Housing costs kill a lot of high-income professionals in particular. A high-income doesn’t mean much if it’s all being used to pay for a house that you only get to enjoy in the evenings and the weekends.

Your story always inspires me – I love hearing about people who downsize to pursue a life that aligns more with DOING stuff instead of OWNING stuff. I find that owning less stuff makes me happier and much less stressful as well. It’s a wonderful recipe for increasing happiness and saving money at the same time 🙂

“Geographical arbitrage let’s you have a nice house for small change.” That’s a great housing hack, Steve. I live in the midwest myself, where housing costs are considerably lower than in other parts of the country so I can relate. Cheers to low housing costs 🙂

I only pay $600 per mo. in rent right now, so I can’t even imagine paying $1,000 per mo. in utilities. I think it just comes down to how much space is being USED. Most people with large houses don’t actually use most of their space, except on rare occasions. I’d rather pay less, save money, and live in a place where I use most of the space on a regular basis 🙂

Very powerful quote, completely agree with your thoughts in this post. People often buy way too much house and then are chained to the huge mortgage payments instead of being able to pursue financial freedom.

Re-evaluating our housing needs was a HUGE game changer for our FIRE timeline. For us, selling our too-big 1,400 SF house and becoming renters of a 670 SF apartment was a decision and will allow us to exit the 9-5 grind earlier than we originally thought possible.

We’re also much happier owning less stuff.

Your living small/earning big strategy is brilliant and your journey is inspiring!