Off topic posts split from "How do u live on $700/month, truly?"

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Carla618 said:
CRVL's newest video is "Living on $887 Per Month". The video is the first in a series about how to live well on the road with little money.
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Cool. but SO MANY variables here that are astronomical to all but one key thing he says at the back end of it is take ALL you can from the tricks/tips and more that will come to you and see if they suit you, fit you, can one do them as needed? etc. so that is good it is very open ended. I know he 'lives on $887 as bare min now for what he needs but key being, what is his actual amt of money this dude owns in his finances? hmmm. One thing I did was read the comments. They are very eye opening. The comments are so wanting and needing! So not there ever on how to handle the financies at all. Health care being a massive hit on chat. And this was posted just now. Lets see where this big ol' inflation is taking life right? hmm.

But I like the positive attitude, the can do and the take what we can tell ya after others comment ya know. Open chat. Open ideas. Open tips tricks we know will never suit all and we know we are all not 'that person' giving those ideas to us but in the end, we wade thru it all and grab what works for us and move forward best we can in our own skin ya know :) I found it interesting for sure and will follow as it moves forward on the new updates it wants to provide on info on how to navigate life out there.

thanks for posting.
 
Seajatt said:
For those living on a fixed income, unable to work a standard job for whatever reason, might still find an income stream off of etsy. If you're handy and can make little crafts, people will buy them. The market is pretty saturated, so I would encourage one to find a niche product, or a creative way to market it if thats the route you're going to go.
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while I liked this it will never work for a majority of those ever on their circumstances and our life's brain ya know.....but I ALL the time applaud the what if to make it work for others if they ever can!!

for me literally I am 0 crafty LOL and that is just met ya know. I would never consider this an income forward, yet I feel many are in my camp here but many can find ways to suit them who are :)

key being more we chat this stuff the more we find us and hopefully an 'income niche' if needed???
 
I don't know why people think health insurance is so important. Most of the world gets by without it. Insurance went from a tool that helped spread risk to an income generator. Laws were passed requiring it, in this country. Forced insurance premiums, without regard to freedom of personal choice, is obscene. No one should be required to pay for insurance. No one should be forced to spend money if they don't want, or need, to.

With that said, I pay a modest amount for health and dental insurance because I'm a military retiree. I get a tiny pension. The wife and I are still living large off the sale of her condo, but I can see the end of that coming sooner than I want. I'm healthy enough to still work, but don't really want to work that hard. I'm enjoying doing gig work, occasionally, through Appen or Recruit and Field, Sugar Beet Harvest, going to try camp hosting this Summer in Oregon for the American Land and Leisure, but still, my expenses outpace my income.

Something that I always told me ex-wife. "You can either reduce expenses, or make more money" Pick one, or two. Making more money means losing time to live. Reducing expenses means gving up some "thing" that will end up in the trash at the end of your life.

I still have a 2017 car in storage because my wife didn't want to sell it. Its her car, her choice. We have a storage unit full of "things" we are paying for, mostly just to house an oversized and overstuffed chair that was her late son's that is supposed to be given to her other son, who is a nomad at heart, but trying to settle down and grow up at 35. That's an issue I step gingerly around. I found the Scratch and Dent grocery tent in Quartzsite. The savings there made up for the exhorbitant prices charged by the permanent grocery stores in town.

I guess everybody's situation is different. At one time, not too long ago, I could live on $150 a week, easily, but I wasn't enjoying life. Driving to work in a snowstorm with a car that had no heat for 45 minutes twice every day was not fun, but I survived.

I'm actually enjoying life now that I'm not just a corporate cog in an uncaring machine. In 18 months I can start collecting my SSI checks. Bob was right when he said that two years from the time you turned 60 to 62 was long.
 
Really? The Veterans Heath system is paid for by the federal government, actually an example of large socialized medical system that has been of huge benefit to thousands of veterans. Medicare isn’t enough for many to avoid medical debt. The reason many people in this country go bankrupt is because they cannot pay medical bills. Yes there is cause to be concerned about cost of staying healthy!
 
egilbe said:
I don't know why people think health insurance is so important. Most of the world gets by without it.

I guess everybody's situation is different. Bob was right when he said that two years from the time you turned 60 to 62 was long.
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I hit like on your post but this one is truly a big 'what if' for each individual and like Bullfrog said above, debt on losing what little ya might have with med bills is a real thing. And of course the ultimate...loss of life thru no health care one can afford or have access.

but that 'getting by without' holds some super scary 'what ifs' in it too for those humans without. A small statement to say, get by without it, but then delve a tad deeper on how many can suffer and are currently suffering? so.....

from the net I found this:
At least half of the world’s population cannot obtain essential health services, according to a new report from the World Bank and WHO. And each year, large numbers of households are being pushed into poverty because they must pay for health care out of their own pockets.
Currently, 800 million people spend at least 10 percent of their household budgets on health expenses for themselves, a sick child or other family member. For almost 100 million people these expenses are high enough to push them into extreme poverty, forcing them to survive on just $1.90 or less a day. The findings, released today in Tracking Universal Health Coverage: 2017 Global Monitoring Report, have been simultaneously published in Lancet Global Health.

----1/2 the world's population don't have health insurance coverage to cover any costs. Rely mostly on organizations like WHO and others that dispense free meds and healthcare too. We are a warped and unbalanced planet in existence for sure.

But you said that SS walk from 60 to 62 is very long LOL I feel ya on that. In fact I can't take it at 62 as I planned because taking it would put our income 'too high' and our govt subsidized healthcare would be highly affected so for me it is now a long walk from 61 to 65. At 65 I can take my SS and hubby being 61 at that point will only have a 4 yr walk to get his at 65. I can afford some healthcare coverage on just him to cover him only til he hits medicare like me. I think. Still fudging numbers to 'make it work' til we do hit medicare all in for both of us but as govt changes its requirements etc. each year, I have to just 'play the game' with numbers to make it all pan out best we can.

you said another key thing too....how one gets by and how one enjoys a bit of living better in their life is sure a wide gap. I don't wanna just survive at all and be one dime from total poverty. I do want a decent life. Don't wanna be rich beyond dreams working 24/365 to do it but I also never wanna be having nothing in life on a daily basis with my 'what ifs' on a shoe string wondering if I will even live thru tomorrow if XYZ or ABC goes down in life.
 
Gutz said:
I have a decent retirement pension but still hustle on the road, I play guitar and sing and I can go into about any city and busk up 20 - 30 bucks in no time, I have a metal detector and if you know the game and where to look can hustle up coinage and you never know what with it! I'm a certified diver and the detector is for underwater use, I've found all kinds of crazy stuff and many rings, watches, jewelry, you name it simply by knowing where to look for stuff! Living on the road is what we make of it! A positive attitude goes a long way! Having a few side hustles is invaluable! A little money isn't that hard to come by!
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What kinds of guitars do you have? I've always had an affinity towards Fender. In fact all my guitars are Fenders. But once we hit the road, unfortunately they won't be able to come with us. So I'm thinking of picking up a Martin LX1E since it will be small body acoustic that is small enough to not take up much space in the van. Can't live without my guitars. Started playing when was 14 the first time I heard David Gilmour. Been playing and singing every since.

Kind of a funny story. When my daughter was around 5 I started teaching her guitar. I went into Guitar Center to get a new capo and she was standing by me while I was buying it. I somehow mentioned that I was teaching her how to play and the guy behind the counter asked "are you going to learn how to play like Taylor Swift?" At the time, my daughter didn't even know who Taylor Swift was. She had only grown up listening to my music at the time. She looked at the guy behind the counter and in her small little voice she looked him straight in the eyes and said "no... I'm going to learn how to play like David Gilmour" and walked away. The guy behind the counter just looked at me dumbfounded and said... "That is the coolest S#$t I've ever heard". I just told him that's all she knows. When she was a baby I would sing "Smile" by David Gilmour as it seemed like a perfect lullaby. I put her to sleep hundreds of times to this song.

 
This is how I've done it. I've lived on $735 a month, plus yearly cost of living raises for several years now. As of January, that will be $914 a month. I saved every penny I could until I could buy 2 acres of land. That cost me $5,000. It took me about 3 years. I lived in my truck until I managed to buy a 19 foot travel trailer. Land taxes were less than $100 a year, but now I don't even have to pay that because I'm exempt. I bought solar panels, so no electric bill. I was using a well, but it goes dry in July and August, so I hooked back up to county water, which is just shy of $26 a month. My car insurance is $57, my internet is $10, and - due to Covid - my phone is free, when that ends, it will be $30 a month. So, my net bills are $57 plus $26, plus $10. Call it a hundred bucks. I spend about $30 on dog food, and I don't really know how much on food - maybe $150, plus another $30 or $40 on soft drinks - let's call that $200. Maybe another $100 for gas, and another $100 - a year - on propane.

Okay, I rambled a bit there, sorry about that. Grand total - about $435 a month. Right now, it's even less due to EBT. All my food is free. But soon enough that will end and I'll be back to the $19 I was getting plus whatever the cost of living increase has increased that to. My col increase will reduce the EBT even further. So, right now, I live on about $200 a month. Maybe double that when the emergency EBT program ends.
Now, I'm not a nomad- not really, I do travel from time to time, but not full-time. My point is, that $700 is easy once you're established with a home base, or if you just bounce back and forth from a couple spots on BLM land. Oh, and it's absolutely legal to live off grid in an rv or vehicle here. My land has no restrictions because I'm nowhere near a major city. It's like that everywhere I've been outside of city limits.

Apologize for the rambling post.
 
^^^You did good finding unrestricted land with county water available in a location close to a few stores. Most land with water I’m seeing for sale is several times more than what you paid. I used $20 worth of fuel to go get 8 gallons of propane which was almost $3 a gallon so about $50 total with a few groceries.
 
JRRNeiklot said:
This is how I've done it. I've lived on $735 a month, plus yearly cost of living raises for several years now. As of January, that will be $914 a month. I saved every penny I could until I could buy 2 acres of land. That cost me $5,000. It took me about 3 years. I lived in my truck until I managed to buy a 19 foot travel trailer. Land taxes were less than $100 a year, but now I don't even have to pay that because I'm exempt. I bought solar panels, so no electric bill. I was using a well, but it goes dry in July and August, so I hooked back up to county water, which is just shy of $26 a month. My car insurance is $57, my internet is $10, and - due to Covid - my phone is free, when that ends, it will be $30 a month. So, my net bills are $57 plus $26, plus $10. Call it a hundred bucks. I spend about $30 on dog food, and I don't really know how much on food - maybe $150, plus another $30 or $40 on soft drinks - let's call that $200. Maybe another $100 for gas, and another $100 - a year - on propane.

Okay, I rambled a bit there, sorry about that. Grand total - about $435 a month. Right now, it's even less due to EBT. All my food is free. But soon enough that will end and I'll be back to the $19 I was getting plus whatever the cost of living increase has increased that to. My col increase will reduce the EBT even further. So, right now, I live on about $200 a month. Maybe double that when the emergency EBT program ends.
Now, I'm not a nomad- not really, I do travel from time to time, but not full-time. My point is, that $700 is easy once you're established with a home base, or if you just bounce back and forth from a couple spots on BLM land. Oh, and it's absolutely legal to live off grid in an rv or vehicle here. My land has no restrictions because I'm nowhere near a major city. It's like that everywhere I've been outside of city limits.

Apologize for the rambling post.
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Nice, and thank you for that. What state are you in?
 
JRRNeiklot said:
Sweet home Alabama.
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Do you mind sharing what general area of Alabama? I'm in Nashville, TN and have been looking for land like your describing in various parts of TN. Not much available that's completely unrestricted.
 
There is not any land that I know of that is unregulated in the United States. There are areas where enforcement is very limited or regulations which can change allow certain practices. Very few places that have public water hookups lack enforcement it seems, apparently there are a few for now anyway.
 
ZERO regulations in Douglas county Missouri.
but living off grid is so much more complicated and even though I am 100% off grid there’s so many costs that come up. So many technicalities and things I never thought of no matter how many years I planned or how much research I did.
Living off grid s not simple and romantic like a lot of the YouTube vidsow portray.
Things I didn’t think of like the cottonmouth snakes and the abundance of ticks and on and on and on.
 
bullfrog said:
There is not any land that I know of that is unregulated in the United States. There are areas where enforcement is very limited or regulations which can change allow certain practices. Very few places that have public water hookups lack enforcement it seems, apparently there are a few for now anyway.
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My experience is just the opposite. Everywhere I looked Land was mostly unregulated. Now, mind you, I was looking for raw land. I looked in most of the SE US, Montana, Wyoming, and Alaska. Once you leave the city limits, it's almost always unregulated.
 
Ric G said:
Do you mind sharing what general area of Alabama? I'm in Nashville, TN and have been looking for land like your describing in various parts of TN. Not much available that's completely unrestricted.
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North Alabama. But prices have skyrocketed since I bought my land.
 
A quick Goggle search shows Douglas County Missouri adapted regulations and building codes as of October 2021. Lawrence County Missouri is the only remaining county in the state I believe that has no zoning, building permits, codes or regulations although a permit is required for a septic system. There are 11 states where there are no building codes in certain areas according to Goggle
 
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bullfrog said:
A quick Goggle search shows Douglas County Missouri adapted regulations and building codes as of October 2021. Lawrence County Missouri is the only remaining county in the state I believe that has no zoning, building permits, codes or regulations although a permit is required for a septic system. There are 11 states where there are no building codes in certain areas according to Goggle
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Outside city limits there are no billing codes.
 
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