"in August, I bought a modest two-bedroom home in South Hadley, Massachusetts. Population: 17,500."

"My living expenses here are ~$2k per month, which is close enough to the rate of return on my personal investments that I'm kind of at equilibrium."

- i.e. Michael moved to a much lower cost of living area.

If that "I bought a house" is literal then he doesn't have rent or a mortgage to pay. That's a big chunk of most people's outgoings.

Yep, paid in cash, so there's no mortgage or rent.

Outside of the super-star cities, housing is pretty affordable!

Sure. Thankfully most people can afford their outgoings if they're sensible. It's still a lot easier if you don't have rent or a mortgage though.

If you're trying to suggest houses are cheap enough that lots of people can afford to buy one outright then you're absolutely wrong regardless of where it is. Very, very few people manage that.

>How did you cut down so drastically on expenses in the second year, +50%, or was there a large investment in the first year, sorry I havent read last years update yet!

Mainly, I outsourced less.

This was less about cutting costs as much as it was about building faster. My first year, I hired developers to do a lot of work with me, but I realized after a few months of doing it that contractors actually slowed me down overall. Early in a product, there are so many course corrections and pivots, but contractors make it difficult to follow those because you need to give them enough to do because they're not going to just sit on unpaid standby for you, but you also don't want to just keep interrupting them and throwing away their work.

>Also, I'm just coming accross your Zestful service and can't believe that is exactly what i am looking for and actually started to write, but I have other stuff to do so no point re-inventing the wheel!

>Consider me a new client sir!

Fantastic! If you have any questions or run into any issues, shoot me an email at michael@zestfuldata.com.

That outsourcing less is an interesting point actually, usually I will outsource some grunt work to get other infastructure in place, hand over interfaces and get to other things.

It's a really grat story to hear, I've been there with mixed results, financially and mentally but I plan to go back soon. Your candor is welcoming and on my previous comment about your Zestful service, I definitely will get in touch with you about something I would like to achieve.

Thanks again and best of luck in the future!