Instead of buying a house, I did this (and it made me rich)
Why I stopped following default patterns and started following my own dream
There are two things that define my financial life, and neither are fun to talk about on the internet.
The first is that I rent and the second is that I invest more than half of my income.
This week, I thought it’d be a cool idea to go deep on my experience with homeownership because it’s a part of this brand’s origin story.
If I hadn’t gone down the homeownership path, I wouldn’t have wound up where I am now — 33 and on track to retire in my 40s and build a half a million dollar stock market portfolio.
I’m not going to convince you of anything.
I’m not even going to show you the math.
I’m going to simply share what I did instead of buying a home.
I trust that you are smart enough to do the math on renting versus buying on your own if you are making this decision.
I personally find it helpful to see people’s actual lived experiences with these things.
And beyond asset acquisition…I’m personally curious about their internal scripts and overall mental well being.
Because from my experience with pursuing homeownership I realized that I was doing it not because I necessarily was super passionate about it, I was doing it because I thought it was the next best thing to do.
While I was the first in my family to do a lot of things, like go to college, become a software engineer, and invest in the stock market, I won’t be the first person to buy a home in the U.S.
The reason I went in this direction was because I was following the default pattern.
All my uncles do it.
My dad did it.
My cousins were doing it.
My co-workers were doing it.
Default patterns can run deep.
People say they do it because it’s financially responsible, but these are the same people who don’t even have a budget, and can’t explain to you their amortization schedule.
They do it because everyone is doing it.
They do it because their identity is tied up in it.
They do it because it will give them status in their circles.
And that’s fine — if your peace of mind, true calling, and dream life aren’t jeopardized.
The truth is, I am no different than most people in their 20s and 30s and would love to own a home, but the difference between 33 year old Anita wanting a home and 28 year old Anita wanting a home are very different.
The journey from blindly following the default pattern to intentionally designing my own path wasn't automatic, and I didn’t even realize it was happening while it was happening —but it changed everything. In this week's video, I break down exactly what I did instead of buying a house and how it put me on track to retire in my 40s.
If you’d like an honest view on how challenging it was to buy a home in 2020-2022, this is a great video to watch. It’s an honest look at what the home buying process can actually look like in a low inventory county with a modest income.
If you’ve ever realized that you were following a default pattern, and making decisions to live out someone else’s dream, I’d love to hear about it. Feel free to share your experience with me in the comments of the video.
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Weekly Challenge
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Talk soon,
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