I’m really glad that I tried so hard to succeed that I don’t get any stimulus money for that. Neither does my live in GF. We both make well above 50k in the Midwest.
At least it’s the Midwest and we don’t need the stimulus at all. My mortgage is 430/mo in a nice small town in a nice little 3br ranch. We can do virtually whatever we want between our incomes. Neither of us have been touched by the ‘pandemic’ other than me saving some miles and gas money working from home a couple of days per week instead of commuting 80 miles each day.
It was a long hard road. I bought the house at 34 years old. Had a kid to take care of at 18 (conceived while 17). Didn’t graduate high school, no college of course. Found a decent job in 2005. Didn’t pay great but also had lots of overtime you may not actually work because of how we billed time to clients, plus mileage pay for driving to each site. Stuck at it. I am now the Field Operations Manager.
The big kicker on buying the house was that I saved 3 years worth of taxes to file all at once and got EIC and all kinds of credit for being the only income in a family of four and not taking any government benefits. I wound up getting about 24,000$ all at once and slapped 20% down on the house. The house I found had had 3 prior sales fall through and desperately needed updating, but was 100% livable with no major or even minor repairs needed. I haggled hard and got it cheap, because housing was still fairly depressed at the time and the seller was motivated to finally have a sale work out.
There were a lot of lucky circumstances that put me where I am, but also a lot of right choices and hard work done to get there too. I have to credit luck a little, because we all k ow one run of bad luck can fuck your whole life up. But I didn’t just fall into it; like with the taxes I knew my ex wife would want to spend the fuck out of the money so I waited until all of the old back support was paid off, and it just so happened that our landlord passed away and we had to move because his daughter wanted to sell the place. Oops, sorry dear we have to buy a house now!
I traveled a lot for work and spent a few years roaming out of state and soaking up fat per diem pay but not spending it like my coworkers. I drove my same work van all around the country; was comfy and reliable but not ‘nice’. Did some side jobs on evenings and weekends and put the money back too. Ate bologna, pb&j, tuna fish a lot for lunch....I almost never ate out or got gas station food and drink after the first year when I calculated how much money I was spending on it all.
I also learned how to do my own maintenance on vehicles and am definitely a ‘car guy’ now from all those years of acquiring knowledge.
So along with some luck and being smart with my money, I wound up able to buy a house with no degree supporting a family of four on one income that wasn’t even that great.
Almost anyone in a place with a reasonable cost of living (IE not the NE or left coast) can do this if they stop wasting money and focus on the goal. Yeah I got that big kick with the tax money, but it was only around 16k that I put down. I had about half of that saved already and it was snowballing quick with all of the things I learned about saving along the way. Putting back 1$ or 20$ or 200$ in an account that only exists to save in works if you stick to not touching it no matter what. I actually still have that original account I put 50$ a month in...and have no idea how much money is in it because I don’t look because it doesn’t exist for spending.
I’m really glad that I tried so hard to succeed that I don’t get any stimulus money for that. Neither does my live in GF. We both make well above 50k in the Midwest.
At least it’s the Midwest and we don’t need the stimulus at all. My mortgage is 430/mo in a nice small town in a nice little 3br ranch. We can do virtually whatever we want between our incomes. Neither of us have been touched by the ‘pandemic’ other than me saving some miles and gas money working from home a couple of days per week instead of commuting 80 miles each day.
Seriously jealous
It was a long hard road. I bought the house at 34 years old. Had a kid to take care of at 18 (conceived while 17). Didn’t graduate high school, no college of course. Found a decent job in 2005. Didn’t pay great but also had lots of overtime you may not actually work because of how we billed time to clients, plus mileage pay for driving to each site. Stuck at it. I am now the Field Operations Manager.
The big kicker on buying the house was that I saved 3 years worth of taxes to file all at once and got EIC and all kinds of credit for being the only income in a family of four and not taking any government benefits. I wound up getting about 24,000$ all at once and slapped 20% down on the house. The house I found had had 3 prior sales fall through and desperately needed updating, but was 100% livable with no major or even minor repairs needed. I haggled hard and got it cheap, because housing was still fairly depressed at the time and the seller was motivated to finally have a sale work out.
There were a lot of lucky circumstances that put me where I am, but also a lot of right choices and hard work done to get there too. I have to credit luck a little, because we all k ow one run of bad luck can fuck your whole life up. But I didn’t just fall into it; like with the taxes I knew my ex wife would want to spend the fuck out of the money so I waited until all of the old back support was paid off, and it just so happened that our landlord passed away and we had to move because his daughter wanted to sell the place. Oops, sorry dear we have to buy a house now!
I traveled a lot for work and spent a few years roaming out of state and soaking up fat per diem pay but not spending it like my coworkers. I drove my same work van all around the country; was comfy and reliable but not ‘nice’. Did some side jobs on evenings and weekends and put the money back too. Ate bologna, pb&j, tuna fish a lot for lunch....I almost never ate out or got gas station food and drink after the first year when I calculated how much money I was spending on it all.
I also learned how to do my own maintenance on vehicles and am definitely a ‘car guy’ now from all those years of acquiring knowledge.
So along with some luck and being smart with my money, I wound up able to buy a house with no degree supporting a family of four on one income that wasn’t even that great.
Almost anyone in a place with a reasonable cost of living (IE not the NE or left coast) can do this if they stop wasting money and focus on the goal. Yeah I got that big kick with the tax money, but it was only around 16k that I put down. I had about half of that saved already and it was snowballing quick with all of the things I learned about saving along the way. Putting back 1$ or 20$ or 200$ in an account that only exists to save in works if you stick to not touching it no matter what. I actually still have that original account I put 50$ a month in...and have no idea how much money is in it because I don’t look because it doesn’t exist for spending.
Thank u for sharing this!