Retire from 8 to 5 

From S – Growing up in India, in a family dripping with middle class savings mentality, I distinctly remember a distant relative visiting us from USA. He was describing his 3600sqft mansion house to the adoring middle-class Indian audience and telling us how his family of 4 could not even find each other in the large house. He also proceeded to describe his large SUVs and enthralling the gathered relatives with the surround sound in the car. I found the whole situation very ironic – gathered there were eight middle class Indian adults and their 6 semi-teen children listening breathlessly to the stories from a upper-class non-resident Indian. But ask any of those resident-Indian adults to open their wallets and buy something nice, but not necessary, for one of their teenage children, and they would look at you like you asked them to donate one of their kidneys.

Between us, we have never been a fan of living large – the American way of living with large houses, vast backyards going hand-in-hand with enormous mortgages, spacious cars, gigantic bus-like minivans, is not for us. Comfortable bank accounts, considerable brokerage numbers, sizeable retirement accounts and big memories from long hiking trips are definitely our thing.

Let’s break this blog down into two parts- one on cars and the other on houses.

Here is Part 1 – The brand new shiny car payment

Here is Part 2 – Massive houses and colossal mortgages