Oh yeah, and my acre and shop:
You ain’t kidding!
Extreme increase in outflow. Purchase price, taxes, insurance, hvac (if house is bigger, which is likely), septic and well maintenance, a few grand for a zero turn large path mower (or another few hundred each month for pro service). That’s not to mention that I’d like a pool and spa, so there’s another few hundred a month down the crapper. All to have a place to build and restore cars (more outflow), and to take an occasional dip in the pool or tub, but mostly just to feel like I’m at my own little resort? I guess that’s why I’m still in my Eagle FO cookie-cutter house, which is quite nice, though not by today’s standards of hardwoods and granite (tbh though it’s more of an Eagle Captain's house that I stretched and was able to buy during the easy money days of 2005). We don’t really care to travel a ton or have other big entertainment expenses, so I keep trying unsuccessfully to justify it to myself as entertainment/travel expenses saved for setting up a homebody-bring-the-grandkids fun estate.
That is the real issue for me: how much to spend on fun/wants/dreams in the present vs singular focus on amassing cash to merely exist in the future? (Especially as I start to sense time expiring more quickly) No matter how focused we are on “not stuff” I find that to be a difficult question. I suppose the answer would be clear only if we knew how long we would be here.