Bought the cheapest, most broken house in town. Spent 2 years totally redoing everything in any spare moment we had. Almost finished before our first son was born, have since had a few more kiddos.

Everything is still a work in progress but the house and the rental unit are both so much better to live in

Will have it paid off in a few years (at least we're paying interest to people we know and not a bank)

We still go travel in our van for at least a month or three every year, so I feel like its best of both worlds.

Too much nomadism makes me want to root, and vice versa