It wasn’t too long ago now… maybe a month or so ago where Alex and I walked down to our neighborhood bank and paid off our last bit of debt. Honestly, I didn’t think too much of it… until I realized later that it meant we had officially become debt-free. Well, mostly. We thought we had. Until Marlowe gave us a little reminder/reality check that we still have her school tuition to finish paying, haha. But outside of that bill (which will obviously be taken care of), we do not owe any money to anyone outside of our monthly utility bills. And it feels really good.

We downsized our home for a lot of reasons. And we hope to minimize our things even more someday (but we want quite a bit of land one day please!). And while it was a big shift, this transition has been nothing but easy. I mean, taking out a loan to pay for our apartment was far from easy. In fact, it was ridiculously stressful and I was second-guessing myself every step of the way. But we did it. Because I always thought owning a few properties would be the best bet for long term financial stability.

But shortly after becoming owners of two homes, we decided that: while owning two properties made sense for a lot of reasons, it made more sense for us to part with our home and garden to pay off this new condo of ours to live an even simpler, more minimalistic, and easier life.

And honestly, while I really miss our garden and fruit trees, I do think this was the best decision we could have made. (And it doesn’t hurt that we have the vision to own even more garden and trees in the future). We really enjoy our condo. But even better than being physically comfortable in the space we’re in, is being financially comfortable in the place we’re in. You know, we don’t live a luxurious lifestyle. Most things I buy for myself are secondhand now (for the sustainability factor more than anything else). We eat at home far more often than eating out (we basically never eat out). And outside of yoga or an annual haircut, I really don’t treat myself with too many things. We live a rather simple life. And we’re happy to do it.

Even Marlowe is on a mission to constantly downsize her stuff. I had to convince her to keep her lego sets the other day. She wanted to purge EVERYTHING. Minimizing can infact become addicting. It just feels SO good to be free. To not carry the weight of your material things. To have space to create without the visual, physical, and structural world of clutter. While I know not everyone is comfortable with the idea of less is more, (I never thought I would be), it just feels too undeniably good for us.

You know, there’s a quote:

“Taking medicine and thinking you’re healthy is like taking out a loan and thinking you’re rich.”

While I have talked about how we save money in the past, I’m not any sort of financial expert over here. All I know that on this planet: buying, owning, and carrying the weight of less has its advantages. I guess it’s common sense: the less you buy, the more money you have to spend. Outside of our mandatory monthly bills (water, electric, car insurance, and Marlowe’s school I guess fits in here too), we no longer owe money to anyone. We pay money for what we use each month and that is it. We live within and often, without strain, below our means to live a comfortable life.

It helps that our attempts to be greener for the planet also works out for financial advantage in the long-run. You know, things like buying second hand, not buying single use-items, eating vegan, or not buying processed food items, etc… it makes the planet more rich, but also our wallets more full too. Just buying, owning, accumulating less as a whole has become our number one way to protect the planet and apparently go debt-free.

I’m not going to lie to you, I really didn’t have a goal here to become debt-free. My goal is different: I hope to own land and grow food elsewhere in the world. And we’re on the stepping stone path to slowly get there. And somehow in this process of wanting to live a good life with a minimalistic mindset, we became debt-free. And I couldn’t be more relaxed, happy, and grateful for it. But also, proud. It feels good to continue to grow in unexpected ways.

I hope you guys had an amazing weekend! It was a long weekend for our family, and while it has rained a bit on and off, it’s still been really good!  Whatever your path is, and no matter where you are on your journey, I hope you’re well in the world! I was happy when I owed money too 😉 It just feels really good to not owe it now! Cheers friends!

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