This week’s newsletter:

• To buy or not to buy? 🏡
• Buying a house as your primary residence is NOT an investment 🏡🙅🏻‍♀️
• “But I could just put down 3%.”
• “But renting is throwing away money!”
• 🔥 Our hot take

Hi friends and fam, ♥️

Tyler and his family went off to visit some family friends for a few days.

I stayed behind, partly to recover from all the recent travel, and partly just to enjoy some quiet time on my own.

Solitude has given me lots of pockets of mindfulness. 😌 It’s just easier to move through the day in silence, watching the mind, noticing the sensations.

Hope your summer’s been treating you well 🌞—whether it’s been filled with family, friends, travel, or quiet moments of solitude. I’ve had a mix of everything, and I’m especially grateful for the stillness. 🙏

To buy or not to buy? 🏡

Even with our regular investments, every so often, our cash 💰 from various sources adds up to enough for a down payment

And like clockwork, we find ourselves asking the big question again: Should we buy another property? 🧐

Over the years, the answer comes more easily—nope. 🙅🏻‍♀️🤷🏼‍♂️ Being a landlord just isn’t the lifestyle we want to scale.

More importantly, the numbers simply don’t make sense—especially at today’s interest rates. 😬

Honestly, if we had to buy our current home at these rates, we’d probably have to pass, 😿 no matter how much we love it.

Buying a home—whether to live in or invest in—is ultimately a mix of smart math 🤓 and personal lifestyle choices.

So let’s start with the numbers, shall we? 🧮

Buying a house as your primary residence is NOT an investment 🏡🙅🏻‍♀️

Gauguin bought a house for $500K with a 6.5% interest rate. He put 20% down with a 30-year fixed mortgage.

He lived there for 7 years before deciding to sell.

As luck would have it, he was able to sell the home for $600K.

Since he lived in the house for more than 2 of the last 5 years, he qualifies for the capital gains exclusion—so he doesn’t owe taxes on the $100K gain.

So... did he really walk away with $100K plus equity he built from the mortgage?

Let’s break down the math 🧮 👀

So after 7 years, Gauguin ended up with a LOSS of $208,917. 😰💸

And that’s not including extras like HOA fees, big-ticket repairs (hello, roof replacement 🫠), renovations, or vacancy costs—because even if Gauguin moved out before selling, he’d still be on the hook for the mortgage, insurance, and utilities during that time. 😔

“But I could just put down 3%.”  

First, if you put down less than 20%, you’ll likely have to pay private mortgage insurance (PMI)—which can cost anywhere from 0.5% to 2% of your loan amount per year—until your equity reaches 20%.

Second, your monthly mortgage will be higher, not just because you're borrowing more, but also because lenders typically charge higher interest rates to borrowers with smaller down payments.

Less money down = more risk for them = more cost for you. 💸

Lastly, if you haven’t quite saved up 20% yet, it might mean you’re not quite ready financially to take on that house just yet.

“But renting is throwing away money!”  

One of the most nonsensical statements out there. 🤦🏻‍♀️ Whoever said that clearly never looked at a loan amortization schedule.

One of our properties has a mortgage of $48K per year. Know how much equity we built after one year? Just $6K. The rest—$42K—went straight to interest. 🙉

If that’s not also throwing away money, I don’t know what is.

The hidden strength of being a renter

Van Gogh is a renter.

Let’s assume:

• Starting rent: $2,700/month
• Annual rent increase: 3% (a typical average in many cities)

Over 7 years, with that rent inflation, Van Gogh pays a total of $248,256 in rent.

Yep—that’s even more than what Gauguin lost owning his home.

But wait—what if Van Gogh had invested that $100K down payment instead, in an index fund averaging 8% annual return?

After 7 years, he’d have about $171,819. 💰

So in the end, Van Gogh’s net loss—the difference between rent paid and investment value—is about $76,437. 😮 That’s far less than Gauguin’s $208,917 loss.

And that’s without counting the extra money Van Gogh saved by not owning. Imagine how much wider the gap would be if he had invested all the cash that would’ve gone to property taxes, maintenance, insurance, and closing costs. 😮‍💨

Plus, his money stayed liquid the whole time—ready to use, move, or grow.❗️

Lifestyle wise? Renting gives Van Gogh the freedom to move easily if work or family calls him elsewhere.

And if Van Gogh’s toilet 🚽 breaks in the middle of the night, he doesn’t have to fix it—his landlord will.

☑️ Take aways

• Buying a home to live in isn’t always the best financial decision—especially at today’s interest rates.
  It’s not an investment, but the BIGGEST purchase of your life. So treat it like one.

  I grew up believing a house was automatically an asset. Sure, maybe if you buy it in cash (and even then, it depends). But with a mortgage? It’s mostly a liability—at least for the first 10-20 years when most of your payments go toward interest.

• There are wonderful things about buying a home:
  A place to grow into, build memories, welcome new family members, and feel rooted. 💓

  But you HAVE TO RUN THE NUMBERS. You definitely don’t want to be the person who’s admiring their new home one moment, and stressing about finances the next. Here’s a handy rent-vs-buy calculator.

• Renting, owning, and being a landlord are completely different lifestyles.
  You need to know which one actually suits you—not just financially, but emotionally and practically.

• Renters, don’t sleep on the power of investing the money you don’t spend on homeownership. That’s your financial edge—use it. 💪📈

• And when the math does make sense, here are some rules worth sticking to:
  ✔️ Buy a home you truly love 🤎
  ✔️ Keep total monthly housing costs (mortgage + insurance + property taxes + HOA + utilities, etc.) under 30% of your household income

  ✔️ Plan to live there for at least 10 years

When it comes to real estate, there are no bad financial decisions—just bad math. 🤓

🔥 Our hot take

What’s better than owning and renting? House hacking—and here’s why.

Hope it's helpful for your journey to Freedom 🙏

Love you to freedom and back, 🫰

Angie & Tyler

Things We are Loving Right Now ❤️‍🔥

🩺 Health

• 🦴 Yummy collagen: I used to skip collagen powder because—even with vanilla flavor—it tasted terrible. 🤢 But then my dear coworker introduced me to this one, and now I actually look forward to having it every day, 😍 even mixing it with plain collagen to finish what I have.
• 🍯 Organic monk fruit extract: A HUGE favorite in our family back home in Vietnam, especially since many deal with diabetes. 😅 They always ask us to bring this because it’s tough to find pure monk fruit without added erythritol.