I wrote this in 2009. Since then, I've had a few major changes in my life, including the end of my broadcasting career and the end of my marriage. I am presenting this article as I originally wrote it seven years ago......
In 2002, my
mother passed away after a long, heartwrenching illness. While cleaning out her
home to put it on the market, I started thinking about all the items she had
collected and stored through the years. While I would never judge anyone else
for what they want to keep or discard, I thought about my own possessions. I
admit to being a pack-rat for most of my life. But, I wondered, what am I
keeping that I seriously expect to use again? What do I own that anyone would
care about when I'm gone?
In 2005, my oldest daughter got her first apartment in Baltimore, where she had moved for a job. While visiting her, I started thinking about the simplicity of her lifestyle. Her home was not crammed with "stuff" packed away in every nook and cranny. She did not have all the responsibilities of home maintenance, upkeep and repairs. She did not have to deal with contractors, painters, driveway professionals, or lawn care workers. All of that was covered in a single monthly rent payment.
It brought back memories of my own young adulthood: The dreams of getting married, owning a home and starting a family. Those dreams were well under way by 2005 and it was getting near time to start thinking about an empty nest. The lure of a simpler lifestyle was growing stronger.
By 2005 we were nearly 20 years into home ownership. We had our third home in a location that I had always dreamed of: I had always wanted either water or woods in the back yard. We had woods that were deemed "forever wild." It was a 4-bedroom house in a moderately upscale neighborhood, with a woodburning fireplace in the family room, an enclosed porch in the back looking into the woods, a wooden deck in the back, and a basement that was unfinished when we moved there in 1998. I built a soundproof room in the basement where I could play my drums without bothering anyone. I also built two smaller hobby rooms for two of my daughters. We had invested in a new roof, new driveway, paint job, a pool, had some wind-damaged trees taken down and cut into firewood, a 2.5-car garage, and ample storage for all of our "stuff." What more could we want?
Financial freedom, to travel the world, and a simpler living style. That's what more we wanted. With three daughters, we knew we were facing college costs that we hadn't adequately prepared for and weddings in the not-too-distant future. We also knew we had some large home maintenance expenses coming up, including a new driveway, a new roof, the furnace was aging, etc.
In 2004, we took our first cruise and fell head over heels in love with cruising. This is what we wanted to do in our post child-raising years: Travel the world on cruise ships. I loved being able to sit on my back porch, sipping a drink and looking at the trees, but I now desired to sit on the deck of a ship and look at a different port in the world each day while on a cruise.
While weighing the pro's and cons of home ownership versus renting, we considered our daily habits. We recognized that we were actually using a small portion of our home on a regular basis. Mary has a favorite chair with a good view of the TV and she keeps the things she regular uses handy and within reach of that chair. I had a favorite chair in the family room that had a good view of another TV. We were working split shifts at the time (Mary was on days, I was on evenings), so it really didn't make sense to have two separate locations to watch TV. I tended to spend most of my time in the combination family room and kitchen. We are not big entertainers of guests, so having large amounts of space was not necessary. We recognized that most of our activities could be confined to a minimal amount of living space.
In 2006, we decided to do it. We put our house on the market and found a townhouse that we liked. Well into their teens, the two remaining girls agreed that it would work for them. We completely filled our 2.5 car garage TWICE and had two separate garage sales. Everything went cheap and we got rid of it all. My theory about garage sales is to sell cheap so that nothing is left. If we sold stuff for what we thought it was worth, we'd still have half of it left anyways and would then have to find a way to dispose of it. But by selling cheap, literally EVERYTHING went! Bargain-hunters did the work of disposing for us! I even posted a sign on our refrigerator saying "cheap, but you must move it yourself." So, the buyer put down a deposit and came back with the equipment and manpower to move it. I didn't have to lift a finger. Ultimately we made a lot of money.
It's not easy to undo packrat habits. At first I found it tough to let go of certain things, but the more I got into it, the easier it became. Of everything we sold at the garage sale, I can't think of anything I miss or anything I regret selling. It's still an ongoing process. As of this writing, we have actually lived in three different apartments since we sold our house. Each apartment has had less space than the one before it. Each time we've moved, it meant getting rid of more stuff. Each time, it gets easier.
Although I used to be a packrat, I'm not much of a collector of anything. The only two things I've really accumulated through the years are music and family photographs. Both of these items required a fair amount of storage space; space which needed to be significantly reduced or even eliminated in order to fit our remaining belongings into apartments. In both cases, today's computer technology has helped me with changing how I collect these items.
At one time, I had several hundred albums. I've never wanted albums for the sake of collecting them; my interest has always been the music itself. I know people who are big time record collectors and I think it's an awesome hobby for them. But that's not what it was about for me. I enjoy hearing the way the music is played and I don't care what medium it's coming from as long as it sounds good to me. I made the decision to sell off all of my vinyl records and keep all my music on mp3 files or iTunes. I kept a few albums that have special meaning to me, but my vast vinyl collection is otherwise gone. It amazes me that what once took up several bookcases worth of shelves can now fit into a space that is about 2 cubic inches!
My vast collection of photo albums has also been dismantled. For the past couple of years, I've been scanning all of my photos and categorizing them by year into folders on my computer. After I had purchased my first digital camera in the early 2000's, I had come up with this system of filing my digital photos. The more I looked at the amount of space all those photo albums took up, the more I wanted to get those photos into computer files as well. I spent many months deliberating whether to do this or not; finally I decided to go for it. It's a long process, but I am very happy with the results. I have not thrown away any of the prints; I keep them in a couple of boxes, available for any family members who need them for any reason. At least this way they take up a lot less space.
I have everything backed up in three places. I keep them backed up on an external hard drive, on flash drives, and on an on-line storage site. The flash drives make it easy for me to share photos with family and friends; all I have to do is put it in their computer and they can copy what they want.
I've never been much of a collector of movies or books. I tend to like to watch a movie once and then I'm done with it. So watching one on HBO, Movies on Demand, or a rented DVD works out just fine. I don't normally buy books; I like to borrow them from the library. This leaves us with just a small collection of favorite movies and books taking up a minimal amount of shelf space.
One issue that I had to deal with was how to practice my drums. This is an issue that has continued to evolve after we began renting. First of all, a drum kit takes up space, and secondly, apartment neighbors wouldn't be keen on hearing me practice my drums. In 2006 I was still playing gigs in a rock band. My first plan was to keep my drums in storage and bring them out when I had a gig. I would practice on a set of drum pads in my bedroom. The practice set was a metal stand that had 4 adjustable arms, each holding a drum practice pad. It worked out OK, but the truth is I was starting to lose interest in playing in a rock band anymore. I spent some time looking for something else, but I didn't know what that "something" was. Ultimately, I found a Fife and Drum Corps to join. This would complement very nicely a similar type of drumming I was doing with a firemen's marching band. I realized that I wanted to move away from playing a drum kit and take up rudimentary snare drumming. Now, instead of dragging pieces of a drum kit to and from gigs, setting them up and then tearing them down, all I need to do is harness up one snare drum and I'm ready to play. I got rid of the 4-armed practice set and picked up a single practice pad. It can be set on a table anywhere. So, my newfound interest in a different type of drumming actually solved my storage space and practice issues that came with living in an apartment.
We came up with a 5-year plan to eliminate all of our debt. With one year remaining on that plan, it looks like we will come close to reaching that goal! Then we will use cash for everything we want while continuing to invest in our retirement. This, to me, is true financial freedom. People can dream all they want about winning the lottery or somehow making millions of dollars, but the idea of being debt-free and without having cumbersome assets that tie up our money is very appealing and within reach for us! It will enable us to live comfortably well within our means and to be able to travel.
What about those who say owning your own home is a great tax advantage? It's true we no longer have the credits and deductions that go with home ownership, but what we are saving in the long run far outweighs what we have lost in tax advantages. And for that matter, we no longer pay property taxes. What we previously paid per month in property taxes is only a couple hundred dollars less than what we are now paying for rent.
For those who believe we have lost the investment value of home ownership, there are other ways to invest your money and we have pursued those methods. One thing we will never have to worry about is the loss of our home, which as everyone knows, has been a major problem for many people over the past couple of years. If where we are living is not working out for any reason, we simply need to move at the end of our lease.
These days we are spending much more time on pursuits that make us happy versus keeping up on home maintenance and cleaning. Our apartment can be thoroughly cleaned in about a half hour. We have no responsibilities for maintenance inside or out. Our expenses are way down. Sometimes, while riding my bike through middle to upperclass neighborhoods, I look at the size of those homes and just imagine what the heating or air conditioning bills must be. Then there's the property taxes, the mortgage payments, the maintenance, in some cases the 3- and 4-car garages and all the vehicles being stored there, and I would imagine the credit card debt associated with all the "stuff."
It makes me happy knowing that I am no longer a slave to my dream home. These days, the world is my home! We live comfortably in a nice apartment and we have plans to travel to many places. If we want to sit by water or woods, we can go to a nice park. There is a beach within walking distance of our apartment. What we've done may not be for everyone, but it's working very well for us!
-Paul Pakusch
In 2005, my oldest daughter got her first apartment in Baltimore, where she had moved for a job. While visiting her, I started thinking about the simplicity of her lifestyle. Her home was not crammed with "stuff" packed away in every nook and cranny. She did not have all the responsibilities of home maintenance, upkeep and repairs. She did not have to deal with contractors, painters, driveway professionals, or lawn care workers. All of that was covered in a single monthly rent payment.
It brought back memories of my own young adulthood: The dreams of getting married, owning a home and starting a family. Those dreams were well under way by 2005 and it was getting near time to start thinking about an empty nest. The lure of a simpler lifestyle was growing stronger.
By 2005 we were nearly 20 years into home ownership. We had our third home in a location that I had always dreamed of: I had always wanted either water or woods in the back yard. We had woods that were deemed "forever wild." It was a 4-bedroom house in a moderately upscale neighborhood, with a woodburning fireplace in the family room, an enclosed porch in the back looking into the woods, a wooden deck in the back, and a basement that was unfinished when we moved there in 1998. I built a soundproof room in the basement where I could play my drums without bothering anyone. I also built two smaller hobby rooms for two of my daughters. We had invested in a new roof, new driveway, paint job, a pool, had some wind-damaged trees taken down and cut into firewood, a 2.5-car garage, and ample storage for all of our "stuff." What more could we want?
Financial freedom, to travel the world, and a simpler living style. That's what more we wanted. With three daughters, we knew we were facing college costs that we hadn't adequately prepared for and weddings in the not-too-distant future. We also knew we had some large home maintenance expenses coming up, including a new driveway, a new roof, the furnace was aging, etc.
In 2004, we took our first cruise and fell head over heels in love with cruising. This is what we wanted to do in our post child-raising years: Travel the world on cruise ships. I loved being able to sit on my back porch, sipping a drink and looking at the trees, but I now desired to sit on the deck of a ship and look at a different port in the world each day while on a cruise.
While weighing the pro's and cons of home ownership versus renting, we considered our daily habits. We recognized that we were actually using a small portion of our home on a regular basis. Mary has a favorite chair with a good view of the TV and she keeps the things she regular uses handy and within reach of that chair. I had a favorite chair in the family room that had a good view of another TV. We were working split shifts at the time (Mary was on days, I was on evenings), so it really didn't make sense to have two separate locations to watch TV. I tended to spend most of my time in the combination family room and kitchen. We are not big entertainers of guests, so having large amounts of space was not necessary. We recognized that most of our activities could be confined to a minimal amount of living space.
In 2006, we decided to do it. We put our house on the market and found a townhouse that we liked. Well into their teens, the two remaining girls agreed that it would work for them. We completely filled our 2.5 car garage TWICE and had two separate garage sales. Everything went cheap and we got rid of it all. My theory about garage sales is to sell cheap so that nothing is left. If we sold stuff for what we thought it was worth, we'd still have half of it left anyways and would then have to find a way to dispose of it. But by selling cheap, literally EVERYTHING went! Bargain-hunters did the work of disposing for us! I even posted a sign on our refrigerator saying "cheap, but you must move it yourself." So, the buyer put down a deposit and came back with the equipment and manpower to move it. I didn't have to lift a finger. Ultimately we made a lot of money.
It's not easy to undo packrat habits. At first I found it tough to let go of certain things, but the more I got into it, the easier it became. Of everything we sold at the garage sale, I can't think of anything I miss or anything I regret selling. It's still an ongoing process. As of this writing, we have actually lived in three different apartments since we sold our house. Each apartment has had less space than the one before it. Each time we've moved, it meant getting rid of more stuff. Each time, it gets easier.
Although I used to be a packrat, I'm not much of a collector of anything. The only two things I've really accumulated through the years are music and family photographs. Both of these items required a fair amount of storage space; space which needed to be significantly reduced or even eliminated in order to fit our remaining belongings into apartments. In both cases, today's computer technology has helped me with changing how I collect these items.
At one time, I had several hundred albums. I've never wanted albums for the sake of collecting them; my interest has always been the music itself. I know people who are big time record collectors and I think it's an awesome hobby for them. But that's not what it was about for me. I enjoy hearing the way the music is played and I don't care what medium it's coming from as long as it sounds good to me. I made the decision to sell off all of my vinyl records and keep all my music on mp3 files or iTunes. I kept a few albums that have special meaning to me, but my vast vinyl collection is otherwise gone. It amazes me that what once took up several bookcases worth of shelves can now fit into a space that is about 2 cubic inches!
My vast collection of photo albums has also been dismantled. For the past couple of years, I've been scanning all of my photos and categorizing them by year into folders on my computer. After I had purchased my first digital camera in the early 2000's, I had come up with this system of filing my digital photos. The more I looked at the amount of space all those photo albums took up, the more I wanted to get those photos into computer files as well. I spent many months deliberating whether to do this or not; finally I decided to go for it. It's a long process, but I am very happy with the results. I have not thrown away any of the prints; I keep them in a couple of boxes, available for any family members who need them for any reason. At least this way they take up a lot less space.
I have everything backed up in three places. I keep them backed up on an external hard drive, on flash drives, and on an on-line storage site. The flash drives make it easy for me to share photos with family and friends; all I have to do is put it in their computer and they can copy what they want.
I've never been much of a collector of movies or books. I tend to like to watch a movie once and then I'm done with it. So watching one on HBO, Movies on Demand, or a rented DVD works out just fine. I don't normally buy books; I like to borrow them from the library. This leaves us with just a small collection of favorite movies and books taking up a minimal amount of shelf space.
One issue that I had to deal with was how to practice my drums. This is an issue that has continued to evolve after we began renting. First of all, a drum kit takes up space, and secondly, apartment neighbors wouldn't be keen on hearing me practice my drums. In 2006 I was still playing gigs in a rock band. My first plan was to keep my drums in storage and bring them out when I had a gig. I would practice on a set of drum pads in my bedroom. The practice set was a metal stand that had 4 adjustable arms, each holding a drum practice pad. It worked out OK, but the truth is I was starting to lose interest in playing in a rock band anymore. I spent some time looking for something else, but I didn't know what that "something" was. Ultimately, I found a Fife and Drum Corps to join. This would complement very nicely a similar type of drumming I was doing with a firemen's marching band. I realized that I wanted to move away from playing a drum kit and take up rudimentary snare drumming. Now, instead of dragging pieces of a drum kit to and from gigs, setting them up and then tearing them down, all I need to do is harness up one snare drum and I'm ready to play. I got rid of the 4-armed practice set and picked up a single practice pad. It can be set on a table anywhere. So, my newfound interest in a different type of drumming actually solved my storage space and practice issues that came with living in an apartment.
We came up with a 5-year plan to eliminate all of our debt. With one year remaining on that plan, it looks like we will come close to reaching that goal! Then we will use cash for everything we want while continuing to invest in our retirement. This, to me, is true financial freedom. People can dream all they want about winning the lottery or somehow making millions of dollars, but the idea of being debt-free and without having cumbersome assets that tie up our money is very appealing and within reach for us! It will enable us to live comfortably well within our means and to be able to travel.
What about those who say owning your own home is a great tax advantage? It's true we no longer have the credits and deductions that go with home ownership, but what we are saving in the long run far outweighs what we have lost in tax advantages. And for that matter, we no longer pay property taxes. What we previously paid per month in property taxes is only a couple hundred dollars less than what we are now paying for rent.
For those who believe we have lost the investment value of home ownership, there are other ways to invest your money and we have pursued those methods. One thing we will never have to worry about is the loss of our home, which as everyone knows, has been a major problem for many people over the past couple of years. If where we are living is not working out for any reason, we simply need to move at the end of our lease.
These days we are spending much more time on pursuits that make us happy versus keeping up on home maintenance and cleaning. Our apartment can be thoroughly cleaned in about a half hour. We have no responsibilities for maintenance inside or out. Our expenses are way down. Sometimes, while riding my bike through middle to upperclass neighborhoods, I look at the size of those homes and just imagine what the heating or air conditioning bills must be. Then there's the property taxes, the mortgage payments, the maintenance, in some cases the 3- and 4-car garages and all the vehicles being stored there, and I would imagine the credit card debt associated with all the "stuff."
It makes me happy knowing that I am no longer a slave to my dream home. These days, the world is my home! We live comfortably in a nice apartment and we have plans to travel to many places. If we want to sit by water or woods, we can go to a nice park. There is a beach within walking distance of our apartment. What we've done may not be for everyone, but it's working very well for us!
-Paul Pakusch
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