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If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went. - Will Rogers

Emery's Third Coast Triathlon | Tri Wisconsin Triathlon Team | Push Endurance | GLWR

- it's way too easy to get a student loan. You have a pulse and going to school you can get it.

-like tuition you have a captive market so room and board can cost a flipping fortune.

I just pulled up univ of Colorado and Colorado state and you're looking at total yearly costs of somewhere between 25k and 33k in state. I don't care what crappy summer job you take, covering those costs are going to be impossible.

I am 43 and own my house outright and have substantial equity in others

No matter what happens to interest rates i own it

No matter if i have a job i own it

One of life truisms is buy land they aint making anymore of it. Whilst as a general rule thats true i would not buy in a certain places but in major cities, location, access and good property will always hold a value relative to less desireable markets e.g if total market gets fucked, NY gets less fucked and for less time than say florida

If you own you are not at the whim of changes in regulation such as unlimited increases in rent

Now, its an entirely different conversation as to how much you put in to a property. I know people where property is a less than 10% figure of their networth and others where it is nearly 100%. In either instance there are risks; housing or stock market crashing. People have different comfort levels with each. Both offer opportunities.

Even if i preffered the stock market i'd still own a property even if not as a primary residence

 
Could really depend on location, timing and luck. I am 32 so on the outer edge of millennial, wife is 30. We got extremely lucky timing wise when we went to buy a house. We got married in Aug of 2009 and started paying $875 per month for a duplex rental. Shortly after we moved in my wife started looking at houses and found we could own for not much more per month.

In March of 2010 we bought a house that had been foreclosed on for $450k at auction, we paid $205k for it in 2010. It is currently worth in the neighborhood of $300-350k and is still going up. I have two college degrees, wife has a good job, no kids. Even as such we could not afford our house at the current price. As I said we were lucky with the timing and realized that at the time so we bought a 3,000sq foot 5 bedroom house when we could afford it. We don't ever have to move to upgrade, only reason we would sell is to relocate which isn't likely.

If we had been a bit older and trying to buy in 2006 we would have been out of luck. If we had to buy now we could do it but it would be a much smaller/older house. At that point do you want to drop $200-250k on a wreck of an old house or does it make more sense to spend $45k on a brand new tiny house like friends of ours did and be debt free?

I know a girl who used a 10k student loan to buy breast implants. Sadly enough, that was probably as good or even better investment then putting it towards education.

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Long Chile was a silly place.

If an RV is a gateway drug to having some semblance of an appreciation for nature, then more power to 'em!

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Travis Rassat
Vector Cycle Works
Noblesville, IN
BikeFit Instructor | FMS | F.I.S.T. | IBFI
Toughman Triathlon Series Ambassador

It isn't. As I commented earlier in the thread - look where they are taking these things. They aren't out in the forest to be one with nature.

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If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went. - Will Rogers

Emery's Third Coast Triathlon | Tri Wisconsin Triathlon Team | Push Endurance | GLWR

Yeah, it's definitely a pipe dream on my part.

Kind of a funny story on that note: I grew up in rural Minnesota on a gravel road 6 miles from the nearest town and a 1/4 mile from the nearest neighbor. Lots of nature to be had.

We went camping as a family a lot - we would throw our heavy canvas Eureka tent in the back of Dad's 74 Chevy truck, the 4 of us would pile into the cab, and hit various campgrounds, state parks, and county parks around Minnesota and Wisconsin. I have a lot of happy memories of camping - beating around on bikes, maybe meeting some other kids to play with, roughing it, being soaked to the bone due to the rain, etc. All good stuff.

My approach to camping eventually diverged from Mom and Dad's. While I'm one to really rough it, they eventually bought a pull-behind camper, and have owned quite a few in their lives, each a bit nicer than the last one. Mom and Dad are now in their late 60s and still live where I grew up. They have a nice fire ring area in the back yard, and still no neighbors. It's very peaceful.

In a strange version of getting back to nature, they will use their camper about twice per year, where they go and park in a busy campground, 15 feet from their nearest neighbor, and sit and watch TV in the air conditioning for a weekend. About the only aspect of this which might be considered roughing it is that they don't have all their cable channels. All they need is a campfire video playing on the second TV to complete the effect.

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Travis Rassat
Vector Cycle Works
Noblesville, IN
BikeFit Instructor | FMS | F.I.S.T. | IBFI
Toughman Triathlon Series Ambassador

When I was a preteen and then teen, when my uncle and I went camping in northern Michigan, we went camping. In a tent, with camp stove/fire, etc. Way out in the woods, up a fire road and on state land, usually, but not a campground in sight. What's the point of going to those "campgrounds" people go to nowadays? You might as well pitch a tent in your backyard and take advantage of all the pleasures of home. That ain't "roughing it" for sure. ;-)

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."