What’s the point of all these changes? The point is to have time. We want to have more control over our time. Right now, we are living for the weekends, and then we spend those weekends running errands and cleaning the house and mowing the lawn and doing things we HAVE to do. Where is the time to do the things we want to do? I have a whole list of things I’d rather be doing with my time than working and commuting and doing house-upkeep things, and John has more hobbies than you can shake a stick at. (What is that even supposed to mean? Why is that a phrase that means anything? You’ve never seen me shake a stick. I can shake a stick at all KINDS of things, and fast, too. Why would you want to shake a stick at lots of things? Or even one thing? I don’t understand. Google’s results are inconclusive.) Yes, I’m aware that everyone feels this way, but that doesn’t mean we have to. Not if we can do something about it. So we are.
The point is to have time. We’ll remove owning a house from the equation. Suddenly, we don’t have to paint the porch columns or mulch the flower beds or mow the lawn or stain the deck. We’ll save money, money we could use to things we WANT to do (like travel and take lessons). Our rent will be less than our mortgage, we won’t be paying HOA fees. Over (not too much) time, we’ll pay off Riley’s medical bills and the air conditioner we replaced in the spring. I’ve done the math. With an estimate for rent, just moving out of house will save us approximately $1700 a month (possibly more). Moving out of the area (and paying off those two items) will save us another $1000. Putting our plan in motion will eventually save us nearly $3000 a month, regardless of how much money we make in these hypothetical new jobs. And we won’t HAVE to make as much money in those hypothetical new jobs because we won’t be living in one of the most expensive areas in the country.
With saved money and extra time, what can’t we do?