← Frugal Friends Podcast
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- [00:01]
A
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We'Re spending more than ever. I hate my job. The price of everything has gone up. AI is threatening my job. It's crisis after crisis. Nothing is working out.
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A
I can't find a job.
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C
We're one disaster.
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A
Take control of change.
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B
I need a change.
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A
Disruption is the force of change. Stop the chaos. Stop the madness.
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Take control.
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Read James Patterson's Disrupt Everything and win.
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B
Why I Sold My House and Choose to Rent. The math shocked us. Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast, where you'll learn to save money, embrace simplicity, and live a richer life. Here are your hosts, Jen and Jill.
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A
Hey, Frugal Friends. I'm Jen.
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B
I'm Jill.
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A
And today we are talking about a controversial topic. We're diving into buying versus renting a house, and we're pushing it into more controversy. What if you already own a house and decide to go back to renting? Is it a dumb idea or the right idea for you? Salacious, because Jill just made that huge decision herself. And so by choice, she's still obviously living in St. Pete. So I am going to be interviewing her today about her choice, what started it, how the process went, and now that she's been in this apartment for about a month, the pros and cons of the choice.
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B
And I'm going to share our process, the numbers, the emotions, everything involved. So you can decide if this might be something worth considering for you, what's best for your lifestyle. So let's do it. Because you know what? Renting is having a moment right now. Oh, my God.
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C
Why aren't interest rates coming down?
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B
I'll never be able to buy a home.
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C
Why do you want to buy a home so badly? You're joking, right? If you're renting, you're an idiot loser. Who throws money into a black P?
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B
Everyone says so. Who's everyone? I ran the numbers, and buying a house might be one of the worst.
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A
Financial moves I could make right now.
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B
Everyone says renting is throwing away money, but where I live, rent can be 30 to 50% cheaper than a mortgage payment. And what's crazy is that the majority of that mortgage payment isn't even going towards building equity. We'd actually build way more wealth. Renting and investing the difference.
- [03:09]
A
This obviously varies depending on your own.
- [03:10]
B
Unique circumstances, but for us, renting is definitely the right choice. Just so you know, renting is now cheaper than owning in all of the 100 largest US metros, which to me just reinforces why a house you live in should not be seen as an investment. I pissed off a lot of people talking about this in my recent video essay on YouTube, but it is such an important conversation to have because I really think that so many people sleepwalk into the biggest financial decision they'll make in their life when choosing to buy a house. Oh, it is worth talking about. That's the thing. That's why we're going to talk about it.
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A
Yes, but first, this episode is brought to you by Pity. No, not the pity your mother bestows on you when she thinks about your life choices. P I T I which some people also call pd.
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B
But I've always I like pity.
- [03:53]
A
Yeah, same principal, interest, taxes and insurance. It's those second and third numbers that can really have your mortgage going up and down every year. And that's why it's so important to have a budget that you are looking at occasionally. But if you're somebody like us who does it well, I won't say us if you're someone like me who doesn't look at their budget constantly, you may not want to pay monthly for a budgeting app, which is why we created a budget spreadsheet that we affectionately call a Spending Planner. It is so great. It's so beautiful. It's got over 20 sheets, a tab for every month, it's mobile optimized, it's got 12 monthly budgets, an annual dashboard, bill calendar, savings tracker, a net worth tracker, and my personal favorite, the Opportunity Cost Calculator that lets you quickly calculate the opportunity cost or cost per use of something that you're thinking about buying. Both of those calculators are on the same sheet, so if you want to take a look, you can go to frugalfriendspodcast.com budget and if you're watching on YouTube, check the description below for a code for 30% off. So renting is obviously something to consider if you don't already own right? But what if you do? I know there are people in the same boat as you, Jill, who are finding this video trying to find other people maybe who've sold their house and have gone back to Renting by choice is it a good idea. And obviously you went through with it.
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B
So I did do it.
- [05:44]
A
Right. So we want to see the different sides of the whole process that led you here so people can decide if it's the right decision for them and overcome this bias that might feel like you're backsliding if you choose to go from homeowner to renter.
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B
This is an exciting episode for me because it has become one of the things that I am loving to talk about. But I do want to preface this by saying I know that people have really, really strong opinions about both home ownership and renting. A lot of people feel as though they are making the very best decision for them. And that's great. This episode, I mean, be here. But it is primarily.
- [06:32]
A
Let us know all of your strong opinions in the comment section. We want to hear them. Don't hold back.
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B
I'm hoping to primarily be most helpful to the people who are kind of just considering and unsure of their own math and what are the different variables. But I know that what worked for us 100% not, will not work for everybody. But there are some things that I think could be challenging to some of the status quo that I feel is really important to talk about. So glad to be here and be a little vulnerable. I think I'm going to share some things, real numbers and math that is quite transparent.
- [07:12]
A
Yeah. Which we are not vloggers, so we don't share a lot of like, behind the scenes, like, things. I mean, if you've listened to the show, like you've gotten to know us, we're not like a different person on the show, but we're not showing like our every day, like, budgets and stuff like that. So let's get into it. What started this journey for you?
- [07:37]
B
Okay. I want to back up and talk about just really quickly, my journey into home ownership. So before Eric and I bought our house, we were living in an RV. So 170 square feet. And that was to pay down debt. That was to have housing we could afford. That was to be able to have flexibility in our lifestyle. I loved it. I would do that again living in an rv. But I never intended for it to be long term. In some ways it was a good living situation that was also somewhat of a means to an end. Every RV that we lived in, we fixed up and sold for a profit. And we're able to really make a lot of good headway in our financial goals because of that. Like, the first RV paid for my master's degree and the second rv, the one that we had just before we bought this house, was actually the sale of. It was the down payment on our house. So knowing that we didn't want to live in 170 square feet for forever, owning a home was the next step, because we owned what we lived in, and we had become accustomed to that. And we liked being able to do the renovations. And it was just a dream of ours. You know, we became debt free in that rv. The sale of the RV was gonna give us a nice chunk of money. And so what do we wanna do with this? And this was at the beginning and just before COVID that we started to have our sights on buying a home. We initially were considering buying up in Pennsylvania, but at the time, costs for housing was so much more expensive than here in St. Pete. And we had wintered down here in your backyard in that RV in February of 2020.
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A
You were actually in, living in your RV in my backyard when you became debt free.
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B
Exactly. And that's what kind of made me realize I really love the lifestyle down here. What would it do for our business if we lived closer? There were a lot of reasons. And when we were interested in buying a house, we realized we could get a full single home for the same price that we could get a row home in. In the crummy part of town where we were from. And so that kind of switched our gears to look what we could get in St. Pete. And that was really compelling. And so we bought our house for $225,000. And yeah, that.
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A
Now looking back, that shocking in August of 2020.
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B
August of 20. Well, no, we actually went under contract in May. By August, it was worth like 40,000. Do more than that. But we were locked in, so that was good. And this, we loved our home. And I still look back very fondly on it. We're about a month and a half out of having sold our house and being out of that space. But the house was so good to us. So I do want to say that, like, I did love that experience. And we never intended to sell it. Not that I ever thought that we would ever move. Like, I. That was obviously a possibility. Possibility we could move. But whenever somebody asked me that, I thought I might move and go someplace else. But I'll still keep this. I'll rent it out. Like, it's a great investment and spot to live. Like, I love the location. Our neighbors were amazing. It was the perfect size house, like 1400 square feet. So not too, too big. Obviously a lot bigger than 170 square feet. And it needed a lot of work. So that was the reason that I think other people chose to not purchase.
- [11:11]
A
It was maybe we can find picks that we can like 100% video.
- [11:16]
B
I have always wanted to do before and afters of our house because for the last five years, all I've been talking about is renovating our house. And I never did befores and afters. So I might also do that on Instagram, but we'll also be posting some pictures on the YouTube channel of what the house was, how we renovated it, so you can kind of see. So definitely the bulk of the renovations were the first three years we lived in it, which that's a lot of people's story of COVID days was, all right, there's nothing to do. We're in a new place, so we don't even have friends. So there's literally nothing to do. Even if we wanted to, might as well renovate. And we put. We did not put 20% down on our house so that we would still have a chunk of money up front to be able to renovate. That made sense to us.
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A
Yeah, we did the same thing.
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B
We got a 3.125 interest rate on the house, so it was okay. The PMI that we paid was like 30 bucks a month. So all of that made sense for us to keep some of that money to cash flow our renovations. And so, yeah, that. This is my preface to say that I love the home. We put our heart and soul, blood, sweat and tears into it. But now, fast forward five years later. This past October, we went through some of the worst hurricanes that this area had ever seen. Even people who lived here are like, this has never happened before.
- [12:46]
A
I have lived here my entire life. I was born in St. Petersburg, and this was the most catastrophic destruction I've ever. I mean, we've been through hurricanes. I've had trees fall on my house. I have. We've been through it, been out with the power outages. And this was the most catastrophic devastation this area has seen in my lifetime.
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B
And thankfully, the. The only damage we sustained was a tree falling onto the garage, which we were able to take care of. We then removed all of the trees in our backyard to like, make sure that the house was just an absolute fortress from wind. But we were in a mandatory evacuation zone. And so two times within the span of one week, we had to evacuate and take anything with us, unsure of what will we be coming back to. And that really took a toll on us. I think it really kind of sobered us to the reality of what it is to live in a coastal area, in a hurricane prone area and the risk that you're taking on and what you might go through every single year was just a lot. And that was weighty for us, but we recovered. We help other people recover. And you know, it kind of removes some of the rose colored glasses about this location, about the house. Still in love with it though, because we made it everything we wanted it to be. And Eric and I were talking, you know, oh man, what, what if we did sell? And I'm like, no way, where are we going to go? Right? That's always the question. We already own. We bought it. 225, 3.125 interest rate. Where are you going to go?
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A
We're trapped.
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B
You might be able to cash out, but then what? You're going to be trying to buy a house for the same amount or more. You'll end up losing money.
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A
Why? Yeah, until.
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B
And that was it. It was just like, okay, this is just the lot in life. We have a good house. It's a block home through the worst hurricanes possible. It remained safe and dry. We should feel really confident about it. Let's stay. And it wasn't until we had a conversation with friends. And I'm still learning. I'm in the personal finance space. I just didn't know this. I didn't even think to look into it. But one of my biggest reasons for being like, we're not going to sell. Where would we go? What we do was capital gains tax thinking, if I sell the house, yeah, we've got a lot of equity in it now because of all the work that we've done, but we're going to pay all this money on the profits. That's not the case. Probably most people watching this already know this, but at least I would not.
- [15:28]
A
I would not think that they do. Because you might think like, oh, you only avoid it if you roll it into another piece of property.
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B
Right? That was it. Because I'm like, well, what else am I going to buy if I'm going to have to roll it in, if I can't just cash it out. And in Florida, different states have different rules about this, but if you've lived in it for at least two years, it's been your primary residence for two years. And as long as you don't make off of the sale of it more than $250,000 per owner, then you're free and clear from capital gains taxes. We even checked this with our accountant before we went through with it.
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A
So 500,000 for a couple?
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B
Yep. That's truly what lifted the veil for me. I honestly yes, the storms put that like but it wasn't until I learned about capital gains tax and us not having to pay it that it really became a possibility for me of we wouldn't have to buy another house. What if we just absolutely circumvented that and rented and that that's then we're able to use the excess money to put that into investing for retirement, that kind of a thing.
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A
When you're juggling work, family and everything else, it's easy to overlook protecting your financial future. But life insurance is one of the simplest ways to make sure that people you love are taken care of.
- [16:50]
B
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- [17:06]
A
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- [17:21]
B
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- [17:34]
A
Every month without earning anything in return, let us introduce you to bilt, the rewards program designed for renters who want to earn something for their largest monthly expense. Let us explain.
- [17:45]
B
By paying rent through bilt, you can earn flexible points that can be redeemed toward hundreds of hotels and airlines, a future rent payment, your next Lyft ride, and more.
- [17:54]
A
But it doesn't have to stop there. BILT is about making your entire neighborhood more rewarding. You can dine out at your favorite local restaurants and earn additional points, get VIP treatment at certain fitness studios, and enjoy exclusive experiences just for BILT members every month.
- [18:11]
B
BILT is turning a monthly expense into an opportunity to earn rewards and discover the best that your neighborhood has to offer. Your rent is finally working for you. Earn points on rent and around your neighborhood, wherever you call home, by going to joinbill.com frugal that's J-O-I N B I L T.com frugal make sure to use our URL so they know we sent you.
- [18:38]
A
So let's get into the Numbers. There was a high profit that you got to keep. But what, like put it over the edge when you compared the long term costs and you've made a little spreadsheet here on our outline.
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B
I spent way too much time on these numbers because I'm also curious and I did run some of the numbers ahead of time. Like, what would this mean, obviously looking at what could I rent in the area and that me renting would need to come out of what we earn monthly. Right. Not like out of the profits of what we just sold the house for, but what could we reasonably afford? So let's just talk about the costs of home ownership. So for us living in a flood zone, that mandatory evacuation zone, which a lot, a lot of St. Pete is within a flood zone. Not all of it, but it's not an uncommon thing for this area.
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A
A lot. But like more is, I think more is not flood zone than is because this, it was built up. The residential parts were out of flood zone. And like traditionally, homes in flood zones were meant to be second homes. So people would not live in them during hurricane season. They would not live in them all the time. Yeah, like in my neighborhood, it's not even a flood zone and half the homes or second homes.
- [20:09]
B
But also flood zoning can change year to year as they get new information on what storms do and what storm surge could happen, what new construction might have done to the planing. So that can change as well. All that to say I did have to have flood insurance, homeowners insurance, obviously taxes, and the mortgage payment itself. All of this is rolled into the mortgage. Now this was very interesting to me to compare what was the price when we first purchased the home to what it was now when we sold it. Flood insurance, the most shocking. So let's start there. When we moved in, flood Insurance cost us $1,897 per year. For me, coming from the Northeast, this did not sound like a lot of money. I'm like, yeah, people paid $12,000 a year just in taxes. So 1900 dollars for flood insurance by the time 2025 rolled around, that hiked up to $4,265 per year, a 125% increase in five years.
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A
And they hadn't even looked at your house to see that you had done property improvements. Right.
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B
Well, this is just flood insurance.
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A
Right. So sometimes they'll come out and the insurance will come out and see if they need to. But this not the case.
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B
No.
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A
It could have been the exact same condition when you bought it in 2020 and it would still be this price.
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B
Yeah, homeowner's insurance when we first bought 2020, $2,087 by the time 2025 came, $3,664 a year, a 27% overall increase. So again, not as shocking, but far more than inflation, far more than the raises that I'm getting year over year, if any.
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A
Sorry about it.
- [22:09]
B
Taxes, the least shocking of all, the most reasonable, but still outpacing inflation began at $2,435 a year, ended at $2,627 a year, an overall 8% increase in the five years. So what this meant for the overall mortgage, when we first moved in, we were paying. So with all of these combined insurances, taxes, principal interest was $1,441. Beautiful for, for a three bedroom at the time, one bath. It ended up being a 3, 2 by the time we were done with it. But yeah, 1440, that's great. Then by the time we left, we were actually paying. I wrote down this number, but it was actually $1,900 a month in 2025. And so that's a 28% increase in your mortgage. And I think that this was the most shocking thing to me in home ownership that no one I felt was really talking about is how your mortgage is not a fixed rate. Certainly your principal, your interest is a fixed rate. Yeah, your principal interest. But when all of these other things are wrapped into fluctuates, whereas rent, you negotiate that thing and that's what you're paying. Sure, sometimes your landlord will increase that, but it's not going to be a shock. You're going to know it. Whereas with this it's we would just get random letters in the year of hey, your mortgage payment is going up by another $200 a month because we need to fully fund your escrow again. And that's it just you might get a few weeks notice and there it is. And obviously there's no caps on the percentage amount of increase that that can happen, particularly when it comes to flood and homeowners insurance. That was another minor reason, but still a reason compiled in all of this is I don't know when this ends. And at some point it's these insurance costs, these taxes are going to outpace what I actually owe on the home itself. And by the time I eventually pay off this house, this is going to be a whole mortgage payment. If it's been able to raise by $600 a month in just five years, what is the next 20 years going to look like. And that was my own just this is really overwhelming to me and I'm not saying we should make decisions out of overwhelm, but it was very sobering to me to realize this number will keep increasing. You don't know by how much. And there might come a point where you can't afford it.
- [24:56]
A
And this would be if you're in a similar situation where maybe, maybe it's not hurricanes, but maybe it's tornadoes, fires, earthquakes, or not even natural disasters. But if, if you're in this situation and, and you're feeling like the numbers might not be panning out in your favor, talking to someone who does not have a vested interest in making money off of you if you choose to like go with them. But, but really talking to someone that has experience with long term mortgages can be very helpful to stop you from making a rash decision or to, you know, quell your fears into saying like, no, you're being reasonable, this could be the right decision for you.
- [25:45]
B
But if you're, if you're not a homeowner at this point and you're considering this, I think recognizing that even if you're not in a high risk for natural disaster area nationally, the insurance rates are going up to help offset insurance costs in some of these other areas. So even if you are in a relatively safe place, that's not to say that your insurance premiums are also not going to raise, maybe not to the same percentage rate, but they still could increase. And if you have a claim that can increase your premiums by up to 20%.
- [26:24]
A
Yeah. We were talking to someone after the hurricanes last year who said they talked to somebody in insurance and they're like, oh my gosh, how much is our insurance going to go up to like cover this? And the guy's like, everyone's insurance around the country is going to have to increase to cover for this.
- [26:43]
B
Yeah.
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A
So, you know, and it's not just our area. Like the California fires, you know, decimated huge homes. So it's not just us.
- [26:52]
B
Yeah. So it was important to me, of course, to run the numbers on what would it mean if we did sell and what would the lifestyle then be on the other side of that? Does this make sense? And so I just listed out my fixed expenses to be able to kind of cost compare. So I will also say when renting, we, we loved our home. It was beautiful. It was everything we wanted it to be. So we weren't trying to go from our dream house to just whatever we can get for the cheapest amount. Yeah, I did want the experience of an apartment complex where everything is kind of taken care of. For you not to say that this is going to be life for forever, but to get rid lawn maintenance and just regular maintenance around the living space and to be able to have a pool and a gym. These are the types of amenities that kind of to me felt like they would ease the pain of letting go of something that I have become attached to. And so that we are not living in the least expensive place place possible, we chose something that's a little bit outside of downtown, but not so far outside of downtown that it's inaccessible. It has the beautiful amenities. We did choose to have a two bed, two bath because we didn't want to sacrifice not having guests anymore. Like we didn't want to totally upend our lifestyle.
- [28:34]
A
Got a little closer to me.
- [28:35]
B
Yeah, I am a little closer. It's got a really nice big patio porch. We're on the third level. So even though we don't have a screened in porch, the mosquitoes don't usually fly above 30ft. Yes, I researched that. So we are just above the mosquito line. We can be outside with with no problem. So I'm prefacing these numbers by saying that beautiful natural light but still affordable for. For us with what we bring in monthly. Not the cheapest, but still doable. So previously, like I said, our mortgage was $1,900. Now our rent here for a two bed, two bath outside of downtown is 26.70amonth. So those two numbers, if you just look at them are. Yeah, that's. That's a pretty big difference. You're talking about over $700 more a month. But hear me out. Electricity at our house was on average $300 a month. Here it's about 125.
- [29:41]
A
So that's half because of less than.
- [29:44]
B
Half less square footage. Honestly, we're pro.
- [29:47]
A
We're.
- [29:47]
B
We're doing less. Right. When we lived in our house, we were renovating, we were using power tools. We were I cleaning more often. I don't totally know. It just.
- [29:59]
A
You were running Jeremy on the daily.
- [30:02]
B
Yeah, Jeremy's my robot vacuum. Still have him, don't worry. Water and trash at the house was about $200 a. Now here in the apartment, it's about $50 a month. Internet at the house was $50 a month. Here at the apartment, zero because that's part of that rent cost. Hop up to that 2670 and it's there. We also have cable Included. So technically I should be canceling some of our subscriptions. Haven't gotten it around to it yet. Again, we've only been here for like a year and a half. Half. But I can do that. That could be, you know, a $50 cost savings.
- [30:44]
A
You said you've been here a year and a half.
- [30:46]
B
Oh, sorry, A month and a half.
- [30:47]
A
Yeah, it's like if you've been here a year and a half, that's a different story.
- [30:51]
B
Okay, so all in all, yes, if you were to just look at those numbers, it is more to rent in this type of setup than it was to live in and own the house. However, there were other variables for me in that selling the house, the profit that we make from that, that could pay off our car. So we did have a car payment of $415 a month. So now that's zero. So as far as fixed expenses go, in my calculations, and then looking at the budget, choosing to then put that money towards a nice living experience for us was worth it.
- [31:30]
A
And how many years did you have left on the car?
- [31:33]
B
I want to say we had two years left to pay. So short term, but it would have been short term.
- [31:38]
A
Yeah, over two years.
- [31:40]
B
Yep.
- [31:40]
A
Still saving that.
- [31:41]
B
But that's where we chose to kind of roll that money into is just kind of a quality of life thing. Because in selling the house, we become entirely debt free. So there aren't any debt free goals that we need to be paying off. In selling the house, we fully fund emergency fund, we fully fund sinking funds, we max out our Roth ira, and then we have money left over to be able to invest past this still fits into our monthly spending plan. These costs with still $800 a month left over, even when you factor in all of our other monthly daily living. So even even if I wanted to put more money into investment, we still have that kind of $800 a month buffer. So in total, the way that I was looking at this was when we were living in the house, still having that car payment that was was $2,865 a month. Whereas now in an apartment, even though it's a little bit more expensive monthly, without that car payment, it's $2,845 a month. So actually to me, and if you want to call it, girl, girl math, saving $20 a month.
- [32:49]
A
So for the next two years, you're saving $2 a month, but overall in the long term, it's only an extra $400 a month and you're essentially just paying that for all these amenities.
- [33:03]
B
And we may not choose to live here. By the time two years is up, we will probably be somewhere else. Right. I mean, rent is going to continue to increase here. We probably won't need this lifestyle for forever. It was just a nice. It is not was. I'm only a month and a half in interim.
- [33:22]
A
Yeah.
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B
Between the two.
- [33:24]
A
Yeah. Awesome. And so I'm really excited for you to cover the next part, which is profit.
- [33:30]
B
So. Well, okay, yes, I do want to talk about profit, but there is, I do want to answer this thing because I don't know if we'll have a chance to get back to it. About one of the most shocking things for me in running these numbers was just how much I spent per month because we were homeowners, right. So not renovating because we did do that debt, but just regular amounts of money that we were spending because we owned our house and that's where we lived. And so in I, I looked back over in 2024 in its entirety and came up with an average amount spent on the house that was not renovations because 2024, we really did not do a ton of renovations. So I felt like it was a good example. Come to find out, on average we spent $470 a month just on home ownership related items. And I don't know that we as homeowners would fully know this number unless we really dug in, which I did do because I was curious enough. And if you're like, there's no way. Maybe there's not. Maybe you're not spending that much. Guarantee you if you own a home, you are spending something. Here's some examples of what that money was. Storm prep. So needing to buy the different things to be ready for hurricane season. Appliances. And that's going to happen. Appliances are going to need to be replaced. They're going to need to be repaired. So whether it's repair, maintenance, replacement, that was a part of this small Renault project. So I'm not talking the. We're removing walls, but okay, we're deciding we want to hang hooks here. We want to get, you know, a new door for this. We want to put in some window treatments, that kind of thing, room setups, landscaping, all of the different bug sprays and weed stuff. And I mean, I didn't even do a ton of that. But I'm, I'm paying for different things related to lawn maintenance needed. The lawnmower needs new batteries, small electrical things that came up in that year. Pest control security system, new fridge filters, the types of Things that you don't have to pay for when you're renting, you do when you own. And you might even be more apt to shell out this money when owning. So that was another thing to recognize. Okay, yeah, I might be spending more on rent, but I'm not even realizing all of these other phantom costs of home ownership.
- [36:09]
A
Because everything you put in your house is an Investment. Investment.
- [36:12]
B
Right. $470 a month. Think about what I can do with that now.
- [36:17]
A
And it wasn't like, steady. It was like in spurts, but average out to 470. And that's why you don't realize it.
- [36:24]
B
Yeah. Like, there was one month where it was only 50 bucks, but another month where it was a thousand. You just don't totally know. And yes, some of this was paid for out of an emergency fund that we had or the sinking funds that we have, but still, that money was. Was spent above and beyond renovations, above and beyond, just paying for the house. Right.
- [36:44]
A
It didn't stress you out financially, but it was still spent. It was still an expense you had.
- [36:48]
B
And to now look back and realize, what could I do with that money? You know? Yeah, now I'm without a car payment, I'm without debt. I'm without these extra costs. I can just call somebody up to fix something and the money doesn't come out of my pocket. And there's a relief to that in what that frees up in time, but also money. And I think all of these things need to be considered.
- [37:09]
A
Yeah. Yeah. All right, so let's do get the to the good juicy part is what actual profit did you make from the house? Because you put money into it and you sold it, but also looking at the expenses that came with it.
- [37:28]
B
Y', all, we are seven and a half years into this podcast, and I am about to do something I don't think I ever thought that I would do in sharing these real numbers. But part of it is because you could just look it up online and take some guesses. So here we are. I'm going to give you the quick overview. We bought our house for 225. We sold it for 575 in five years. I am going to say that is unrealistic. That is a very outlier experience because.
- [37:58]
A
You put a lot of money into it, and you were both experienced in renovation beforehand. So you had an eye for design. You designed it and renovated like professionals, but you did not pay a professional to do it.
- [38:13]
B
Right.
- [38:13]
A
And that showed in the way you. I mean, we'll show Pictures of the renovation and the way it looked. And when it was inspected, the inspector had high praises for the quality.
- [38:26]
B
That was like Eric's final exam. He was so excited for the inspector to come when we sold the house.
- [38:32]
A
I mean, and. And Eric's dad was a home inspector.
- [38:36]
B
Yes. Yeah. And he came down to visit regularly. Exactly.
- [38:40]
A
So there you. You are an outlier in that. You are not an amateur. You guys were not amateurs in doing this.
- [38:46]
B
Right. But I also don't think that anyone can anticipate that level of equity in their house after only five years.
- [38:54]
A
Also in the way prices have already increased so highly. But again, this is for people who already own a home and are considering going back to renting. So maybe you have owned your home for 10 years and you're thinking about selling. So maybe that's you.
- [39:11]
B
Right, exactly. So here it really is. And this was an interesting exercise for me. I want to go through all of the money that we put into the house and then what we actually walked away with. If you kind of deduct that from it and then compare that to the opportunity cost if we had never purchased the house. Okay.
- [39:39]
A
I'm excited for this because I don't know these numbers yet.
- [39:43]
B
The house was 225, like I said. However, our spend on that was $29,000 when it came to the down payment and kind of everything up front, paying the insurance is up front, all of that. No, I'm sorry. The down payment was $17,000. What we spent on the house was $29,000. Yeah.
- [40:07]
A
The closing and all of that stuff.
- [40:10]
B
What we put. No, I think that would have been. That would be the 29,000 is what we paid off on principal. So over the five years.
- [40:20]
A
Oh, okay.
- [40:21]
B
Yep.
- [40:22]
A
Yes. Down payment. 17.
- [40:24]
B
Yeah.
- [40:24]
A
So then what you paid off over.
- [40:26]
B
Five years, what we were able to actually pay off of the house was $29,000, which is like a heartbreaking years.
- [40:33]
C
Yeah.
- [40:34]
A
I mean, again, it's a 30 year mortgage, so. But still.
- [40:37]
B
Yep.
- [40:38]
A
Was it 31st five years are like all interest.
- [40:41]
B
So I'm jumping around on this spreadsheet, but $29,000 is what we paid off on the principal. $32,674 is what we paid in total interest in those five years. So we paid more in interest on the house in five years than we.
- [40:57]
A
Did in five years of a mortgage. So if you're not to going to stay in a place more than five years. Yeah, don't do it.
- [41:04]
B
So we put $177,000 down in total renovations over the span of the entire five years, which included an entire gut and redo of the kitchen, adding in a bathroom, renovating every single room of the house, renovating the laundry room, putting a new roof on the garage, clearing out trees, adding in hardscaping, like literally everything I have kept track of. And that accounts that adds up to $90,000 in the span of five years. The total amount that we spent on flood insurance in five years, $15,000. Homeowner's insurance, $14,300. Total taxes, $12,500. So our total amount that we actually spent, spent out of our pockets over five years was $210,474. So what that means by the time we sold the house for 575, we actually profited $119,526.
- [42:14]
A
All right.
- [42:15]
B
Of course, we walked away like our actual chunk of change is more than that. But I deducted all of this out of it, you know, what we spent. So that means that we essentially walked away with $120,000. And then you could look at it as like a free place to live. Right. Since I backed out everything we've ever spent on the house. So I don't want to discount that aspect.
- [42:38]
A
Right.
- [42:39]
B
We usually don't get a free place to live, but the actual kind of profits on it are that. And let's talk about the investment opportunity cost. So the way that I calculated this was that $30,000 I could have an upfront payment because that's about how much we had. We chose 17,000 for the down payment, and then we kept, you know, about 11,000, 12,000 for some of those renovations up front. So at the time, that's the amount of cash that we did have that we could have put in an investment account as the upfront amount. And then I divided out all of the other money that we spent over the span of five years, and that comes out to, on average, $2,000 a month. So had we put $30,000 into an investment account and then done $2,000 every month from there, equaling our total spend, then we would have had $185,273. That's how much it would have grown in five years.
- [43:48]
A
But then you would have had to.
- [43:49]
B
Pay and pay for a rental, but.
- [43:51]
A
You would not have been renovating. So you would have had more time to do other side hustles and potentially increase your income.
- [43:58]
B
Who even knows what that would have been? Because, yeah, there for three years, it was our second nearly full Time job to renovate this place and yeah, what could we have rented? Could we have rented a place for a similar amount that we paid for the mortgage? Yeah, probably would have maybe just been a one one. But yeah, there's a lot of those questions of I don't know. I don't regret it 100%. No regrets. But I am incredibly sobered to the idea that home ownership is the right move for everybody. I think I am now in a place where I'm really challenging that it is right for some people. I'm very glad we did it, but now I'm very glad we're renting and we're able to put that chunk of money we made off the house into retirement investing when we didn't have have a lot invested. Like we were kind of a little bit late to the game as far as what other people in their mid to late 30s are able to do when they had traditional jobs and 401ks. So this kind of felt like us playing catch up on retirement and this.
- [45:13]
A
Opportunity cost is considering that you would have invested $2,000 a month throughout the time because. Because without hindsight and without this wisdom, you wouldn't think about it this way. The only reason we have this knowledge is because of the journey that you took. So it is very likely when we have this conversation about renting versus buying, we can do the numbers and the numbers don't lie. But people don't operate in mass math. People operate out of biases and fear and emotion and pleasure. And so we may not always follow the math.
- [45:58]
B
Yeah.
- [45:59]
A
So it is good perspective to have, but if you want to follow it, you really have to be committed to the math. And not everyone can be. And that's okay.
- [46:11]
B
Yeah.
- [46:12]
A
That's why we're not trying to do personal finance as best, you know, perfectly as possible. We're just trying to do the best we can with the knowledge that we have.
- [46:24]
B
Yeah.
- [46:25]
A
So let's talk about. You've mentioned some of the lifestyle benefits that an apartment is giving you, but I'd love to know any other like benefits but also any trade offs that you've experienced so far after a month and a half.
- [46:42]
B
Yeah, I think so far both Eric and I have commented on just the peace of mind that we feel for us specifically coming out of a situation where we put our heart and soul into this house, we renovated it and the thought of it hopefully not. But potentially being damaged in a storm and needing to redo that work is overwhelming to think about and I think not something that we wanted to continue to face that level of risk year over year. And so the peace of mind, you know, even as we're coming into another hurricane season, that we don't have that liability. Also, time is such a real thing. The house we were realizing we did home ownership in an extreme way. Like, we gave a lot to renovations. You do everything in an extreme way. Yeah, probably. And so part of it needed. Like we needed to tie our own hands, you know, realizing there's other things we'd rather do with our time, energy and attention than to be so inward focused. And I think something that comes along with owning your own home and then also having the skill set to be able to make it what you want it to be is that you're never really done. And there's always something that you can be working on. And every weekend, even if it's not a renovation weekend can, it still needs to be taken up with cleaning, maintenance, yard work, you name it. There was always at least a couple of hours every weekend to just things that the house needed that an apartment wouldn't. Yeah. And realizing that it was such a time suck, and there were so many opportunities that we missed out on to help other people get together with other people. And I don't think homeownership is selfish. However, we felt very inward focused in our version of home ownership. And it has felt so freeing to now be like, okay, we don't have a yard to mow. We have less square footage that we need to clean. We don't have anything we need to fix. We actually don't want to be doing a ton of renovation. We can't do any renovations on the place. But I'm not. Once I decorate, that's it. So now who needs a meal? Who has a project that they need to get done and we can come help with? Who just wants to hang out in our pool? Who wants to come work out with me in the gym? Who wants to come over and get coffee in the leasing office for free, it's Jen. Every single time.
- [49:25]
A
It's all me.
- [49:26]
B
And we. We just have already been able to dive into relationships in what I feel for right now, just more meaningful ways. We've been able to be present for people. We have definitely taken trips. Like we went on two business trips, trips back to back since moving. And that has felt even less stressful because I'm not, you know, worried about what all I'm leaving behind I'm going to have to catch up on. And so, so many benefits have fall befallen Me, I feel. And I can't downplay because I haven't even upplayed it enough.
- [50:02]
A
The pool, Two pools.
- [50:04]
B
There are two pools here. And even just after work before dinner to just go take a quick dip, dip, come back up. I don't own the pool. I don't have to do all the chlorine stuff to it. The most I gotta do is bring a towel, make sure it's. Make sure that towels dry. That's it.
- [50:21]
A
Make sure the towel's dry.
- [50:23]
B
Sometimes I don't even do that well. But I have also noticed you didn't ask me this, but you kind of did. My concern for how sparkling clean the house is has dropped. And I'm good with that. That like the floor here, I'm letting it get a little dirtier. The countertops, I'm not wiping, at least in the bathroom as often. And that's not like I don't want this to sound like I don't own it. Who cares? I'm still keeping clean, but I'm just not as fixated on it. And. And I think it's healthier.
- [51:00]
A
Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah. I told because we're going to do a little apartment tour at the end of the episode and I was like, just make sure your house is clean. She's like, my house is always cle. And like if you know anything about my life, you know, I was like, so sorry. Yelling expletives at her.
- [51:19]
B
You walked into that one though. You're over here often. You know the house is clean.
- [51:24]
A
I know it was a little bit of a joke and then she had to like throw it back in my face.
- [51:28]
B
Yeah, so sorry.
- [51:29]
A
But anyway, comment if you want a tour of my house next. So any trade offs? Because I know you've mentioned a couple and I don't know if you're aware of them.
- [51:44]
B
Yeah, oh, absolutely. And I think, yes, I think it's good for us though. Personally, I like opportunities for growth and being able to let go of something, to not hold so tightly the things that actually don't matter that much in life. So. So there was grief and loss associated with selling the house. So many good memories, first place we've ever owned. A lot of pride about what we were able to do in the house. And I think a good exercise to can you let it go? Can you move on and still find joy and create a good life for yourself? So that's my preface to say we now don't have a two car garage. We have a parking garage that we have to drive this. I mean, this is kind of a benefit. We can park on the same level as the floor we live on. So I'm grateful for that. But we have to tack on five minutes every trip we make because we have to walk down the long hallway to the parking garage, drive all the way, three stories down the parking garage.
- [52:52]
A
Further from the parking garage. So they could be closer to the amenities.
- [52:55]
B
Yep. And I like this. This view, but we don't have any sort of yard. I'm not able to garden here. I have plants. Plants that. And plenty of plants, actually. Maybe too many plants you'll see in the tour, but I can't garden. And with certain things that we don't like, we can't upgrade them. So I had soft clothes, cabinets, and drawers, of course, because we were able to do that all ourselves. And here it's not soft clothes, and we don't have as beautiful of a shower as we had before or what else you might remember more. The fridge isn't as nice. There's a lot of compromises.
- [53:38]
A
Yeah. So I think. I mean, we just an hour ago had an issue with maintenance, where they didn't tell you when they were coming and we were recording. And now they're trying to charge you for showing up while we were recording and not being able to get in. Which, as a homeowner, people who come over have a lot more respect and will give you a time frame and all of that.
- [54:03]
B
We would have had a timeframe. There wouldn't have been a middle person making the appointments for us.
- [54:09]
A
Yeah. There's always someone. I think you said at least nine people with access to your apartment at any given time.
- [54:16]
B
Yep. Oh, and this. This has been the biggest adjustment. Hearing people above us.
- [54:22]
A
I was gonna mention that.
- [54:23]
B
And to the sides.
- [54:24]
A
And being conscious of people hearing you.
- [54:28]
B
Yeah. Yep. Being aware of our own movements. And that's. That's part of the. Now. Now we're renting. I will say it was a little bit easier of an adjustment than I thought when. When I did start to hear the footsteps and the movement, I realized this isn't unfamiliar. Like growing up living in a house with other people. You would hear other people walking around. You'd hear muffled conversations. You'd hear doors opening and closing. And so I. Reminding myself that this is familiar. There's something even maybe a little comforting about that. Thankfully, our neighbors are all respectful. Like, it hasn't been, you know, in the middle of the night. It hasn't been super loud and constant. Just kind of a muffled hum. That can happen at varying times. And then choosing that. All right, we'll be playing more music in our apartment then. And, you know, we'll just lean into the fact that this is not home ownership anymore.
- [55:29]
A
Yeah.
- [55:29]
B
And then we get. But we get to choose differently if we want to. Right. We're not locked into this. And I think that's a benefit of renting too, is that flexibility and autonomy. So I'm excited to be able to take advantage of the traveling that we can do, the. What we can do with some of the margin of money. Certainly the sale of the home puts us in a good place retirement wise. So the benefit. Benefits outweigh the, the downsides.
- [56:00]
A
Absolutely. Yeah. So what would you say, talking to your sisters, watching, who might be considering this, who might this be, any wisdom that you would have for somebody considering making the decision that you made?
- [56:16]
B
I think really digging into the numbers is important. I think a lot of times we can just assume, you know, even if we're. We're on Zillow and we see that zestimate. Okay, that's the monthly amount. It's not really. Do your digging. How much are the taxes? How much are insurance? How much could it go up year over year? How much might I spend on renovations? I'd say just factor some sort of monthly amount into what it's going to cost for homeownership. Run the numbers if you're thinking about buying. If you already are buying, you've got the numbers. Look at the numbers and really see how much is going into what you're doing, what you're owning, and what is it giving back to you? What is it taking and what is it giving? So, you know, it could be taking time, energy, focus, money. What is it giving? It might be giving you really quality of life. It might be giving you the space to raise your kids. Might be giving you an opportunity to host people, whatever it is, identify what values outweigh the others. But also consider, could I get some of these things in a renting situation or do I have to be owning in order to be able to have this? I know for a lot of people, pets are a big reason for wanting to own, wanting to have that yard. And I will say there are a lot of rental opportunities for pets. Even with this apartment complex, there are first floor apartments with a decent yard. Not, I mean, we're not talking acreage, but enough of a yard for even a large dog to be able to, to run around a bit and do their business. So just know that it could be possible that doesn't need to be a reason that you stay locked into owning. But also imagine what could life be like if I weren't saddled to this house. And I think if you're already asking those questions, that's. That's indicative. I think someone who really loves the home that they're in, what they're paying for, it is worth it that they're probably not asking these things. But if we're beginning to wonder, what would life be? What could my money do for me? What might retirement look like for me in the future? Yeah, dig in, consider it. Know that it is possible. And you're not being a dummy for going from owning to renting. I know a lot of times we can look at that as, you know, stepping back, you know, losing some of that quote unquote success. But for me, if. If we're only even just looking at retirement, investing, this has catapulted us forward and. And that is priceless.
- [58:53]
A
Yeah. And I love having access to your.
- [58:56]
B
Pool, but mostly pool pool.
- [59:00]
A
You know what else I love having access to?
- [59:02]
B
Oh, my favorite time of the week. The bill of the. That's right. It's time for the best minute of your entire week.
- [59:21]
A
Maybe a baby was born and his name is William.
- [59:24]
B
Maybe you paid off your mortgage, maybe.
- [59:26]
A
Your car died and you're happy to.
- [59:28]
B
Not have to pay that bill anymore. Duck bills, Buffalo Bills, Bill Clinton.
- [59:33]
A
This is the bill of the week.
- [59:37]
C
Hey, my name's Alyssa, and my bill of the week is my student loan bill because I'm about to make the final payment seven years early. I had $10,000 left on my student loans at the start of the year, and I decided I am done waiting for these to be paid off. So I doubled down. I made a plan to pay it off by summer, and here I am, just one final payment away. I was really needing a mindset shift when it came to money. So in January, I decided to do a no Buy challenge. And that's actually how I found your podcast. That month totally changed how I think about money and consumption overall. And now I find myself way more intentional and less wasteful. And even better, my husband has joined me on this journey, and his student loans will be paid off by the end of the year. Once that's done, aside from our mortgage, we will have zero debt. We also reached our six month emergency fund. Now we're aiming for 12 months, and we're upping our retirement contributions and finally investing. As two government employees, we both have potential job loss looming over us. So this new relationship with money has helped us feel more prepared for the unknowns of our future. So yeah, that last student loan bill, it's not just a payment, it's a whole new chapter. And up next, I can finally read your new book, which I just purchased. Have a great day y'. All.
- [61:06]
A
Yay. Alyssa, congratulations. I hope that you enjoyed the book and I hope it's just kind of adding to what you're already doing.
- [61:19]
B
This is everything. I think the thing that stands out to me the most is the mindset shift that you decide decided to make and how that catapulted your financial progress. Like you talked about having paid off student loans seven years early, which congratulations. But also so many other goals that you accomplished in the midst of that, which I think most of us would think just paying off the student loans early, I couldn't possibly do more than that. But when we do engage in understanding our spending, consumption, money management, so much more could be possible. So thrilled for you Alyssa. And yeah, hope that you liked the book. If you all are listening and have a bill that you want to share if it has to do with paying off debt or reaching some other financial goal or your name is Bill and you just wanted to call and tell us what it's like to be Bill. Frugalfriendspodcast.com Bill leave it for us. We can't wait to hear it.
- [62:17]
A
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B
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C
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- [63:58]
A
All right, each of us has a different question for the lightning round, which is the first time in Lightning Round history. Wow, Jill, would you ever own again?
- [64:08]
B
I'm never going to say never right now. I don't want to. I'm really enjoying the renting life and all of the benefits, but I know life is long. I'm kind of making the types of decisions people might make in retirement because you know me, I would just love to be retired. It's so funny, we're meeting so many people in their 60s who are like, we're doing the same thing. We just moved into a luxury apartment complex. They were like, yes, too. But we still have like decades of work left. So yes, it is very possible that we would own again. But my lens is very different. The way that I would go into owning again is very different. It will most likely not include renovations or it won't include renovations that we do ourselves. It will be, it'll be, it'll be different. I love the house that we purchased just. But I just, I'm not ready for it. But yeah, life is long.
- [65:11]
A
If this influencer things takes off and we're super rich, I mean, where are you going to put all your money?
- [65:17]
B
Right? I might have to.
- [65:19]
A
Yeah.
- [65:19]
B
Honestly, I could see myself. Eric doesn't want this, so who knows. But I could see myself buying a home somewhere that I sometimes visit, but mostly I rent it out just to have it as an investment. But managing that sounds like a lot. I'm just, I'm really, really. I'm really done with it for right now. I feel very tired with it.
- [65:40]
A
Yeah. Yeah.
- [65:41]
B
So it's hard for me to wrap my mind around. Will you ever rent again?
- [65:46]
A
We have such different stories with the like, real estate. And so I personally own two homes and subsequently two rentals because one of those rentals is on our primary home and one of them is a double lot. So we have an Opportunity to sell a piece of land too. So essentially like three lots, two rentals, and our primary home that we fully renovated. So if you want a video on any of that. Why people who don't love real estate are landlords. And what does it mean to be a landlord that isn't super into real estate? Let me know in the comments and maybe we'll do an episode on that. Subpar. Real estate investing is maybe what we would title it. I. In the future, like, maybe like when I'm 60 or something or kids move out of the house. Yada yada dog, guys. Yeah, I could see myself renting again, for sure.
- [66:51]
B
Yeah.
- [66:52]
A
Yeah. Especially if there are two pools. Pools.
- [66:54]
B
If there's two pools, yes.
- [66:56]
A
I don't know about Travis. Travis loves mowing the lawn. He loves having his shed. He just got a new shed that is like, literally the size of a full garage. And he's very excited about that. You know, room for all his tools, his motorcycle, e. Bike, truck. Yeah. So he loves. He comes from lots of land. Like, I don't know how many acres. I want to say, like, between all the land that his parents had, it was probably a hundred acres.
- [67:28]
B
Yeah.
- [67:30]
A
So he comes from that.
- [67:32]
B
Yeah.
- [67:33]
A
So he feels a little differently. But he's also pretty tired of renovating and doing house stuff. And so in the future, I can see him being, like, throwing his hands up and agreeing.
- [67:46]
B
So, yeah. Not that I don't want work. You know, I just. We. We did work so much. We did such hard work for so long that I'm liking this break. Who knows what the future will bring, but it also frees us up to do other types of work. So it's not about, like, a laziness thing, like, just let me rest. It's about opportunity cost.
- [68:08]
A
You do so much work. If anybody ever called you lazy, I.
- [68:11]
B
Would come after them.
- [68:13]
A
I'd flick them in the eye.
- [68:15]
B
Oh. Ooh. That's a new kind of punishment. Thanks so much, everyone for listening. We love reading your kind reviews on our book. Buy what you love without going broke. Like this one from Angel. Five stars. I have read a lot of personal finance books, and I mean a lot. And I can honestly say that this one is different. Most finance. Most finance books are people talking at you and giving you the same advice over and over. But this one feels more like I'm eavesdropping on a friend's conversation. It is very relatable and friendly, for lack of a better word. This book makes me feel comfortable and like everything is going to be okay. The tone that the writers are able to achieve is impressive, especially since this is their debut book. I feel like I'm gaining practical knowledge in a safe space. This is a book I will gift to my friends and family. I 100% recommend reading it.
- [69:07]
A
Thank you. Angel.
- [69:08]
B
You are an angel. You are an angel. Your name is very fitting.
- [69:12]
A
Oh thank you so much for reading it and giving your kind review. If you are a reader or a listener, any support helps. Whether it's a subscribe on YouTube, a like on the video, you know, a rating and review on Spotify, anything helps. And stick around at the end of this video if you're on YouTube for a little mini apartment tour.
- [69:35]
B
Ooh. See you next time.
- [69:39]
A
Frugal Friends is produced by Eric Sirianni.
- [69:54]
B
What do you think makes the perfect snack? Hmm, it's gotta be when I'm really craving it and it's convenient.
- [69:59]
C
Could you be more specific?
- [70:00]
B
When it's cray venient. Okay, like a freshly baked cookie made with real butter, available right down the street at am, pm. Or a savory breakfast sandwich I can grab in just a second at a.m. pM. I'm Santa Pater pattern here. Well yeah, we're talking about what I.
- [70:13]
C
Crave, which is anything from am pm.
- [70:15]
B
What more could you want? Stop by AMPM where the snacks and drinks are perfectly craveable and convenient. That's cravenience am, PM too much good stuff.