“You look a lot better, a lot less worried.” (paraphrased) 

That may be the easiest way to comment on my new life in my new old big tiny house. (New = to me, old = built in 2006, big = 391 square feet, which is bigger than the stereotypical 144-ish square feet tiny house) That quote is not quite verbatim from a conversation I had with friends last week. Being debt-free also includes some math news. Take your pick of which is more important. Let’s see if anything else comes up as I describe life after becoming debt-free again, one year later.

If you missed the back story about the money, read a post from this blog from a year ago, Debt Free Again. If you want the story about the tiny house, hop over to one of my other blogs, MyTinyExperiment.com. 

Last year, I sold my home. Of all the houses I’ve owned, my 868 square-foot cottage on south Whidbey Island is the only one I’ve considered home, more than just a house. Prior to buying it, the others were all larger houses, usually over 2,000 square feet. Very conventional. That cottage was on a suburban-size lot of a few thousand square feet, enough for a yard, a small garden, and some acoustic separation from the neighbors. It also had an almost uninterrupted view of the east side of the Olympic Mountains, including a view of almost all of the ocean-going ships traveling through Puget Sound. Aircraft carriers, container ships, cruise ships, mega-yachts, sailboats, and stuff that I had to look up on MarineTraffic.com. Nice. I enjoyed the dozens of heron, eagles, osprey and hawks more. It was also a party house for my style of parties. Some dancing may occur.

It also had a mortgage. It also had a HELOC, a Home Equity Line Of Credit. The mortgage was manageable, though it was also the source of some of the most significant drama in my life (My Mortgage Modification Chronology). The HELOC was intended to be temporary, as most debt is. For a variety of reasons, mostly because I didn’t make enough money as a realtor, I wasn’t able to pay it off. Not paying it off was manageable, but then interest rates went up. My expenses exceeded my income to the point that I had about twenty months of living expenses left before I’d be forced to sell the house. I decided to sell it on my terms my way.

A year ago, May 2024, I sold it. I miss the house. I don’t miss the constant reminders of the deferred maintenance.

A year ago, May 2024, I bought my tiny house. Here’s a video for the curious. 
https://youtu.be/ZDPaJ9X-rGY
(Note that it is a real tiny house, not a picture-perfect artistic archetype. I live in it.)
That story is described better on the other blog I mentioned above, MyTinyExperiment.com.

My tiny house is working out fine. That’s not why the worry lines have faded. I’m debt-free.

How dull can finance be? And yet, being out of debt has been more relaxing than tiny house living. It is dull to mention that I no longer dread going to the mailbox, even though this one is clustered as most are in mobile home parks like mine. It is invisible to everyone that I am not cringing during windstorms as I feared yet another fence falling. No one is noticing that my mind is freed from juggling disaster scenarios that include an approaching end at a financial cliff. Yep. Dull.

I dream better, both when I’m asleep and in the day. I look forward to a future rather than dread it. I continue to play the lottery, both the state-run ticketed kind and the Wall Street version, but that is less out of desperation and more based on optimism. 

Instead of a twenty-month deadline, I have over a decade of liquid assets. That helps a lot, especially as I am 66 years old as I type this. Considering the way of the world in early 2025, I know that every assumption about future income, assets, expenses, and debts should be challenged, but this is still a lot better than worrying about what had become a degrading financial situation.

It is too easy to get older and review decades of life choices. It is also natural. Asking “What if?” is easy, but it is also mostly useless except as cheap entertainment. 

Pardon me as my brain pauses and dives right into that mess and morass. Enough of that. This blog is over ten years old. If you want a hint of what I’ve been through, go back to when Obama was elected; some posts are that old.

I am not anti-debt. In our current economic model, debt is a necessity. Debt is not a necessity on a personal level. I’ve usually had mortgages because I’ve owned houses since 1988. But I keep in mind that a friend had almost the same net worth as me when we both left Boeing in 1998. They rented. The money they didn’t spend on debt they spent on stocks, which is not called spending but is called investing. From the last time I checked, they’ve gone through far fewer dramas and traumas. I wouldn’t want to live in their excellent condo in downtown Seattle, and I’m sure they wouldn’t want to live in a tiny house with a lawn to be mowed, windows to wash, and pipes to protect.

Conventional wisdom is being more than challenged; it is being so shaken and fractured that I doubt that band-aids and duct tape will keep it together. Times like these are good times to re-evaluate personal values. What do I want? What do I need? What choices do I have? You’re welcome to ask yourself those questions. 

My wants, needs, and choices are rarely reflected in ads or political statements. I feel disconnected from the mainstream, and am realizing that’s a good thing – at least for now. I don’t control the mainstream. I doubt that anyone truly does. That lack of control can leave me far from the norm, but I also realize that like a firehose that no one is holding, the norm may swing back my way. I just have to make sure it doesn’t trip me up if it swings through.

Imagine being in this mess of a chaotic world and having financial stress piled on. I smile when I hear that friends are changing their lives to meet their values, even if it simply sounds like moving to a different county or country, changing jobs or retiring, or taking the time to ask themself about those very topics.

I’m debt-free. I own my tiny house. I rent the land. I rent a storage unit. I make no assumptions about whether I will have to or want to stay or move. That storage unit has a lot of homeowner stuff like firewood tools that are useless now, but could be very handy again.

The more important change is that I am happier and more relaxed. But, because I tend to tell the whole story, not just the pretty version, I will also mention that all of the doctors I can now afford to work with have confirmed that the stress effects of fifteen years of financial struggle do not suddenly vanish. It has basically taken about a year to remember the feeling of not dealing with existential worry. Being poor is unhealthy. Being debt-free is definitely helping. And now I can afford to seek, find, and benefit from the right help – which is sometimes professionals, sometimes people, and sometimes nature – and always me.