My path to early retirement with no savings

Grasshopper escapement · Mon Jul 02, 2012 2:22 am

My house was built in the 1840s. There's no way I spend more than a thousand bucks a year on maintenance. Of course, I do all my own work on the place. If you are "handy" you can save a fortune (I am sure Jacob would agree). I'm actually cooking up another topic post on that very subject.

cloudeleven · Post by **cloudeleven** » Mon Jul 02, 2012 3:41 am

Grasshopper,
I was including one-off things like eventually needing a new roof, new water heater, new windows, new fridge, etc., averaged out over time. Even with all that it's less than $1000/yr?
How many years do you plan to live in your house?

Grasshopper escapement · Mon Jul 02, 2012 4:03 am

Fortunately, we found a well maintained house to buy (from teachers, like us... I think teachers tend to be cautious with their $$$ and maintain things carefully and the couple we bought from spent some money on upgrades, so we have not needed to do much at all.) The appliances came with the house, all the windows were new, and the roof still looks OK, though I have asked around in anticipation of getting a new one in five years or so... Looks like that will run around a thousand to fifteen hundred. But in the meantime we continue to build an emergency fund for surprises, though we haven't had any yet. I did paint the house a couple of years after we bought it (that was a few hundred dollars for paint, I did the work myself) though it didn't really need it, my wife just wanted a different color. We plan to stay here for another five years or so. We are currently looking to buy some wooded acreage on which to build a small house.
Mr. GE

djc · Post by **djc** » Tue Jul 03, 2012 2:34 am

My home was built 100 years ago and I spend waaaaaaaaaay less than $1,000 a year on maintenance but I do pretty much everything myself, if possible. And we have a really nice home.
The Great Lakes region really rocks, especially if you like snow, which I do.
djc