Almost anyone can do a version of this with perseverance, if you understand the way society manipulates people to keep them poor.
Paying a mortgage is like living off a credit card your whole life.
For most of my life, I've rented flats. I met my partner in 2016 when I had just bought a campervan to live in, and in early 2019 we moved in together, into a sub-letted apartment in Berlin, Germany for 6 months, and after that another awful sublet in Berlin for 2.5 years. We even had to renovate the second one ourselves and put in a kitchen!
In case you haven't heard, there is a housing crisis in many major cities in the world, basically the governments failed to plan for the population that they knew was coming along and needed housing.
It's essentially impossible to be accepted for a rental in Berlin as 2 freelancers and/or when you're not on a high wage, that's why we ended up in these terrible flats, and it was totally miserable for me, as I'm used to 'lifestyle' cities like Sydney, Australia where it's almost always sunny and warm and you can swim, surf and go for a run along the coast.
Renting (or sub-letting) was always fraught with challenges —Paying the majority of your income on rent, constant moving, and never feeling like a space was truly my own. It was impossible to save for a deposit on a home while paying rent, it was always way out of reach, no matter how frugal I lived.
Things changed when we got married in 2022. That year, we made a huge decision: we moved out of our sub-letted apartment and into a weekend summer house that we bought
While we technically owned the little yellow house (shed!), we still had to pay a small rent for the land it sat on - about €600 per year plus bills like electricity and emptying the sewage pit. This meant that for the 9 warmest months of the year we were paying about €50 per month for 2 peoples rent
After a while with our extreme frugal lifestyles, both working full-time*, the difference was significant we were finally able to start saving money for a property. It wasn’t an easy choice, though. The summer house was far from comfortable, especially during the cold months.
[*I'm a Product Designer (remote only) and my partner is a Zimmerei which is a Carpenter. He owns part of a Kollektiv Zimmerei business with 3 others]
Living in the summer house came with many hardships. It had no heating, and during the winter months, from November to February, the temperatures would drop below freezing, making it impossible for us to stay there. The water pump, which brought water up from the ground, would freeze, so we couldn’t have water for drinking, cooking, or washing.
We had to leave the house during those months and find temporary accommodations elsewhere - Winter 2022 I went to Colombia for several weeks, where it's cheaper to live than in Europe. Even during the more temperate seasons like spring and autumn, it wasn’t easy. The house wasn’t insulated, and we had to limit our use of electric heaters to save on costs. It was far from ideal, but we made it work because we knew it was a temporary sacrifice for a much bigger goal.
By February 2024, we had finally saved enough to buy land with a ruined house in a village. The house was in terrible shape—we could keep the four walls, but everything else needed to be rebuilt - the roof, both floors, the chimney, absolutely everything had to come out, including the rat-shit infested layer between the ground floor and first floor which had layers of broken brick, wheat, rat shit, dust and stank of animal pee. I had plenty of fun (swearing) days emptying that out by hand. And paying €75 per cubic metre to have it removed to add insult to injury. (Well, the house was cheap, but rightly so if you knew what's in it and the work involved)
But that was just the beginning. From that moment, our lives became even more hectic. Both my husband and I worked seven days a week—five days at our regular jobs and then spending every spare moment working on the house. The previous owner had been a hoarder, so the first task was clearing out decades of accumulated belongings and all the filth, there was literally black spider webs filling the airspace in many of the rooms! I wore a hazmat suit and a mask in those early weeks.
Once we emptied the place, we started the long and grueling process of deconstruction and rebuilding. The roof needed to be replaced, and we will have to install everything—new sewage pit, plumbing, electricity, and all the essentials.
As I write this in October 2024, we’re about to move into one room of the house. It’s not exactly what most people would call "moving in" since we don’t yet have basic amenities like a sink, hot water, a shower, or even a toilet. We are still in the middle of construction. We'll be using the campervan as a kitchen, but we can't leave water in the pipes - again because it would freeze and burst the pipes and cause a lot of expensive damage, so I'll be using a water container on the work surface.
We have finally broken free of the rat race where every living moment is shadowed by the fear of not earning enough to make the next rental payment.
I'm a fan of the FIRE movement and 'Gary's Economics' on Youtube where he explains how rich people get richer and make sure you stay poor. I recommend you watch Gary's videos to learn how to break free.
TIPS FOR HOW TO SAVE CASH
I hope you break free too. Don't give up, it takes years of persistence!
