I don't see contact info in your profile, but I'd love a link to your novel (or email address if you care to converse). I haven't wandered, but living somewhere really cheap where my modest house is paid off in cash and monthly expenses are tiny, is life changing.

If I'd done it younger, I might've done more of what you describe, but as it is it's liberating if you've got a family too.

It's amazing the decisions you can make when "I want to take this risk or do that thing" has a worst-case outcome of "oh well, I still have a secure home for me and my family" and not "oh crap we're living out of a van". Mortgages are death to life - actual life - perhaps why that have "Mort" right there in the name.