If you're in a position of saying "if I had less money [...] I'd take a long term lease" you already pretty far on the "buy freedom with money" ladder compared to a lot of people. (Or underestimating the difficulty in many places of getting a long term lease without having much money or steady employment without sacrificing some of your other things like nice climate.)

You just did a different thing with your freedom. So the part of the mentality you just hate is that "once you have freedom you can provide for your family"?