Living Debt Free With Lowest Overhead Possible
Let’s talk money. Shall we? There’s an enormous number of financial advisors out there who are willing to share their expertise with people seeking guidance. I don’t use one. That’s just me. I’m a middle-class-retired woman that handles her own money. I’ll never be rich, but then most of us won’t by today’s standards. I believe I’ve compensated for that by developing my own survival strategies that in the end may give me more financial security than many people with much larger incomes.
Living debt free with the lowest overhead possible is my financial mantra and has been for a long time.
It’s an overlooked philosophy that I’m told might have been more popular with my ancestors, but became less and less popular since the birth of the “buy now, pay later strategy” took a firm hold in American society. Nowadays, people who make six figures or more are often swimming in debt. In other words, if you subtract what they owe from their assets, they’re left with little to no money. This phenomenon is alive and well across all socio economic brackets. When Americans make more money, they simply spend more money. Roughly 80% of Americans have no money.
Now, I’m not talking about the working poor.
That’s another topic of deep social significance that continues to be ignored in America. As some of us keep making more money others keep falling behind and at an increasingly rapid pace by the day. Those of us who are supposedly experiencing financial growth, however, may still not have any money due to the debt we’ve agreed to take on. These Americans may enjoy the immediate fruits of their labor but when the proverbial shit hits the fan, they, too, stand to lose their homes and cars. They’ve settled for “a live and let live philosophy of life” encouraged by propaganda that tells us we deserve more and that bigger is better.
Reckless financial behavior has become necessary in order to produce the personal image of success we’re told we should seek.
I contend that our debt is making someone else rich. Why? Because convincing the supposed middle class to go in debt, often for their entire lives, is the only way to produce the required growth of the annual GDP. That necessary growth is dependent upon the dwindling middle class. They will borrow money to purchase things they can’t actually afford but someone somewhere is benefitting from their growing debt.
Instead of bigger is better, I’ve embraced the less is more philosophy.
Less stuff results in less debt and less debt results in more peace of mind. There’s nothing magical about it. As an average American, I decided that my peace of mind was more important than any appearance of success. Thus began my pursuit of a little considered lifestyle — debt free living with lowest overhead possible. You see it’s not just about paying off cars, houses, credit cards and bank loans. It’s also about not requiring a lot of money to maintain my lifestyle. It’s a way of life that runs counter to the American Dream which I contend has become the American Nightmare for most.
I’ve been debt free for over twenty years even though I retired at age fifty-four.
That means I own my home, my car, and carry no credit card debt or outstanding loans. I pay cash for everything. If I can’t pay cash for it, I don’t buy it. And, let’s be clear, I wasn’t a big income earner. Nope! I retired at age fifty-four from a career as a public school educator and administrator. So, my livelihood was firmly grounded in what some would say is a lower middle class income by today’s standards. My husband earned considerably less than me. When I retired, however, I convinced him to take a few years off from working so that we could travel the world. So, we sold everything we owned, living and traveling on my pension not our savings. What started out as a gap year turned into four years of living everywhere but nowhere. When we finally returned stateside, he went back to work. He has since retired at age sixty-five and is collecting social security.
When we returned stateside, we relocated in the midwest where the cost of living was about 25% cheaper than the east coast.
We took the money from the sale of our home in Maine and paid cash for a smaller home. We also paid cash for one small used car. We were without debts of any kind. Our annual overhead which included taxes, insurances, food, and utilities is a whopping $20,000 a year. I’ve left room in that budget for frivolous spending money.
But that’s not where my financial plan ends.
I may be living my dream right now, but I keep a couple of things in mind at all times. I live my life as though tomorrow I could lose my pension or my husband could lose his social security. Both are constantly being threatened by the powers that be. So, I know how to be frugal. I also live my life as though tomorrow the banks could lose my humble savings. I don’t invest in the markets either. I don’t gamble with my money. I can’t afford to take a hit. Instead, I’ve diversifed a wee bit by investing in raw land which for me is a bit like burying my money in the ground. When I see the antics of our unregulated financial institutions, I’ve occasionally been tempted to do that, that is, bury my money in the ground. Buying land was a logical compromise.
I also continue to save.
This is the way I look at it. Every time I save $20,000 that’s another year I can live the life I’m accustomed to if I lose my pension. If I don’t lose my pension, then it’s $20,000 more that I can leave my kids. Because I’m living debt free with lowest overhead possible and because I honestly believe that less is more, I can have the life I have. I deliberately chose a life with fewer headaches and more security than many people who appear to have much more than I do. Plus, I’ve been retired for over twenty years now. Many of my contemporaries who are pushing seventy still can’t retire.
I know everything about what I do runs counter to what I’m supposed to want as a successful American.
I’m supposed to want at least two expensive new cars, a big house, motorcycles, RVs, swimming pools, memberships in the golf club, the best of everything that my dwindling resources can buy from appliances to furniture to lawn mowers to you name it. There’s always a bigger and better whatever tempting Americans to spend, spend, spend money they don’t have.
Americans take more prescription meds for anxiety than ever before.
We are a nation of anxious citizens often barely able to function. I suspect that living on the edge financially doesn’t help give us a feeling of security. Admittedly, it’s just a wild guess. However, I can say with certainty that I’ve lived with debt and without debt and I know which one I prefer. It’s not as exciting as playing the stock market, or buying bit coins while hoping to win big in order to live big. It may not be as flashy as driving around town in a sporty new car or laying by my pool. And, yes, I live in the midwest rather than a hopping city on either coastline, but I can’t put a price tag on my peace of mind.
While everyone else goes big, I’m sticking with less is more by living debt free with the lowest overhead possible. To each his own. Right? Right.
