The Research and Writing Requirement

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In order to graduate my school has a research and writing requirement that can be satisfied by the completion of a 30 page paper. Most schools have a similar requirement. It is actually an ABA requirement that law students must take at least one course as a 2L or 3L that requires the writing of a paper for credit.

As with most things in law school I have procrastinated in fulfilling this requirement. This is my last semester though so I can’t put it off any longer. I’ll have to write thirty pages over the next two months which I’m not looking forward to. I like writing in general but not legal writing. I plan on working on it an hour at a time and it will eventually get done.

For any of you current or soon to be law students I would advise starting your R&W before your last semester or at least starting on it promptly at the beginning of your last semester.

Living on $10k a Year

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My plan for this year is to keep my expenses under $10k and so far I am on target to do that.  Of course there is a lot of time left in the year for something to go wrong.  I was curious how much a $10k a year budget translates to as a daily amount.  My calculations put the daily budget for $10k a year at $27.40 rounded up.  This does not seem like very much money to live on and the daily budget number could be a little intimidating when first making plans to live on a $10k budget.

On the other hand the daily budget number looks great when you look at it from the perspective of how much income you need to make.  I have a goal of making $10k a year in alternative and passive income. Earning an average of $27.40 a day looks pretty easy.  I don’t make that much money from my blogging and alternative income now but the figure certainly seems attainable.  My blogging income from last year would cover about 40% of the days in a year.  My dividend income would cover about half a month.  That puts me close to having half the year covered. I just need to find some additional sources of income and/or increase my current income streams to cover the rest of the year.  I probably won’t reach the $10k level in alternative/passive income this year but the goal is close enough that it seems realistic that I’ll make it in the next few years.  Being able to see progress and knowing I don’t have to wait too long for the payoff should make it easier to stay on track towards my goal of having $10k a year in alternative and passive income.

Social Media and Blog Marketing

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It seems like there is a new social media site coming out every week.  I understand that these can be used to promote your blog but none of them have ever really worked for me.  I have accounts at Myspace, Stumbleupon, and now Twitter but I haven’t done much with them.  I have received some traffic surges from Stumbleupon but not because of anything I did.  I just got lucky that someone stumbled my posts.  I am sure I could be making much better use of these media but these sites really don’t interest me.  I just want to write my blog.  Without some marketing though there won’t be anyone reading my blog and my blog won’t be producing much revenue.  I write this blog because I like to write but I also want to make money from it.

I just started on Twitter so I’m not giving up on it yet.  Otherwise, I don’t plan to sign up for any more social media sites unless they interest me for reasons other than blog promotion.  I’m thinking of hiring someone to do blog marketing for me.  This is an area where my frugality borders on cheapness.  The one time I did pay for some help improving my blog I received a huge return on my investment.  Yet I’m still hesitant to invest more money in my blogs.  I guess I need to get over that and come up with a plan for improving my blogs and then find someone to implement it for me.

More Extreme Frugal Housing Options

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Continuing where I left off on yesterday’s post here are some more extremely frugal housing options.  They are not quite as frugal as the previous options but still much less expensive than average.

One option would be to buy a small house in a small town.  In the town my mom lives in it is possible to buy a small, old home for less than $25,000.  I’m sure the same is true for many areas of the country.  You could even buy a house for less than that here in Kansas City.  The house might not be inhabilitable and the neighbord wouldn’t likely be one you would want to live in though.  I think this could be a viable option if I could find the right small town.

Another option would be to rent or buy a large house and rent out all the rooms individually.  My best friend has lived in houses like this on a few occassions.  It definitely kept his rent down.  He lived in the SF Bay Area last year and was only paying $400 a month for a room.  This option doesn’t really appeal to me though because I value my privacy too much.  There is also the occassional hassle of roommates that are late paying rent, are messy, and such.  The cost savings are not worth the drawbacks to me.

A less extreme option would be to rent a small house or apartment.  There are small rental houses across the street from us that are only $600 a month.  That would be just $300 each for my GF and me. The drawback to this option is that those rents will eventually increase.  I would only consider this option as a temporary measure while preparing to transition to one of the other options.

It looks like the RV option is the most popular among the readers so far.  It isn’t really a good option here though since lot rent would be almost as much as renting a house or apartment.  None of these options will happen until at least next year but I like to have some options in mind.

Extreme Frugal Housing Options

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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.