Subtitle: You paid how much for this? (Part Deux)
I don't know... am I overly sensitive to this much spending? Or is it the new normal? After writing about my cousin I thought that would be the end of crazy expensive decisions I would be passing by. I mean I am back home, basically only seeing people at the gym, how could that happen again? But it (sorta) did.
So wassup? Well this week I visited an old co-worker friend from my newly departed job. Really the only friend I had there. (The people were mostly fine - just when most people are foreigners we just had nothing in common to bond over, except this one guy. Would I have stayed working longer if I had more friends there??? Huh, I wonder. Anyway....) I got him a couple of things when I was in Florida and so I picked a day to go travel and see him at home as he mostly works from home now.
Since I retired he bought a new home. I saw his old home a number of times, but never this place. He got it since I retired and its much further away. So I get there at his "lunch break" and we chat, though mostly it was him proudly showing off his new home. And good for him. Really nice, maybe 10-15 years old, or less (I forget the year actually). And sometime near the end of the visit he tells me - I thought - he got it for $490,000. Really I wasn't surprised, housing is expensive and he is a good hour drive outside of D.C., and housing is certainly more expensive as you move closer in. Let's just say my house 20 minutes out is a much lesser house than his new place, and would sell for much much more (which is crazy). So I said foolishly(?) "with the money from selling your townhome, that shouldn't be too much you have left to pay." Man oh man, I gotta learn. The response was "No the $490,000 is the mortgage. The price of the house was $690,000." Ugh. He moved way out from D.C. for a "cheaper" home. That's cheaper?
I'm just... oh man. I got it, I am not in the market for a house, and prices have gotten cuckoo again like 2007-8 so yeah, this is not unbelievable. And he wanted a better house than his old (Paid off!) townhome. And houses often go up in price, so there's that.
But here's the rub. The guy isn't much younger than me, I think about 60 y.o. Only two kids and both have long since moved out. He went from a 3 BD townhouse to a 4 BD house filled with top line amenities galore. Maybe not a McMansion, but darn close. I know what he earns (sorta) as we had similar salaries when I left and while raises happened after I left (* grumble grumble *) he can be making at most 20% more than I did. His wife, while salaried, is nothing amazing salarywise as its a school job. Getting that big of a mortgage may be ok at 30 - 45 y.o especially with kids, but at 60 and empty nest??? That has to be at least 1/3 of their combined salary, 1/2 of their take home, probably well more. In theory, he could be in his mid 80s and still have mortgage payments. I encouraged him to save when I worked with him, so they may have $400,000 saved in retirement money, so its not like he has to worry about going bankrupt. But still... I mean come on. I thought people were supposed to downsize when they got older, or at least stay put, but not upsize.
Am I just mentally not like most people? I'm sorta losing it I think. Hopefully there won't be a part three of this series.
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To make this a finance post, as part of the above trip I also took some old Geotrax items to a Facebook buyer that couldn't make it to my place, so I took it along dropping it off with her at her work on my way. Only $20, but hey they were old yard sale items that I'm sure cost me less, and it is nice to get that stuff outta my house.
December 18th, 2025 at 04:39 pm 1766075940
The sad unfortunate thing is, this seems … very common in America. Whenever I learn about my friends and co-workers’ finances, all of my friends still either owe mortgage or rent.
On top of that, the blistering housing prices are not doing anyone any favors either. This is definitely not a good time to be buying houses.
December 19th, 2025 at 07:40 am 1766130015
December 19th, 2025 at 03:40 pm 1766158831
December 22nd, 2025 at 01:53 pm 1766411609
December 22nd, 2025 at 04:37 pm 1766421473
We never educated our generation for the retirement burdens that we bear, which is a real travesty given that over the past 40 years we moved from a system where many had pensions as well as Social Security to a system relying on 401(k)s and prospective retirees needing to save for themselves.