050 - Does Buying A House Really Save You Money Over Renting

We’ve been conditioned to believe that home ownership will save us money, give us security and make us successful in life.

It's toted as one of the best investments you can make. But after running the numbers, that couldn’t be further from the truth.

The gap between buying and renting is bigger than it’s ever been. And when you add up all the extra costs and consider the hidden obligations, it feels more like a trap... especially when you realize most of your mortgage payments went towards interest instead of equity. 

If you're someone who's thinking about taking the home buyer plunge, you need to listen to this episode. We don't want you mortgaging your future wealth.

They even have a credit card that gives you cash back on rent!

For a more detailed summary of this episode, click here.

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Transcript

Welcome to roaming returns a podcast about generating a passive income through investing So that you don't have to wait till retirement to live your passions We've been conditioned to believe that home ownership is the way to go But after running the numbers that couldn't be further from the truth In fact, the gap between buying and renting is bigger than it's ever been Let's dig into the details in case you're thinking about taking the homebuyer plunge We don't want you to end up with a negative future return because based on our calculations it could be as bad as negative 45% Y'all hopefully you got some awesome freakin thoughts rolling from last week's episode.
We are back today with some more Ridiculous money you could be saving. Yes, and we have Average prices and then we have actual real-life data like right now We're gonna use my condo as an example after we go through So basically if you can't tell I don't know if we mentioned it but this week we're I like I looked at the differences between Renting and mortgaging a house or owning a house. However, you want to phrase it It's technically mortgaging and we'll explain why there is a difference at the very end.
You're mortgaging your future for us Most people's freaking huge bucket list item or their big goal in life is to buy a house I'm guilty Tim's been guilty twice. I have two right now trying to get rid of one The other ones being like when I went into this I went into with I mean I knew what I knew so I like had to detach myself from what I knew and I went into it well with an open mind like with if one was better than the other and In my opinion one came out looking miles better than the other way The discrepancy is so much bigger, but we should preface preface by saying that some people want to own a home Their desires to own a home and that's fine. Not we're not we're not shit-talking that we're just I just want you to go in with an educated.
I just looked at the data Yes, we want you to be informed decision makers I could I just read an article on Yahoo Finance where Warren Buffett said Owning a home is a is a terrible investment And then like I read the comments on that and people were so but her like a house is not an investment a house is a home and He like he has real estate in his portfolio. He doesn't nobody's talking about so like we know It's a hot-button topic and I'm not trying to stir shit up I literally just pulled the data if you're triggering you really should pay attention To try to get your bias in check. We're not trying to like upset you in any way shape or form but data is data and Then you just need to be unbiased look at the data and even if you want to go against what the data is saying for Self-purposes by all means we're just trying to show people that might be right now looking to buy a house That you might not actually be saving the amount of money Yes, so like the data the data Signifies that renting a home is better hands down Financially and for your future Than owning a home and that could be a couple reasons like I think you said that in the past It was actually better to buy versus rent for years and years and years It was better to buy than to rent because the rent and the cost of buying a house Per month the mortgage payment and the rent payment were similar or the rent was actually higher than a mortgage But that is certainly not the case anymore, especially with interest rates being so high Like I just threw some numbers of we'll get to the data here in a second I got the first thing that I wanted to look at was how many people actually own homes So the national homeownership rate is 66 percent.
That means 66 percent own their homes while 34 percent rent 45 million people are renting and 90 million people are owning their homes in America I think what that shows is just the whole thing that's beat into our head from the time We're little you don't want to rent because renting is a waste of money You don't get any equity Owning a home is the American dream like it's something that none of us can escape because it literally has been beating our head from either an inception family or Advertising or community school you hear it in college if you take any of those finance classes or anything They always talk about how good it is to buy a home. That was just for sags shits and giggles I just wanted to know what the numbers were So then I looked at the median rent price in America right now is eighteen hundred and fifty dollars per month and the median Cost of a mortgage is twenty seven hundred per month and again, we know different communities different states are going to have different prices This is the median like basically they just tell tallied up everything and came out with an average price So that's that's right. They're basically all the data we have aside from our own personal stuff, which we'll do later so that's what we're going to go with that that current get that current gap of $850 is the greatest gap between renting and buying in the history of America So like that's what I was saying that there was a time when that gap was negligible or it was actually reversed So boning a home what made more sense than renting but right now that gap is ridiculously high like you're paying $850 more to own a house and As we get into in a moment It's actually a lot bigger than that like it but if you take the 850 a month, that would be ten thousand two hundred dollars per year Cheaper for rent than owning so you're saving ten thousand two hundred.
Okay, so then I looked at the additional cost of owning a home There are so many I can't even tell you when I first bought this I thought I had and I'm very diligent I went in with like all my stuff pre-calculated. I even looked up extra stuff this and that Even with all that as soon as I moved in there were hidden costs that I didn't even expect there were just Like things you got in the mail that you didn't even know you were responsible for I mean it was ridiculous The one that got me when I owned a house was you're responsible for the water line from like the middle of your yard to Your house. Oh, I signed off on I didn't do that because my dad can dig holes wherever he wants But like from the street to the middle of your yard is the it's the water companies But from the middle of your yard through the wall into their house is you're responsible.
I was like really yes So if that breaks they like they keep trying to give you things to pay for this crap And the funny part is both of my houses right after I bought the condo I think it was like not even a month in I had a toilet connector break on the second floor It has like a second floor first floor in a basement that broke while I was at work Seven hours of gushing water through my entire freaking house Just completely decimated in the first month of ownership and then the other house that we called Dozer House. My dad wanted to bulldoze it When I bought it cuz it was so crap, but I knew it needed a lot of repair work going into it But I did not expect the main water line to break in the concrete in the basement We actually had to dig a hole outside To like freaking splice a pipe in I was like Jesus. What is it with me in water? So additional costs there three main areas I mean, there's obviously a multitude other ones But three main ones will focus on our home improvements home maintenance which is different than home improvements if you don't know and then utilities the Total the average cost of home improvements per year in 2023 was thirty eight ninety three thousand eight hundred ninety average cost for home maintenance was four thousand two hundred eighty three and the average cost for utilities was four thousand nine hundred Seventy-five now, I'm assuming those utilities are utilities that are different than the ones you'd pay while renting I remember back when I rented there were certain places you get that actually had utilities included So you didn't pay any of that extra stuff and then when you go to own a home You realize you actually have a sewer payment and then you actually have sometimes like maintenance fees and all this other stuff trash pickup Sometimes that's included in your actual rent. So I'm assuming when they say utilities They mean the ones that are you'd be paying that you wouldn't be paying if you were renting.
I'm assuming didn't specify because they're D bags So you add those numbers up you get thirteen thousand one hundred forty-eight Well, let's talk about the difference between maintenance costs versus improvements. Okay home improvements Maintenance is stuff that you have to do to maintain your house like lawn care like if a gasket needs replaced in your sink because it's leaking like You have to replace a screen because it gets torn or like the screen to like the front door like the screen door has a problem You replace like whereas home improvement is like when you remodel your kitchen You put in new appliances Faucet completely goes out that shits the bed and you just you have to go buy a freaking brand-new under that's like how I how I described it in the email was if you have a say you have a faucet and it's leaking and you have to buy a Gasket and like some putty and whatever else to fix it. That is maintenance.
But if you replace it, that's improvement so 13,148 so that's that's crazy And that's not stuff you have to deal with with running because running your landlord is responsible for breaks Replacements like if your stuff goes out, I can't stand on my cousin's You add up the total money saved from renting versus a mortgage plus this money saved that we just mentioned home improvements maintenance utilities It's twenty three thousand two hundred forty eight dollars per year on average I just don't know what the heck they're doing in the refrigerators and laundry like washroom dryer machines Like I had one for probably nine years of living here and it was an old super old Maytag with like the wooden trim and It took forever to actually finally die and they went through like three sets of like I don't know if they're just making new ones crappier or if they just wash laundry 24-7. Well, the new ones are more advanced so like they do like sensor goes out whatever like or the old ones that literally was just a water pipe and A motor that span a basket now, it's all sorts of crazy shit in them Yeah, I wanted bare-bones like I don't want more crap. Sometimes technology is not good and in the case of a washing machine I believe technology is not better.
I can't imagine the car. I was just looking at cost of refrigerators the other day They're like fourteen hundred sixteen hundred dollars for a new one. I was like screw that I'll take a hole in the backyard and do a cold cellar So we have twenty three thousand two hundred forty eight is the difference in cost but then that doesn't include time and then on average the average homeowner spends 205 hours on maintenance and Improvements every year.
This is where it gets crazy because most people really only work eight hours a day That comes out to be what did I calculate when you almost 26 working 26 working days of your life? Spent on maintenance and improvements like you can't like I'm pretty sure that's accurate if not low I think it's low But you can't skip them because if you skip them then it means a mountain of work Hours, you put in freaking just mowing the grass half the time. I'm sorry. That's just maintenance.
That doesn't include home improvement That doesn't include home improvement and maintenance means repairs and doing upkeep like yard work Okay, so let's go back to that twenty three thousand three hundred forty eight dollars. That actually doesn't include property taxes and homeowner's insurance. Which I find, we actually got in an argument about this, I was like, are you sure the numbers above with that, what is it, 2300 or 2700? The 2700 is just the mortgage. Just the mortgage, so that's not it.Most people's mortgages already have the taxes and insurance rolled into the actual mortgage payment, but for whatever reason, the stupid studies that are only available have it separated. Well, because they're trying to persuade people to buy houses, so they have to make the mortgage number as close to the rent number. I feel like that is beyond deceiving.It is misleading, so if you average it out. This is just scary to me. The actual mortgage would be 3060 instead of 2700, if you plug in those numbers into your calculator.All I have to say is no wonder why people think they need millions of dollars to retire, like that's just ludicrous. So that means the total amount saved now is 27,668 instead of the 23,248, and that's a savings of $2,306 per month to rent versus home. Say that one more time.$2,306. That's freaking insane. In-freaking-sane.So then the biggest argument for owning a home is you have equity, and you have something that's yours, and you have... So if you sell it, you'll have a bunch of money. The problem with that is... Yeah, here's where the number really does not... On average, the average time a homeowner lives in their home is 13.2 years before they sell and either upgrade or move into something smaller. So 13.2 years.And that's pretty accurate. I've been here for about 11 years, and we're selling. So I haven't even hit that threshold.So if you sell even before this, these numbers are going to be worse. So if you know anything about how they structure your mortgage payment... Interest up front. Interest is all up front.So selling after 13 years, that means you spent the majority of your money that you've been paying on the loan and not the principal. So if we look at the average median home price in 2023 was $495,100. 13 years of mortgage payments would only drop the amount owed to $316,342.So you've only paid almost $80,000 of principal, whereas you've paid $342,000-ish around there that went to interest. That is so beyond disproportionate. Like if you get your mortgage statement and you look at the amount principal paid versus interest paid... I remember back when I was making extra payments, and this is the only thing that covered and saved my ass from this whole situation, was the extra payments I was making.Looking at that difference, I was so hell-bent on getting it about 50-50 because the higher principal you're paying, the faster your loan comes down. So we do more math. More math, as they say.So the total money spent through 13 years of owning a home is $421,000. That's on, of course, a $495,000 home. That means your equity, because you're selling after only 13 years, is going to be $179,000 around there, and that's with 20% down.So if you put less down, your equity is not going to be $179,000. That's like a quarter. So that whole thing of equity, equity, equity, well, the equity only is pertinent if you pay off your house.If you significantly, yeah, if you significantly pay. So then you look at, well, if you take that 20 out of that 20, what did I say it was? The 20 is $7,668. You multiply that times 13 years.Renters would have saved $359,864 through 13 years. Over 13 years. $359,864 on the average number.$300,000 plus. Like, that's mind blow. Like, legit.I'm just sad. You're saving that much, but if you've actually bought a house, you only have $178,000. Like, you're up like $200,000 just renting.Well, and so what's even crazier is I, oh my God, like when I was working at the government, I cannot even tell you how many people went to go refinance. When you refinance, you end up increasing your interest paid. Because remember how we said, as you pay off those mortgage, your principal starts to grow with the amount going and your interest starts to come down a little bit.Well, when you refinance, you actually set it back to that zero mark where you're paying more interest heavy up front, even if the quote unquote numbers might be less. It's like hidden in the math. Like, you guys have to understand if you really crunch the numbers, and this, I guess, is my strong suit because I love math.Like, it's insane. And one of the things when my brother first bought a house, I told him, even if you have the 20% to put down, do not put the 20% down. Put down the bare minimum, and then after you actually settle on the house, take that what you were going to put down and drop a huge principal payment.It knocks out like six years worth of interest. It's crazy if you actually crunch the numbers. That's how you actually screw the mortgage companies.And it's funny, I told that to my one buddy when he was looking to buy, and he went and talked to the loan advisors, and they like kicked him out of the office because they were like, they're getting screwed out of that deal. Absolutely screwed. You will pay a little bit more interest percent wise if you put less down, but I think you end up paying a lot less interest in the long run if you run the calculations. Now, this may be different because interest rates are so high, but back when I did the numbers for all my stuff, that's exactly what I did. Yeah, she's smart. Well, and then I don't even think this includes the PMI crap.And I don't know if anybody knows this, but when you used to do the, what the heck is that one? If you had an FHA loan, that was supposed to be like a warm and fuzzies for new homeowners or first time homebuyers. But now they've changed the rules where even if you hit the 20% equity, if you have an FHA, you're still paying that PMI, which is mortgage insurance for the life of the loan. Depending on how expensive your house is, like the 100,000 mark is where I've bought both houses and it was like $87 a month.That adds up over 30 years. Like that is wasted money. So I always recommend go conventional, go conventional, go conventional.But all of these numbers would be a moot point and it would actually lean towards buying if you paid cash down. The loan. That's not feasible.$500,000. Even though I think Dave Ramsey is a judgmental and narrow-minded person, I do think he's onto something with buying your house in full cash. The interest.That's the big. Well, I think you can, we'll get to that here in a second. Like in 13 years, you've, you've actually spent $316,000 for a mortgage.And you only have 178,700 equity. So you had a negative 43% return on your money. Whereas if you take that 2306 you've saving a month and you just invest it in a regular index fund that in the average return of 10%, you're actually making 756,000 over the same period of time while renting.I mean. Like I really, when you throw in these numbers, like home ownership just looks less and less appealing, especially if you're trying to retire early. Like this could be your answer.But the caveat is that if you're going to rent, you would actually have to take that difference in money that you would be putting towards buying. Now here's where it gets tricky for people. People tend to goldfish to the amount of free cash they have outside of their living expenses and spend it on whatever discretionary stuff.Which means by goldfish, if you know the goldfish, like a goldfish grows to its bowl. Yeah. It grows to the size of the bowl.So if you have, if you say, if you're making $5,000 a month and you're only spending 2000 on like all your bills, you have 3000 left over. What people will do is they'll grow their lifestyle to accommodate the other $3,000, whether it be memberships or streaming services or. So that's how, that's how people actually afford all these expenses for home ownership.It's because as they become necessities, they have to cut out stuff to make sure they can keep their house to not go into foreclosure and all that stuff. So if you would have to have the foresight and the wherewithal to like know the difference in price and then be diligent to actually take that difference in renting versus buying and stick it into an investment account. I do not think most people could do that.I don't think we could do that. I could do it. But we're just putting that out there.I mean, to that extent, I don't know about that. If you took what we taught you last week with the credit card rewards and the tax refund, refund, and you, and then you apply it with the renting other than rather than buying, you could potentially have a investment account with like $4 million after 30 years. So right there.Without actually contributing, like after 13 years, you don't even have to contribute anymore. You just let the original, whatever you contribute for 13 years, just compound. Compound with no extra stuff in it.I mean, you can keep throwing your tax refund and I would actually encourage people to use their tax refund as a seed for their portfolio. I don't know. I mean, if you roll over the million dollar mark, is that really necessary at that point? I don't know.It's always necessary. I guess it depends on your lifestyle expenditures and whatnot. But that's crazy.So I said to Tim that these numbers seem absolutely ridiculous from the ownership of a house, from my point of view, because I bought starter homes. I bought well below what they were trying to push me to get. Yeah.So we actually went out of our comfort zone and we talked to people. Yeah, I know. We've been neighbors with the kids next door for like probably almost two years now.It's probably been 18 months. We talked to them once. For the first time yesterday.And she goes. Because I was like, hey, what are you paying in rent? By the way, what are you paying rent? Because I thought we're living in a condo association. So the easiest comparable money would be to actually ask somebody who's currently renting and because I was looking around on like Zillow or Trulia or something, and I did find one of the units up for rent.But that doesn't mean that that's going to be the finalized price. I think that was like $1650 a month. They just told me over there they're paying $1350.Now, there's two guys living there, so they actually are splitting that. So that's a freaking even bigger win for an individual than having the mortgage. So currently, my mortgage is only $695 a month.But if I actually take out a mortgage today based on the interest rate with the 3% down that I put down at the current housing value or purchase value of what my house would go for, the mortgage would actually come out to be $1470 a month at 7%. I don't know. Which is the average.Which is about the average right now. It's between $6.9 and $7.25, depending what you look at. The other thing I asked them was what are they paying? So they're only responsible to pay for water and electric.I'm paying extra for sewer and the association fee, which is $190 a month. Now, that covers trash pickup. That covers exterior insurance of the home because that's how condos work in this area.It covers lawn care and snow removal and a couple other things. So that's what that costs. That was $110 when I moved in here.I'm a little peeved at how big that is because they can't manage their freaking money properly. They're horrible. They're also overpaying for lawn care.I know that for a fact because that's what my dad does. So between the sewer and that fee, so that's extra money that they'd be paying. All the other utilities, in my opinion, come out in the wash.So then I took Tim's average numbers for the improvement and the maintenance, and I broke those down to a monthly payout. So the improvements would come down to be like $224 a month, and the maintenance would be like $218. Now, again, that probably isn't... $218 would be cut in probably half because they do the lawn care and everything.I think I actually decreased that number based on that. But I think I'm one of those people that tends to wait until something has to be done, and then it's a bigger expense. So that probably does come out about accurate.So sum total for living at the condo would come out to be $2148 versus their $1350 flat. So right there, that's a difference of almost $800. So they're exactly the same unit.It's the only difference is we have two additional windows. Yeah, but everything else is exactly the same. So my numbers aren't full of crap.So $800 difference. I threw it in at the 5% because I think my loan is like $3.75, but I threw it in at 5% just for shits and giggles. It'll drop the mortgage down to $1230, which then drops down that whole thing.And the difference still comes out to be like $560 a month. At the 5% or the 7%, that's still almost $600 to $800 difference. And I flat out told the kid yesterday, I was like, just so you know, I'm running these... I was actually pretty surprised he actually told me what they were paying because most people get weird about that.But I was like, dude, I literally think you're waking up. I told him about the association fee. I told him about the freaking sewer crap.And now they added in this area stormwater maintenance. So we have to pay an extra... I don't even remember what it is for here. But my other house, it's like an extra $48 a quarter for stormwater maintenance.And the crazy part is if you look at that property, they should be paying me for stormwater management because all the local water runs off onto my property and turns into a freaking pond every time it rains. So I'm getting gypped over there for sure. But it's just added crap they have on everything.And the sewer over there is freaking expensive. It's like $300 a quarter. Over here, it's like $110.So the takeaway is if you took the average money that you could make from credit cards and tax refunds and the average money you save renting versus buying and you combine them, you get $859,501 after 13 years that you can have in a portfolio. You can have damn near a million dollars in your portfolio after 13 years just renting and investing your cash rewards and your tax refund. But honestly, I wish I knew this before because it's the amount of time that I waste on upkeep.Now that I'm renovating this condo, I'm seriously ready to freaking just sell as is, which then I'll shoot myself in the foot. So I struggle every day with motivating myself to freaking take the materials I've already bought and actually prettify this place up. But it's crazy.Now, we actually did the math. When I was working at the government, I was making $96,000 a year, which is a good chunk of change as I should for the amount of soul suffering that I did. But I was actually paying an extra $500 a month on principle for the longest amount of time.So the remaining balance on my hundred... I think my loan was for $97,000. It's down to $54,000 right now around there. So even making extra payments, she hasn't even paid off half of her loan amount in 11 years.But that's still way better than most people's. The other one was only like a quarter. That's crazy.If you just think that, that's just the power of interest rates in your mortgage right there. But that actually saved myself a crap ton of interest. So if we actually sell this for about the value it should go for, even with all the closing costs and everything, the seller fees, we'll actually break even equity had I rented and saved the difference.We will literally break even. And I'm not entirely sure it was worth all the blood, sweat and tears. It wasn't.Because I am telling you that day I came home and I saw my water waterfall in my living room. I was like, oh my God, I don't even know where the water shut off is. I was in panic mode because I was like, where the hell is the water shut off? I actually went upstairs and the old valve on the toilet was one of those, I guess it's like a gate valve instead of the actual, the ones that do the twist turn where they actually like, I forget what they're called, ball valves.And it was rusted. So I couldn't even turn it off in the toilet. So I like ran up two stories, slipped down the stairs, I have work shoes on.I am soaking wet. My neighbor came in after me because he was like, what is going on in there? I like fell down the stairs and then I had to turn it off at the main shut off. But I was just like WTF.Like I was such a new homeowner that I didn't even know where the water shut off was. It was really bad. Now, interesting enough, I got an email tonight about a credit card that gives you one point for every dollar in your rent payment.I don't know how that would work though. Because if you're renting from like a random person, like how, I can't imagine. I'm assuming if you're renting, like I think probably if you rent from like a- A bigger corporation, I could see that.But like a general person would not want to pay that credit card fee. But it's interesting that you get one point for every dollar you spend on the credit card. It was the BILT, B-I-L-T something or another.If you tally that up, you actually could have $400 to $500 on your rents paid by credit card rewards. Yeah, that's actually really interesting. So something to look into if you possibly are renting under a bigger corporation.I'm just saying, so if you like, so there's even ways that you can actually take that $730 in your credit cards and actually make it worth more because there's one that pays, that'll give you rent rewards. And then obviously the utility one I mentioned. So you literally could have more than $850,000 in your investment account.Well, I mean, there's other ways too to save money with housing. Like I was just poking around for my mom's sake the other day. And I found a place like a half hour from here that's a private little like mother-in-law suite with a secluded like deck for $700 a month for an Airbnb rental.All utilities included. Like you could literally pop around to Airbnbs that are furnished. So you wouldn't even have to buy furnishings.That's another thing people do wrong when they buy houses. They tend to put their new furniture on more credit cards, which is my Molly. If you're going to do that, put it in a credit card and pay it off.But like the other thing too, with the neighbors, like they have two people living there. So they're splitting that halfsies. That's a great way to save money.Now, they did say they had a third roommate who was a huge pain in the ass. They ended up kicking him out. And Tim and I being introverts, it is kind of hard to live with other people.I've tried it a couple of times and I just want to stab him in the face. The one kid that was here only for a couple of months, he left my oven on overnight. And I was like, this is absolutely unacceptable.Like just beyond unacceptable. I was like, you're negligent. You're ridiculous.And we're not the cleanest people in the world. And that's another thing. Like I hated living with people who insisted on washing dishes every single, like right after they used it.I always waited until the whole sink was full. So it's like even just little differences and stuff can frustrate you when you're cohabitating with somebody. You can do free places too, if you do those world packers and some of those other places, if you really wanted to hop around and really, really skimp down on that.Or you could rent your own house out to Airbnb and, you know, make back your mortgage payment. And that's like the only caveat to this whole renting versus owning thing. I would think of the case of her friend, Ben, who actually bought a duplex and he rents the bottom out to cover the mortgage.Then you're actually making out. That's actually good. So I think basically the rule of thumb is all debt is bad.The only time debt makes sense to take on is if you're actually using it to generate more money. So if you're buying a house, a duplex to rent part of it out and recoup some of that cost. So like Dozer House, the other house I have, I'm literally getting all expenses covered.So I don't even care about the interest. Like it's all just coming out in the wash and they're essentially paying. Now, if I got that paid off, I'd be making a crap ton extra.I completely forgot about this till just a little bit ago. One of the things that we were actually considering for an alternative living situation to save money, because that was one of the biggest things I noticed when I didn't realize how much repair work went into owning a house, because most of the bigger systems go out every 10 to 15 years. Like you need a new roof. You need a new HVAC. You need new appliances. You know, your washer dryer, sometimes your pipes and plumbing need updating.Sometimes the electric system goes kaput. We were actually thinking if you got just a tiny chunk of land and you were in an area that allowed you to put trailers down, I actually think the most cost effective way would be to just be like buy a used trailer for like $3,000 and just get rid of it after like five to 10 years. Where we got that idea though, we were in Greece like six years ago.Like the place we went to actually sleep for the night, they had just a bunch of run down old trailers and they just rented them out every night. And like there's like literally, once the trailer breaks, you just haul it off and replace with another used one. I mean, and it was great because the thing with most, if you know anything about trailer parks, like the lot rents what kills you, but that's actually the more affordable route when it comes to home ownership.Most people who bought, they buy a new trailer to go into a property, but then it costs too much to move them out. So they leave them there. So a lot of places will actually sell you used trailers because they don't want to pay to move them themselves.You just have to pay the total cost. Or you can buy a plot of land for, they're not really expensive. You can get some run down plot of land and just get a Connex box and just build a house in the Connex box.I've seen lots of people do that. I think that's actually a really cool option. Again, you have to have the zoning apply for that.We just got freaking through a whole legal thing. But like there's numerous ways to actually, like the whole point of these last two podcasts was because I get questions all the time. I don't have any money to invest.Well, I just found like three really good ways for you to actually seed your portfolio with- 99% of people who say they don't have enough money to invest are bullshitting themselves because they actually just don't want to cut some of the money that they're spending. Well, that's- For comfort, convenience, fun, whatever. But you literally don't have to cut.Like if you use cash rewards and you use your tax refund and then you rent instead of owning, you're not cutting anything out other than the ownership of a home. Yeah, you're saving expenses. And then we didn't even touch on the big one that's most people's like black hole in spending, which is your car.The car, you can do the same exact thing rather than buy a new car every year and like whatever, I think they're 4% or 5% now. You can literally just buy like a $1,000 hoopty. That's what we do.Like I refuse to pay above anything that's more than $1,000 a year for the life of the car. So like basically if I paid 16 grand for my car, that fucker better last 16 years. Come hell or high water.And that's why I've got like 225,000 on the camera. I actually bought a new car when I worked at the Turnpike and the payment was like 170 a month for seven years. It wasn't worth it.I could have got pretty much the exact same car for like $4,000. Yeah, I bought two certified used and then I was just like- It was a Toyota Corolla. I literally could have just bought a used one for like probably a third of what I paid for a brand new one.So like new, I know like the problem with people is they have this thing bred into them that new is better. And it's not necessarily the case in a lot of- I know a lot of people say that their excuse is the safety factor and the fact that they don't need repair and maintenance. And it's like, is it worth the extra money on loan and the interest for the little bit difference in headache? It really depends.Like I, part of my thing was that I dated a whole bunch of mechanics and actually learned a whole bunch of like maintenance stuff. So I saved a lot of money being able to do stuff myself and knowing how to not get swindled. No, it's not worth it.Like a new car, I would never even buy a certified used again. And like they have a racket now where like they'll just sell you like a two or three year lease because they know that you'll be like once your lease is up, you'll just get another new car. Well, in actuality, we'll hear this out.If you do the math, me doing math, if you're the kind of person that has to buy a new car every year to two years, you actually should lease. You save money leasing. But even then it's a racket.It's still a racket. They know that you're the best option. At the end of the lease, you'll get another lease.Yeah, but I'm saying if you have, if you are, if that is something you are non-negotiable on, you should actually lease over buying. As a human, you shouldn't be non-negotiable on anything. But that's my opinion.If you're actually trying to find ways to save money, your car is actually your biggest. A car and house are the two biggest expenditures. And if you can somehow find a way to save money on both those expenditures, whether it be buying a hoopty, you can buy like a. Oh, I love having hoopties.I freaking love it. Even if you went and got a loan for a used one, it would still be better than getting a loan for a new one. Well, you know, it's interesting, though.I've noticed that the used cars are like the older used cars are holding their value. I think because car prices are so high these days. And then there's a thing where I think it's like once a vehicle is over seven years old, you can't actually get a loan for it.So that's actually where you have the most haggle room with people trying to sell vehicles. You just wait till they're desperate and then you can talk them down. It's just crazy.And then like with inflation being how it is, like I'm going back to the owning a home thing, like lumbers up, appliances are up. I still can't believe they're building to the extent that they're building. It's just crazy to me owning a house in this environment.Like the thing I read a lot is that people, they can't afford a new house and they don't actually break it down and say you probably don't want a new house. They're under the impression that everybody wants a new house. And if you actually want to have enough money where you can do whatever you want for like 40 or 50 or 60% of your life, then owning a house isn't the way to do it.Honestly, if I could go back, I would just rent a cheap room in somebody else's house for like maybe 300 bucks a month and I would just sock money away. So like that's but anyway, that's why these two came because I got so tired of hearing people say like they can't find money, find money to invest. Well, you actually can.You just have to think differently. You have to think differently than most people. And once you do, like once you like, I mean, I work for her dad and I don't make a lot of money, but like once you see like you're worthy starting to pile up and then once you see like your brokerage in Wells pile up, you see your brokerage in SoFi pile up, you're like, well, damn, dude, I must be doing something right.Well, that's how credit card companies make money. They make it on the interest. So it's like you can flip that thing on its head by not paying them any money and actually generating your own and then you making all this interest and letting it snowball compound over time. Like once you, Worthy is the best place to start because you get that daily compounding but once you see that happen, you actually start to become addicted and like you get creative about finding ways to get extra money in that thing because it's like, wow, you just want it to grow. Carm and I were just discussing the YieldMaxes again tonight and like if you take, so you're saving $2,000 a month renting versus buying. Oh yeah, this is the thing.If you dumped half of it in the YieldMax and half of it into like quality dividend stocks, dude, you'd be, you'd, I mean. You would freaking just explode your account and the thing is, if you're doing it like with the cash back money or money, you would have been blowing on stuff anyway. It doesn't really matter if you're putting it in something risky that could go to zero and if you have equity in your house, like if it were me and I had somebody preach me this and I ran the numbers, I'd probably sell my house, take the equity, which is exactly what we're doing.Take the equity, throw it in and then go rent somewhere because it's like, where else can you get a huge chunk of change? Usually the equity. Because the whole objective of everything that I preach is because I want everyone to do what they want to do and I'm fairly confident most people don't want to actually have to go to work every day and so like I found ways to actually make money doing things that you'd normally do to then put into investments to make money from your investments. Like it's like, like I think it was Warren Buffett who said, if your money is not making money while you're asleep, you're going to work until you die.That was Einstein. I think it was Buffett. He said it too.Buffett said it. Einstein said it. Benjamin Franklin said it.Like, I mean all the great minds. The objective is you want your money to be making money. I know I said it aeons ago.This is episode 51, right? 50, I think. If you don't make money while you sleep, you'll work until you die. I think most people don't want to do that.So I've actually created great plans that you guys can tweak to whatever makes you comfortable. You can tweak it however you want. I'm just like, I don't think the information was out there because I know it wasn't when I was looking.So I'm trying to put it out there. Yes. And I think it's just a slight mindset shift where it's like you got to put a little bit of extra work and withhold a little bit right now for like a three year period.Anybody can do a three year period. It's not 30. It's like three.You guys got this. You guys seriously got this. It's like you could cede your retirement in like five years time.That's insane. Like our fathers. Anybody can do a side house.Our parents couldn't do it. Our grandparents couldn't do it. But we actually live in a time where we can actually do it.We have so many opportunities right now. So why not do it? So hopefully that really opened you guys' eyes to the potential income that's hidden all over the place in your life, even without cutting stuff out. And if you don't want to do this part of it, you can cut other stuff out.We'll do an episode I think next week on ways to actually cut things out to save money. And those little things add up over time. So tune in next week if these last two episodes weren't your jam.I don't know how the cashback thing might not be your jam unless you have a credit card spending problem. And closing out, I want to let you guys know I've actually stumbled upon an update. So if you guys want to engage, leave comments, drop comments, and you don't have social or you don't want to deal with that or if you don't want to deal with email, I figured out a way to actually create a blog post and put a link in the show notes to comment where you literally go right to the show notes.You don't have to enter your name. You can submit anonymously. We want to hear from you guys.Like what things are you taking away? What are you struggling with? What do you want us to talk about? And then I would reckon I know I haven't pimped it as much as I can, but I would sign up for the email because the next two emails are going to be the retirement portfolio and the van life portfolio. They're coming out in the next, I think three weeks from now will be the retirement portfolio and four weeks will be the van life portfolio. So you'll actually see what we own.So like it makes more sense. She just totally stole my thunder on the comment thing. Well, they can comment, but I think they should sign for the email, the email.They get so much more information they do than the podcast. OK, Tim. Sorry.I want comments. OK, she wants comments. I want you guys to sign up so you can get all my information.It goes out every week and it like it has a shit ton of information in it. All right, guys, I'm going to close it off on that because I'm just going to keep babbling. We will see you guys next week with a whole bunch of different ideas to get you guys saving money on things you are doing that aren't really going to deprive you or you don't have to cut them out of your life.Like, for example, coffee. I mean, yeah, like going to Starbucks versus just homebrewing. Like you can save a good chunk of change.So there's a whole bunch of different ideas with that. That'll be next week's episode. So hope you guys have a great week.I hope you have a great Memorial Happy Holiday and start. Hope you had a great Memorial Day. Start making money on these plans.Seriously, people, you're going into summer. Go find a friend with a pulse and cancel your pool membership. Let's start. Save some money, vegg out and throw money into investments. Tax refunds should all be about here. So you should be able to do that.That ship sale. We're in May. People already got their stuff. Oh, it's better to waste that money, huh? All right. Losers. See you guys next time.