We bought our home in cash. Our home is currently an RV---bear with me here. The cost of it was $16k. We pay a combined $6000/year in rent (half of which is my half). You need $200k in investments to support such a cash flow (which I have). So the total cost or asset base or our current living situation is about $216,000 (not counting repairs which I can mostly do myself). We're seriously thinking of moving to Oregon (away from California) buying a house in cash for around $125,000. If real estate taxes are $1,500, this requires 50,000 in investments. Thus the cost of living of switching over to a house would be $175,000. Again, a lot of the maintenance I can do myself. It would be cheaper to not live in an RV, but it was a fun experiment.
We bought our home in cash. Our home is currently an RV---bear with me here. The cost of it was $16k. We pay a combined $6000/year in rent (half of which is my half). You need $200k in investments to support such a cash flow (which I have). So the total cost or asset base or our current living situation is about $216,000 (not counting repairs which I can mostly do myself). We're seriously thinking of moving to Oregon (away from California) buying a house in cash for around $125,000. If real estate taxes are $1,500, this requires 50,000 in investments. Thus the cost of living of switching over to a house would be $175,000. Again, a lot of the maintenance I can do myself. It would be cheaper to not live in an RV, but it was a fun experiment.