Could minimalism be the way to go for a while? Will post some stuff about that when I get the chance.
It is for me.
It can lead to strange choices.
Take, for example, transportation. Specifically, the thing most Americans spend the most on - an automobile.
I lost mine. Vaxxident, far from home. It wasn't new - it was 16 years old, but in great shape and a desirable model, a 4x4 pickup.
In due course, after many hoops to jump through, the insurance company paid me back. The proceeds were mine - it was paid for.
With this money, I bought cheaper cars. That's right, plural.
Bought a 24-year-old small Japanese truck, the kind we can't buy anymore - also in great shape, belonged to an old man, now deceased; and a little puddle-jumper city car. Smallest car Toyota ever sold in this country. Age 12 years, 115,000 miles.
Why two? They are BOTH...OLD. Old machinery breaks. And automobiles wear out. And the way things are going, I am going to be a hundred-percenter in a few years - that is, 100 percent of my pension going to pay my rent.
So...two vehicles of a reliable Japanese brand...and me, with no more than 15 years on my own calendar...and the break my state gives the owner of old cars and trucks (one-time registration fee)...you could say I'm living a sort of minimalism. No $1000 car payment for me. No fear of being upside down; and no discovery of a weakness in a model that was brought out just a few years ago.
It may well be that I can't own or drive a personal vehicle in the years ahead; but this is a good transition to that point.