A New Lease on Life

By virtue of selling our home and the resulting debt-free lifestyle it has afforded us, my wife and I feel as if we have a new lease on life itself. Now that we have gotten untethered from a long-term mortgage we are now free to “move about the country,” as one airline’s commercial says. And it is not just leasing that allows us that luxury but also the downsizing we have done in anticipation of us getting to this point in our lives.

As I reflect upon the many changes we have experienced during the last several months perhaps none is greater than the fact that we have whittled our rather large library of books from more than 1,500 volumes to just 150! And for a couple that has worked in the publishing industry for more than a decade, that is no small feat. As a professional editor, it was not uncommon for me to receive hundreds of books a year for several years.

Besides taming our book collection, we have limited ourselves to our favorite dozen or so DVD’s and are winnowing our CD collection down to a manageable size by ripping copies digitally. With our lease of a friend’s place we opted to cut the cable television completely as well as the landline telephone. Our prepaid cell phones continue to suffice and we enjoy simply watching videos on our friend’s flat screen television.

High-speed Internet connectivity is a necessity since I work from home and the service here is lightening fast so I am loving it. But once the day is done I have no trouble shutting it off to walk around the neighborhood lake with my wife or to take a spin together on our scooter. As a result of our healthier lifestyle, I am happy to report that both my wife and I have lost weight since moving here, and we don’t miss the television whatsoever!