as my kids get bigger, inflation etc., but now the new income from investments, including stocks, part ownership in the restaurant I work at etc, coupled with low housing expenses, is gradually taking on a life of its own, so that close to 75% of new savings is coming from the dynamic duo of low housing cost/investments. So much of this has all stemmed from an initial low house purchase price, which I believe is similar to Mr Money Mustache's personal journey as well (picking Longmont over Boulder IIRC).
