Real Estate Investment - WHERE DO YOU WANT TO LIVE

This is a squatters shack from the Great  Depression.  I used this pic because this would have been 'temporary' housing.  How long do you plan to live in your shack?

You only have one body.  Your body is your home for the duration of your life.  Why not invest in making sure that it is as healthy and disease free as it possibly can be?

I started watching a documentary on Netflix the other day.  http://www.fatsickandnearlydead.com/
Joe Cross was on a mission to lose weight on a juice fast.  He'd stop to talk with people on his journey.  There was an obese man in a restaurant that Joe had a conversation with.  The guy said that he was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, and wasn't in denial about having the disease.  He was in denial about having to do something about it.  That's deep.

Many people know that they are headed to a life filled with disease and illness but refuse to make the changes necessary to prevent it.  Why is that?  Is it because we don't love ourselves?  Is it because of fear of failure?  Why don't we value our personal real estate as much as we value our homes or cars?  I witness people everyday that will spend money on building decks, gutting bathrooms, and installing a state of an art sound system in their home.  These same people hate the thought of even walking to their mailbox.  Is it because change is too hard to manage?  Is it easier to be the fun girl with the fancy nails and cute shoes vs the overweight girl with the fancy nails and cute shoes that finally decided she needs to make some changes? I guess it's easier to be 'cute' than acknowledge anything else.  The bad thing is: Denial will kill you.  It is also a river in Egypt.  Sorry, please keep reading.  :)

The money that we're spending at Saks, Dillard's and Nordstroms could be spent on hiring a personal trainer, purchasing a treadmill or at the very least a decent pair of walking shoes.  It amazes me that we will only buy top of the line colognes, perfumes, shoes and clothes to put ON our diseased bodies.  But we won't spend the extra dollar to buy a leaner cut of meat to put IN our body that we HAVE to live in.  You can buy all the baubles and toys that you want.  At the end of the day it doesn't change the physical state that you're in.  Your hair can be perfectly highlighted.  Your face may look like it's been beat buy the baddest makeup artist on the planet.  But your blood work and medical diagnosis will remain the same, (even if you are wearing your butter soft leather Donald J. Pliner driving shoes to the doctor's appointment).  LOL

This whole YOLO (you only live once) mentality is irresponsible and will have serious repercussions when the dust settles.  Stop leaning on the fact that your great grandmother lived to be 101 or that your grandfather smoked a pack of cigarettes everyday for 55 years without getting cancer.  We have to be realistic and look at the times that our elders lived in.  For the better half of their lives they were not exposed to the chemicals, preservatives and carcinogens that our found in our present food supply and environment.  Most of our elders were active.  They weren't necessarily running half marathons and lifting weights.  They were likely working in the fields, or on farms.  They cut their own grass, planted their own gardens and didn't sit on their posteriors for 8+ hours a day in fancy ergonomic office chairs. They also didn't spend decades playing beer pong, "popping bottles' at the club and eating Hardee's Memphis BBQ Little Thickburger® (A 100% Black Angus Beef Thickburger®, Pulled Pork, BBQ Sauce, Crispy Onion Strings all on a Seeded Bun).  <Sigh>

Now back to the real estate.  It's up to you to design your dream "house".  Invest in the things that will help you end up in the house that you want to live in.  It doesn't matter if your dream home is a modular home, a ranch, two story or split level. Perhaps your dream is a futuristic space pad like The Jetsons or a deeee-luxe apartment in the sky like George and Weezy.  The bottom line is that you have to work for it.  Forget about all the frills that you are using to camouflage the real issue.  Don't wait until you get bad news from the doctor to finally decide to put your old house on the market.