When Do You Feel Most Free?

Consider this missive a Thanksgiving primer, thankful for having enough and thanking those who helped along the way.?

“When do you feel most free?”? The question, asked by Dorothy Scott, a musician who would have knocked my socks off had I not been wearing sandals.? Free?? I heard the audience responses: vacation, retirement, kids.? I didn’t hear mine.

????????????????????? ????? ?????“Once I had enough.”?

It’s not easy to get to free because it’s hard to get to enough.? You can’t get to free until you define enough. Home ownership (see below) is an important stop along the way.?

To reach the destination of enough you must take agency for your life.? Agency involves learning about money - how to earn it, save it, what to spend it on and how to spend it.?

It involves learning, which involves reading and talking to people more experienced and sometimes smarter than you.?

In my mid-thirties I read about Kaizen, the Japanese concept which calls for continuous improvement in life and business.

The concept stuck with me as did Charlie Munger’s belief that acquiring wisdom is a moral and practical duty.? Munger believed that you aren’t going to get very far with what you already know, that to advance in life you must continue to learn.

What does any of this have to do with real estate?

In 2024, homeowners in the U.S. had a median net worth of $293,000????? while renters had a net worth of just $7,000 (Federal Reserve Academic Data).? Home ownership helps to get to enough.

Homebuyer Associates’ approach to home buying is different than traditional agents. While we write about real estate, we’re really writing about the use of money (and maybe life.)? Said another way:

It’s not the real estate you buy, but the use of the money you use to buy the real estate.? Should you use it and what should you use it on?

How to you begin your journey to enough?? Practice Kaizen and follow Munger’s advice.?

The first law of capital allocation (down payment/home purchase) is that what is smart at one price is dumb at another. Get the information you need to not be dumb.

Look past the real estate @#$%# because the real estate @#$%# can cost you money, a detour on the road to enough.?

Personal agency means you must vet who is helping you on your journey.? You do know all agents are not created equal, right?? We do after helping 1,800 satisfied people purchase a home while working with other agents.

There’s a reason the words “sell” and “sold” are used in the homebuying process.? We don’t use either because our job is to help you buy the right home, not sell you a home.?

Remember, it’s easy to be sold.? Ben Franklin said so:

If you want to persuade, appeal to interest (lovely kitchen) not reason, (what is the home worth?)

P.S.? Let me leave you with a favorite true story of mine.?

Joseph Heller, the author of Catch-22, was at a party given by a?????? billionaire.? A guest said, “Joe, how does it make you feel to know that our host made more money yesterday than your novel ‘Catch-22’ has earned in its entire history?”

Joe said, “I’ve got something he can never have.”? The guest asked, ?“What is that, Joe?”?

Joe replied, “The knowledge that I’ve got enough.”

Remember, it’s not about having the most money. ?It’s about having enough, with a balance for digging life.?