There was a time when due to circumstances, moved away from the parent’s home to find shelter somewhere else. Never thought about a place to lay my head until I got kicked out of the house in college. Time to grow up.

Some parents figured out a roommate for a two-room 3^rd floor flat with a kitchenet and a full bathroom (no shower). Living away from home would have been more difficult other than I was just blocks down the street in the same city.

We each complied with our parent’s wishes and dragged up the stairs a bed, a desk, some clothing stuffed in an old WWII wooden footlocker used in camp and a stereo record/radio combine player. The rest of my ‘stuff’ was kept at my parents’ house.

As roommates we only saw each other waking up. We both were going to the same college, but different majors and classes. He also had a intown girlfriend, so he spent most of his downtime at her house.

I had a job to earn ½ the rent, so when I wasn’t in class, I was at work. I also learned how to ‘hang out’ in dorm rooms, other’s apartments and local diners. I was living on my own and was having fun.

I found renting was not like having a room at home. If the power went out, someone else had to fix it and you just had to wait. The landlord, I found out, had a key to every apartment and could/would just enter at any time and make themselves at home. This was their home and I was just renting.

The lease would run out or the rent increased to requiring another search and moving all our ‘stuff’ to another room in another building. You find out who your buddies are when you have to haul a sofa down three flights of steps and then up another three flights of steps.

The other aspect of renting were the neighbors. They were changing constantly and their lives could be heard through the thin walls.

After renting three apartments, my father talked me into purchasing a home and get away from the bohemian living. I finally had my own space but if the furnace died, I had to get it fixed.

Home ownership is part of the American Dream, but there is something to be said about ‘renting’. If you like traveling or changing jobs or exploring distant romances, where you lay your head at night could be anywhere. It is also less expensive, but without a return on investment.

My thought was a comment I heard about ‘renting’ clothing. Most of us ‘rent’ a tuxedo for a wedding or a special dinner, then return it after a one-time-wear. A wedding dress is usually a one-time-wear that hangs in the closet for a daughter to wear as a hand-me-down or is refitted from a generation earlier. With fashion styles and trends constantly changing, manufacturers want to have people fill their closets with purchases that will last until the next red carpet runway photos show up with celebrities modeling the duds you must have to be current.

The older threads might be worn by your kids as retro or with a bit of humble pie, taken to the thrift store trying to sell for the price of the tax. Other ‘out of style’ items could be donated for those who don’t care about fashion but warmth.

When you look around your house (or apartment) at the ‘stuff’ piled on tables and stacked on shelves and cluttered in drawers, why do you need them? Books are a good example. We purchase the latest ‘must read’ then place it on a shelf in a library. You can justify having that book gather dust by thinking a future re-read might be a reference or could show your intellectual knowledge of being well-read. Someone else may enjoy reading that book but can’t afford it. Also, the public library has vast stacks of volumes for your interest and they are FREE. You are actually ‘renting’ the book and return it by a certain date for another to peruse.

Renting a lawnmower or a camper or skis or a boat seems more cost efficient than purchasing and having to find a space to store it during seasons when not in use. A taxi might be a better transportation than having a depreciating mass of metal parked in your garage full of flammable fuel?

Ownership makes us feel special. We can pride ourselves on our purchases of a fine watch or fancy wheels or a new toilet (there are something you don’t want to rent). We don’t show guest our underwear drawer.

In the end, we may score our excessive assets as our ‘estate wealth’ but then it all moves on to another person or charity or foundation or landfill. Only museums will display items that were created for some historical figure to establish it’s value at auction.

Sorry, you cannot borrow my car because I don’t own one.