Prioritize. What’s important to you? Put that first.

Personally, I would LOVE to travel. I don’t have that option because my wife works a gig where she can’t get time off.

So the idea of taking a week and going to Hawaii or Vegas, or New Orleans? Not going to happen.

So I take the money I would spend on stuff like that and invest it locally in making our lives better.

Bought a house in 2021, got out from under $1,800/mo. rent. Traded it for a $2,000/mo. mortgage, but you know what? I looked up our old place… $2,300/mo. now. House across the street is a rental, $2,600/mo.

As time goes on, our mortgage is going to get cheaper and cheaper.

Owning a house means more projects. Some of the plumbing needed to be re-done, the electrical panel needed an upgrade from 100A to 200A, the roof was 20 years old with a 20 year lifespan, swapped for a 50 year roof that will outlive me, the house has a 3rd patio which couldn’t be used because there was no cover, so we added a retractible awning, solar panels, just got a hot tub.

And, yeah, consumer capitalism, but these are infrastructure investments that improve our lives and add value.