I'm tired of moving up and am going to move down and get out of debt.

[Sapere aude]

I'm going to sell our more expensive home and by an older crappier home, pay cash and use the rest to pay off cars and credit cars. Also I'm moving back to the Central Coast of CA. No more trying to see what I can amass. I'm going to take better care of my health, save money and retire in 6 years with investments and lay on the beach. The wife and I are going to work to save for that day.

And if someone doesn't like my house, ok.

[OrangeCountyDemocrat]

1. How Un-American Of You

Why not just borrow yourself into oblivion. Suck up all the remaining equity in your home. Run up several credit cards buying lots of stuff, like plasma tv's, furniture, computers.

This country can't survive unless you BUY, BUY, BUY!!

You're letting the terrorists win, ya know.

[SanCristobal]

2. Fascist! That crappy house is all that a poor family can afford,

but you want it so you can pay for your cars! No one deserves more then one car, you corporate fat cat! What investments do you have? Haliburton? Exxon? Weekly Standard? You sicken me almost as much as John Edwards does!

But seriously, good luck and have a nice day.

[trashcanistanista]

3. Unless your new home is a trailer

A "crappy" house in the Central Coast area will cost you $500,000 minimum. (I'm thinking San Luis.)

[Sapere aude]

6. I'm moving to a double wide mobile home. A manufactured home for $150,000

[SoCalDem]

14. Too bad we're not ready.. Your house sounds like what we will be looking for

We are MORE than ready to downsize this behemoth house and GTHOOSC (get the hell out of southern calif)

We should be able to pay CASH and have NO house payment, no car payments and no credit card payments.. Even having to pay for hubby's meds, we should be able to manage.

If it were up to ME, we would move to panama, but the medical thing for my husband won;t allow it (diabetes)

We cut up/paid off cards 2 years ago..haven';t missed them one bit.(although it reaslly hurts to count out hundreds to the car repair guy):cry:

We buy NOTHING we don;t need, and are giving away lots of stuff to our kids..and Good will

This might be the next BOOMER movement. BACK to simplicity:)

[kineneb]

26. welcome to the club

job loss and medical issues forced us into a similar situation...we love our double-wide, and it was a lot cheaper than a stick-built house. We bought the land and ordered the house for around $100,000, in 2003. Now we are able to (just) live on Hubby's SSDI ($14K/yr). No credit cards (Chapter 7), and the family paid off the court trustee, so we were able to keep our one car. Now our housing costs us around $300/mo, including insurance and property tax.

[Sequoia]

4. Where do you live now?

[Sapere aude]

7. I live on twenty acres in the Sierra Nevada Mountains

[Sequoia]

25. Beautiful, but cold and distant I'll wager.

[davidwparker]

5. That's wise of you.

[trekbiker]

8. me too.. I just received my first offer on my Vacaville, CA home

after 5 months of nothing, not a single hit. (Vacaville is about 20 miles inland from the SF bay area). The market is pretty dead but definately picking up since the first of the year, I've had more lookers in the past 3 weeks than in the previous 4 months combined. I plan to move into an apartment close to work. Tired of the real estate mania, owning/maintaining a big house, commuting on these crazy CA freeways. I found a very nice apartment 4 miles from my office in Sacramento and located right on the American river bike trail (best bike trail in the US). no more lawn, no more sprinklers, no more 45 mile commute... dont know if I'll own another house anytime soon. If I do it will be a lot smaller.

[Sapere aude]

10. Good for you! Maybe we can start a movement! Move Down!

[childslibrarian]

9. You Go!

Sounds great.:yourock: I respect your values.

[onethatcares]

11. I'm thinking the same thing,

west coast of Florida, St Pete area, homeowners insurance is getting out of hand, property taxes are rising, I have a 50K mortgage on a house that will sell for 225K, but I don't know where to move to. I hate the cold, can I really retire to somewhere in Central America and live like a king?

[Sapere aude]

12. Yes Panama! I saw it on TV yesterday. Your living expenses would be 1/2 and the life style is

better. They said lots of people are moving there from the U.S.

[SoCalDem]

18. I spent my childhood in Panama. It's the most beautiful place on earth

Gorgeous beaches, wonderful people. The ONLY thing that stands in our way is the health care issue and the expense of airline tickets back to the states..

[mnhtnbb]

21. We are building a house in Panama, in the Bocas del Toro area. It is possible to live

very well on a lot less. Health insurance in Panama is very affordable.

They have a permanent resident visa category which provides all kinds of discounts to those who qualify: ours took 6 months--they are having lots of applications!

A couple places for info: www.panamainfo.com

http://www.escapeartist.com/panama/panama.htm

If we retire there permanently (probably late 2008 after our youngest graduates high school) we will be moving into 2 BR 2 1/2 BA 1975 sq ft
on an island using only golf carts (and boats for inter-island travel)
from 3500 sq ft place now.

[Uben]

13. Did that a few years ago!

The cardboard gets a little spongy when it rains, but the 67 Impala is paid for!

[Jeanette in FL]

15. You will never regret it

I sold my home in Palm Beach County in 2002 and bought land in one of the poorest counties in Florida for cash.

I could have stayed in PBC for another year and made even more money, but I wanted out. Plus the price of land everywhere in Florida was going up as well.

Who needs it. Bigger house, more to clean, more to maintain, more to insure. It gets real old, real quick.

My son calls me the reverse "Beverly Hillbilly". He thinks most people sell their homes and sink it into a bigger home. Nope, not me.

[OwnedByFerrets]

16. If most of Amerika moved "down"

they would be living under a bridge. Consider yourself lucky that you are in a positon to do this.

[Sapere aude]

17. It took many years of had work to get here. I'm 61 yrs old.

[Edweird]

19. Me too

I'm in south florida. Been here 15+ years. Time to cash out my equity, pay everything off and move to the PNW.

[IndyOp]

20. I moved down and I LOVE it here --

I sold my 4-bedroom, two bath home with professionally landscaped yard and bought an in-dire-need of updating 1920 bungalow in the Summer of 2005. I updated the kitchen and bath, installed new appliances and am working my way around the house installing new double-paned windows.

I have less than half the space and really, really like it. Sitting at my computer I am about 12 steps from any other room in my house.

My yard is small enough that I can mow it with a little push mower - no engine, no pollution.

I pay less than 1/2 what I did before for my mortgage and escrow - which includes taxes and insurance and I give away a lot more money to political campaigns, independent media, and all kinds of great groups I want to support.

I am 42 and will retire in 23 years. If I had stayed in the other house I would not have had a chance to pay off the house and save for retirement at the same time. Now I can.

SIMPLIFY and :D

[Sonicmedusa]

22. But...but

The Decider says "shop".

[kath]

23. Yes - why do hate Murka? You're supposed to shop, shop, shop.

Fearless Leader tells us so.

[fed-up]

24. I sold/bought down in Nov-bought w/out a realtor in Northern CA-

and ended up saving about $100K . I am so thankful for the numerous threads on DU about becoming debt free!!

[qwlauren35]

27. I wish it was so easy.

I downsized the HARD way. I moved. I took a lower paying job, and my husband hasn't been able to find steady work now for nearly 2 years. My salary was cut by around 60-70%. So, we live in a rowhouse I bought for $78000 in a working-class suburb of Baltimore with a tolerable crime rate. Probably because everyone in the neighborhood has dogs. (We have cats also - keeps the rat population down!) We do have THREE cars. (One can't pass Maryland State Inspection, so we can't even sell it in Maryland! We'd been holding it for my step-daughter, but she doesn't want a standard. I guess it's time to donate it to charity.) They are all 1996/7 used Hondas. The one I bought in 1999 cost $10000, and the others cost under $5000.

I'm in my 40's, I've been saving in 401Ks for the last 20 years, I consider myself to have a "decent" sized nest-egg... but I couldn't retire in 6 years if I tried.


I have a sister in a McMansion that she plans to move out of and do her version of "downsizing". I also have a girlfriend who just stepped up to a McMansion a few years ago; I think she'll stay for the kids. I have another friend whose husband insisted on building one. The payments frighten the crap out of her, but she's excited about decorating it.

I struggle not to feel envy. But sometimes I fail. I don't need a McMansion, and would never buy one, but I wish I had that kind of money. Back when I had a "real" house with a decent backyard, there was no envy. But now, it seems to creep up on me at times and bite me in the *ss.

So... I have complete respect for your decision. Downsizing now and getting comfortable living on less while still making lots of money will definitely make it easier to live on a retirement income.

But please realize how lucky you are to have those kinds of options. I can't afford a $150,000 trailer.

[Sapere aude]

28. I feel for you. In 1982 I was a homeless alcoholic living in my car in San Diego.

By 1989 I was married and buying a brand new condominium in El Cajon. In 1991 I had to sell it or face foreclosure after a many months of unemployment. It is never easy.

[mdmc]

29. courage

:kick: