ORANGE said:
But your 250 will give more frugality/ideas for folks. A special PLUS is that you ARE NOT IN THE WEST.
Give us a sneak preview before you fully publish. When I look at budgets I see 2 big expenses GAS and FOOD. GAS you rarely move, so that is something folks would have to figure out, how not to move around. Sit, Stay, Good girl/boy.
FOOD is something of course that I would like an early detailed preview.
Orange, I literally LOL'd at the part I bolded.
Yes, that saves me a
ton. Gas costs me (very) roughly about $50/month, however that's the one area I hadn't been tracking, and need to dig thru my receipts.
When I get a chance, I
will PM you some food details, but remember, I'm the queen of grilled-cheese-sandwiches & other ultra-easy/cheap meals.
I've even bought the dollar store "imitation cheese slices", which aren't as bad as I was braced for.
Pro Tip: the key is to pair the "meh" cheese with the Good Bread, and the real cheese with the "meh" bread.
I've exchanged some PMs with
Elbear1 and he uses the term "
day-to-day expenses" for the stuff we all have to pay for and can reasonably accurately plan & predict (i.e. excluding medical & repairs).
I like this phrase.
The numbers he shows above are
credible.
Remember, my repairs have cost
$6400, over a 9 months period.
That's a little over
seven hundred dollars per month, so far.
The number one reason I've shared that figure here and in other threads, is to try to
dissuade newcomers from buying
old vans, particularly ones where the
history is not well known.
There is a ton of
bad advice on this issue.
Former member
"JD GUMBEE" had agreed to work with me to
create a reliable database of vehicle repair costs, however he was
discouraged when
nobody else offered to help. I don't know if that will ever happen, however I'm still
committed & available (for about 2-3 more years) to do the backend parts.
Elbear1, thanks also for providing details of your vehicle insurance costs (and thanks
HDR for the reasonable "catch").
I had to stay in town this weekend to do live server testing, so will be doing some phone calls Monday, including getting an insurance quote from Progressive. I'm currently with GoodSam, but they
failed to honor their original quote (~28/month) and have been charging me about $42/month with no explanation (yes, I've asked, repeatedly). That's purely for liability, and I'm in the "dream demographic" (single female in my 50s, with excellent driving record).
I welcome other real "full-timer" insurance costs, particularly from my demographic.
Clarification:
I mentioned I'd cut
showers & internet, and should clarify that those are both
emergency austerity measures that save me about $40/month.
I will have to go somewhere south-ish for the winter, and have no idea what the internet options are, so may have to pay then.
Sponge baths aren't as cleansing as showers, however they're essentially free (water from Library, heat from Sun).
I do
crave one! On my way south, will be travelling thru my legal domicile town (to pick up mail), and will get a free shower at their local rec center. I'm looking forward to that.
Will probably indulge in a Little Caesar's lunch combo pizza, as well.
Core Concepts:
As I said above, I think very few would be
comfortable living on the budget I do.
For the record, a quarter century ago I had a life shattering experience and decided to switch from "permanent" to contract work, mainly so I could spend half the year working on "cool"/challenging & socially useful projects.
Since I knew I'd have to plan for my own retirement, I very carefully analyzed real costs of living and committed to a budget of
$200/month for food, clothing, luxuries, and sundry household items.
I've
kept to that budget for
most of my adult life.
I would
not be alive today, if I had failed to sock away most of my income.
There's not enough left to get me to SSA retirement, however one contract gig would be enough to bridge that gap, and even my earliest (age-62) SS retirement benefits would be enough for my "day-to-day" and repair costs.
If you're in "sticks & bricks" now, experiment with cutting costs.
If you can't or won't, then hitting the road is unlikely to change your habits.
I feel that I'm
content living like this, because my
real Work is so
satisfying & absorbing.
With the exception of my car accident year, for every year since the cyber attack that occurred after "9/11", I've
donated between
one and
three thousand hours per year to several
cybersecurity projects. If you're reading this on the internet, you've benefited from my work
and my frugality.
As I said above, I highly recommend all potential dwellers (and others) seriously
examine your lives, and try to decide whether you want to accomplish a lasting legacy, and/or what would
genuinely make you happy.
Running off to NFS/BLM/etc land is
not a plan for happiness, it's merely a change in location.
P.S. If there's any "
Word Nerds/Geeks" reading this, who hate electronic spam and are of sound character, in the fall or winter I'll be recruiting such for mind-boggingly tedious
non-technical word classification volunteer work, for a pro bono project that is used by about half a billion people.
It can all be done in small batches (by email), with just "Notepad" (or any plain text editor), and does
not require continuous internet connection and does
not require any other techie/computer knowledge.
PM me if you want more details.
There's
lots of volunteer opportunities out there.
