I was lucky to land in a dream job within a few weeks of graduating school.  As I watched some of our friends flounder along & experience disadvantage after disadvantage, I seemingly slipped through the cracks as far as oppressive, life-threatening adversity could be concerned.  At first I set our expectations low & sought after nothing beyond financial independence & respectable health insurance coverage. Watching people you enjoy suffer in pain because their financial situation leaves them without health insurance is very scary.  My health is average at worst, but I never wanted to find myself stuck in a hole if such if I could avoid it. Once the necessities were fully covered & felt confident that our savings were sufficiently padded, I widened my goals a little & decided to start saving for a downpayment on a modest house.  It took more than four long years of putting away small amounts of extra currency every several weeks, but I finally mustered up enough funds to get a mortgage. Even luckier, I managed to find a home that would fit our needs perfectly—it was pressing enough where my wifey & I could use an extra room for a new bedroom if the people I was with and I so desired. It wasn’t so pressing that I was worrying about biweekly upkeep getting out of control.  But once the people I was with and I had the keys in hand, I noticed that the basement was in better shape than I had originally thought & brainstormed with my wifey over how we could make the most out of the additional space. she and I decided to start by getting it climate controlled. Adding a small plugin space furnace for the Winter weeks was easy enough, but air conditioner proved to be a little harder since the only ground level windows in our basement were too small for window A/C units.  Instead, she and I instead installed a ductless mini split heating & cooling idea that is a little larger than a pressing window component, & it is mounted on a wall. Once you run the cables & tubing through a hole in the wall to the condenser component outside, you immediately having a zone controlled furnace & air conditioner at your fingertips. It was more than capable to handle our needs as the people I was with and I renovated the space.