Nice house ... too bad it's costing you your health, sanity, and happiness

The Perfect Life

In 2010 we seemed to have it all.  We had a healthy, bright 5-year-old daughter who was the light of our lives.  My spouse was working at a non-profit that she loved, and had steadily worked up the ladder to become a manager.  I had just landed a six-figure IT job the summer before, and was working in a beautiful new office.  Five years before we had purchased our dream home:  a 1920s craftsman style 3,600 square foot beauty in a leafy suburb.  Everything was going according to plan.  I was miserable.

The six-figure dream job was a living hell.  The stress was horrible, my boss was erratic and a terrible manager, and the company culture was so dysfunctional that I often went an entire day without anyone so much as saying "hello" to me.  But I was trapped.  We had two car loans, two student loans, expensive daycare,a huge house, and we had financed furniture to fill that huge home.

Trapped

At $1,500 a month the mortgage on the house was not that bad, since Pittsburgh is such an affordable area.  However, the maintenance on the house was killing us.  Since we both worked so much and had a young daughter, we were paying $200 a month for someone else to clean the house.  We were also paying someone $100 a month to take care of the yard.  Our heating and cooling costs were high because it was such a large house, and the gorgeous old windows were not energy efficient.  And the house had constant plumbing and electrical problems.  One spring we had to replace the entire sewer pipe to the tune of $9,000.  Since our whole back yard had been dug up to replace the pipe we had to hire landscapers to re-shape and reseed the yard for thousands more dollars.

On top of the housing expenses our lifestyle was costing us an arm and a leg because we were too stressed and tired to do simple things like cooking our own meals.  We turned to our old standbys to relieve us of the stress and unhappiness of our lives:  eating out, shopping, and cable TV.  Our house became cluttered with the results of our unnecessary shopping, and our bodies bore the brunt of too much take-out and television, and not enough exercise.

Something had to give

No matter how many times I ran the numbers I could not figure out how to quit my job and maintain this lifestyle.  Something had to give.  One Friday I left my job and never went back.  Two weeks later I started working as a consultant at a company where my new coworkers welcomed me with open arms and my manager treated me like a human being.  I was blissfully happy even though I had taken a huge pay cut.

Still, I never wanted to feel that horrible trapped feeling again.  We had to cut our expenses so that we would have choices.  We sold the beautiful house and moved into a small 1960s ranch.

Mortgage free at 43

The new house is 1/3 the size of the old.  It does not make people gasp when they enter the front door.  It is not beautiful.  But, as of September of this year it will be paid off.  And it's small enough that we can clean the whole thing ourselves in about an hour, our utility bills are 1/3 of what they were in the bigger house, and we have the freedom to make choices.  I never have to be trapped in a high-paying nightmare again.