A Cat Palace, My Pillow, and Zillow

“Wealth is not about having a lot of money; it’s about having a lot of options.”
~ Chris Rock

Being the obedient, Catholic girl and rule follower that I am, when I was advised by my accountants back in 1998 to save every dime I could scrap together, scavenge every couch cushion quarter I could find, and buy a house–I did just that.

I took my sister up on her very generous offer to move in, put everything in storage except for the scratch post/cat palace and my pillow, and called a small room with Teddy and Fraidy, my two Siamese cats, home for a year. We all went on what I referred to as ‘The Austerity Program’. The only thing tighter than our living conditions was my wallet.

Oh, don’t feel sorry for them. As I came to find out cats have little concern for square footage. Think about it. They tend to claim one or two spots in your house as their own, which they mark with coughed up fur balls and claw marks and that’s where you’ll find them hour after hour, day after day. For mine, it was the three story cat palace during the day and my pillow at night.

Anyway…Austerity became me. I excelled at it.

Living small became a mindset that I was assured would come in handy once I purchased the house and was subject to the “sticker shock”. Except for some measly living expenses and a car payment I banked every dollar. Contrary to my former way of living there were no extravagant trips, expensive new shoes or shiny new cat toys. We all hunkered down.

I had been ‘pre-approved’ to a certain dollar amount meaning that if I exceeded that imaginary line in the sand, I did so at my own peril. Of course, as I started to look around, spending my Sundays at open houses, everything in my price range was dreck. Run down with peeling paint, wonky, un-permitted additions that looked as if they had been slapped together with playing cards and duck tape, and bathrooms that were one mold spore away from being condemned by the health department.

Did I mention the amount I had to spend was HEALTHY? Like, buy me a castle with a moat AND an alligator in Ohio, healthy?

I was advised to stay away from the properties that were over what I could spend, so I immediately made a beeline for the homes north of a million dollars. These were my people. They had taste and class and lush green grass. Alas, even if I robbed a bank that would barely cover the property taxes, so most Sunday nights saw me drowning my austere little sorrows in a bottle of two-buck-Chuck, my face buried in a cat hair covered pillow to disguise the sobs. I felt sorry for myself that I only had the equivalent of a king’s ransom to spend. Oh, poor me.

Are you feeling bad? Maybe for the cats?  Please don’t.

Eventually, I did find something I liked. It had just been reduced to the very tippy top of my price limit, so I pounced, made an offer, and I’m sitting happily in that very same house writing this today.

As it turned out the peanut gallery was right; my mortgage, gardener and other responsible homeowner generated expenses kept me waist deep in austerity for a couple of years. Then so did my business. Austerity had become the gum on the bottom of my shoe. The mindset that wouldn’t let go.

Recently, I have felt the tug diminish. I’ve begun to dream of a compound in Santa Barbara.

Yep, you heard me. A compound. It may seem as unlikely as catching me gardening in a bikini, but everything starts as a dream, right? I’ve pulled up Santa Barbara real estate on Zillow the past few Sundays as a lark, and due to some residual austerity that stuck to my face—the prices caused an accidental nose-douche with ice-tea.

Fuck it! I yelled to no one in particular after almost drowning, then I clicked on an 8.9 million dollar property.
‘I have all the money in the world to spend!’, I told myself.
‘No limit, no imaginary line in the sand to keep me down! SHOW ME A COMPOUND!’

Then the funniest thing happened. And it surprised the shit out of me.
I felt a blinding white hatred for the 8.9 million dollar house. It was dark and medieval with a wine cellar that could double as a torture chamber for a serial killer. The kitchen was enormous… but it was trying was too hard! Custom this and custom that—bleeeaaaack!

I felt the same about the 12.5 million dollar monstrosity on the hill.
And the ranch with a view of the ocean.
I don’t need nine bedrooms.
I don’t want a horse property.
I don’t need a vineyard…

Come on people! Show me a decent house!

A 5 million dollar FIXER-UPPER! Yuck!
A 3.9 million dollar nightmare dipped in gold leaf. Puke!
I started to laugh. LOUD. Here, I have all the money in the world to spend…and I still can’t find something I love! I mean, at those prices—you’d better love it.

Since succumbing to the austerity mindset, I had convinced myself that the things I couldn’t afford were the things that would make me happy!
Which made me wonder. If I really had let’s say, only 2 million to spend, would I be loving these pricier properties and cursing my sad little austere lot in life, like I did before?

Uh…NO!

I actually liked the 2-3 million dollar homes better.

So, it wasn’t about the money. It was NEVER about the money. It’s a mindset.
Even with an imaginary wallet full of cash, what you want may be hard to find.
Good taste doesn’t come as a result of having a lot of money (Donald Trump).
And real wealth has nothing to do with dollars and cents.

Isn’t that good to know?

Carry on,
xox