I think you'll enjoy a good read of
https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/ Bods
Looks good that
My parents got rid of their mortgage when they bought the 2nd house by selling one my dad had improved and buying next one that needed renovating again
When all my school mates were getting brand new BMX's I had my 2nd hand Grifter my dad did up for me, at times we did feel left out, all mates with brand new Spectrum's, Commodore 64's but 2nd hand one didn't bother me, my dad even got the Scalextric set cheap NEW because transformer was missing so he used train power supply he had, he doesn't even remember that lol, now I see it as the best financial learning curve you could have as I hardly own anything new
When I bought my house I had hardly any money spare to go out on weekend drinking with mates (they all lived with parents still) so to be able to go out I had to drive them lot into town and i'd have couple of bottles early evening and no drinks in nightclub, literally had about £20 a week left after all my out goings with current job
When I got made redundant from that I didn't even bother signing on and just chilled for a few months until getting the job i'm still doing and I went from earning about 9k a year to 12k but load of overtime so I was actually earning 20k a year which was early 2000's still came out with more money then some months than I do now and I had company car, £1,600-1,700 a month looking at old bank statements so I could save 1k a month easy and still go out drinking again so I saved all my money to pay off the mortgage, was aiming for my 30th birthday but it was a year or two after, once that paid I could save money even faster, was only £260-300 a month anyway
Then the arcade collecting started and I'd already kind of planned to have a new garage built and probably kitchen extension so saved my money again for next few years to get the extension done for the ever growing arcade machines, then saved for loft conversion, then mate built games room as i'd filled the extension, still cost 1000's in materials, then saved money again and had side extension as i'd filled all that space, just when i'd broke golden rule and spent pretty much everything I had we got moved to another company and lost the company car so I had to buy my own, had to get a loan for 2k to buy one, paid off in no time though but it's easy to get back in debt, I'd just got into habit of spending all the money on the house and carried on buying anything I wanted while savings never increased so had to break out of that cycle
It's easier when you don't have kids or expensive wife but if more had done same as me, you could have kids in 30s and be loving life then instead of being in the System's Rat Race where they want you, look at many now, Both working to pay mortgage, pay child care, what was wrong with having less and spending time with children as they grow up
Anyway, bit off topic I know but I just think most have it all wrong, I'm not bothered about impressing people, I don't have anything new, apart from odd CD/Bluray I can't think of anything I buy new, oh a new Kettle the other year lol and new under wear as I ain't getting those 2nd hand
I have loads I need to sell but it's all the junk I've bought when I used to look on ebay all night, buying old toys I used to have, started buying old Technical Lego sets like Car Chassis and space stuff, wish I hadn't bothered now as i haven't time for any of it so gotta sell all of that and tons more, not to make money just get back all the space taken up, then I can store the stuff I want
I've got AOC monitor in the loft, 23" LED one in box with broken screen it was free, I bought same model to replace once in lounge, 2nd hand of course as I thought if it goes wrong, I have spares to fix it, never gone wrong though but that's taking up storage space, so time for it to come apart, keep pcbs parts and base and bin the rest, there worthless now anyway being so cheap to buy another