Frugality

Extreme Frugal Housing Options

by

The number one expense for most people is housing.  If you can make a significant cut in your housing expenses than you will most likely have a significant reduction in your overall expenses.  There are several extremely frugal housing options that I am considering for the future.

The first would be to live in a van.  I’ve done quite a bit of research on this and it would be possible for me and I think I would actually enjoy it.  I don’t think I could convince my GF to move in a van with me though.  Living in  a van probably works better for one person.  There are other possible problems with living in a van such as having to worry about breakdowns, finding a place to park, going to the bathroom, etc.  There are solutions for all of those problems though and the advantages of reduced housing expenses and freedom of living in a van would more than offset the problems for me.  It isn’t likely to happen for now though.

Another option would be to live in an RV.  It seems to be working pretty well for Jacob.   It would provide more room than a van but I still don’t think my GF would go for the idea.  Especially since she has two dogs that would take up a lot of room.  I’m not sure that there would be nearly as much savings here in KC when comparing renting a house or apartment to renting an RV space as there is in Jacob’s area.  I don’t really like driving large vehicles either.  It could just stay parked but I would prefer to be more mobile.  Living in an RV is a possibility but not one of my favorite options.

Living off the grid in a place like this simple cabin is yet another possibility.  As long as I had Internet it would work for me.  I don’t like the idea of staying one place all the time but I do like the idea of having a home to come back to after traveling.  Depending on the location of the cabin I would travel to avoid the worst cold of winter or heat of summer.  Then enjoy the cabin and the outdoors the rest of the year.  This option would take a little more planning than the first two options but it would provide a permanent home.  It would possibly be even cheaper than the first two options and provide a better quality of living.  This is my favorite option right now.

There are some more extreme frugal housing options but I have to go and this post is long enough already.  I will write about the other options later.

Eating for Free

by

There are lots of opportunities for for free food.  For example, I receive two free meals from McDonalds each week, I could attend different presentations at school where pizza or other food is served frequently at school, I can receive free meals for doing mystery shops, I often see food for free or better after coupons at sites like MoneySavingMom, IHOP and Denny’s both had free meal promotions this month, and there is the occassional candy dish as well.  With all these ways to get free food I considered trying to go a month eating only free food.  I decided against it though because I knew I would be too tempted to eat my GF’s food.  She probably wouldn’t be real happy with us not going out to dinner for a month either.  I still believe it is possible to eat only free food though.  It probably wouldn’t be a very good diet but you would receive enough calories.

I used to eat well for free when I worked at the casinos when I lived in Nevada.  Almost all casinos serve their employees a free meal with varying degrees of restrictions on how much and when you can eat.  When I worked at the more generous casinos I would come in before my shift and have breakfast, have a quick sandwich lunch during my shift, and then have dinner after my shift.  I only spent money on food during my days off or for an occasional snack or beverage after work.

Anyone have a free food story or tip they want to share?

How Much is Enough?

by

The fourth chapter of Your Money or Your Life deals with fulfillment.  It includes three questions that will assist you in clarifying what fulfills you.  The three questions are:

  1. Did I receive fulfillment, satisfaction and value in proportion to life energy spent?
  2. Is this expenditure of life energy in alignment with my values and life purpose?
  3. How might this expenditure change if I didn’t have to work for a living?

After asking yourself these three questions you will probably discover some expenditures that you would like to change or eliminate.  I still sometimes spend money on stuff that receives a “no” answer for one and/or two but doing this step helps me reduce such expenditures. The third question allows you to see that enough might be less if you didn’t have to work.

This is a brief summary of this chapter of the book be sure to read the book to get the full details.

Check out this $2000 Solar Homestead

by

I came across this little cabin somewhere on the web a few weeks ago and really liked it. I would love to have a little cabin in the country and live in it. When I share my plans most people don’t grasp how small a cabin I’m talking about. When they do grasp how small a cabin I want they often compare my prospective cabin to the Unabomber cabin. Not the best comparison but I think his cabin would have been plenty big enough.

The cabin I have linked to is 400 square feet. I’ve lived in studio apartments that big so it shouldn’t be a problem to live in a cabin that size. Especially since it has a porch where I could spend a lot of time outside. I also like how the house is not dependent on any utility company for power or water. I’d just have to find a way to get Internet and I’d have everything I need. There isn’t a whole lot of information on the site since he is selling an e-book. It looks like the e-book contains a lot of other useful information. If I were closer to doing this I’d buy the book and I might just buy it anyway. Living in a cabin like this for part of the year would work great for my future semi-retirement plans. It would be a very frugal way to live.

Would anyone else like to live in a cabin like this or am I just crazy?

Where Is It All Going?

by

The third chapter of Your Money or Your Life builds on the topics of life energy and tracking your money that were introduced in the second chapter and asks you to do three things.  It asks you to create a table of all your income and expenses organized by categories.  The categories you have are dependent on how you spend your money.  You also need to balance your monthly income and outgo totals. Also you should compute how many of hours of life energy you are spending on different categories.

I do the first step and sometimes do the second step but I think the last step is the most beneficial to those who are just starting to take control of their finances. This last step might cause you to discover that you are spending lots of life energy on categories you don’t really care about and not much life energy on categories you do care about.  This information is very useful in helping you change your spending patterns.

That is a very brief summary of this part of the book.  You really should check the book out from your local library or buy it to get the full benefit of this book.