Live on Less and Love It

Mother Earth News ^ | October 2007 | Craig Idlebrook

[JoJo Gunn]

Michael Crichton died last week, and I was looking at some of his writings on his site, which is still running at the moment. Here's a little tidbit from something he wrote back in  '91: 

....As a rule, nothing you lack now will make you happy when you get it. People imagine they’ll be happy as soon as they get that relationship, degree, marriage, or promotion—only to obtain it, and find happiness eludes them.

Similarly, buying things doesn't make anybody happy. The endless disappointment of shoppers, thronging to the stores to acquire the new clothes of the season, the new car of the model year, is repeated again and again. We make our purchase, and feel happy for a while. But soon the happiness fades. The purchase didn’t do what we hoped, and we begin the buying cycle all over again, like alcoholics who have forgotten the hangover. The truth is that buying things—particularly for yourself—won’t make you happy....

[Old Professer]

Alcoholics don’t have hangovers unless they run out of booze.

[peggybac]

Exactly what I was thinking.

[Hetty_Fauxvert]

Overall, there are some good suggestions here! But this one gave me pause:

20. Be efficient with your appliances. Have a big baking night when you’re going to use the oven. Let your woodstove also be your dryer and water heater.

We bought our current house as a severe fixer-upper. Among other problems, the house had a lot of mold on the interior walls. The central air furnace had died, and the family living here had made do by “heating” their house with their big kitchen stove. Hah. The heat did not make it through the rest of the house, with the result that mold grew rampant on the cold, damp walls. Anyway, just wanted to say think carefully about exactly how to do it if you go with an “alternative” heating method for your house.

[diamond6]

ping

[TigersEye]

household budget ping.

[TenthAmendmentChampion]

Check out local Freecycle groups to find out what people are giving away. Set up borrowing co-ops for tools.

Freecycle is found at freecycle.org, in case any of you guys are curious.

I've read about making your own cosmetics (face moisturizers, exfoliants) too. If anyone is interested, ping or FReepmail me and I'll go looking.

You can find out about stockpiling and buying in bulk here:

http://www.pinchingyourpennies.com/

I used cloth diapers for my daughter. It saved a lot of money and made her easier to potty train, too.

Use an evaporative water cooler instead of air conditioning, if you can.

Buy books from used dealers, or try using paperbackswap.com. The site also has an exchange program for CDs and DVDs.

[Melas]

Well, I guess you won’t be walking (driving costs money) around town looking for unsecured hotspots either then? -chuckle-

Can you even imagine living like that?

[TenthAmendmentChampion]

Good thought. My guess is that drywall doesn't tolerate damp as well as plaster or wood does. Probably the paper coating.

Here are some more ideas:

$45 Emergency Menu for 4 to 6

$70 Low Cost One Week Menu for 4 to 6

Save money on cookbooks by looking up recipes online. RecipeZaar actually does serving conversions for you so you can accurately cut the size of the final product.

Make mixes for yourself for both savings and convenience: cookie mix, biscuit mix, cake mix, seasoning mixes, salad dressing mixes, etc.:

Make Your Own Mixes

[TenthAmendmentChampion]

Dave Ramsey says to shop with cash. He has what he calls the “envelope system.” You budget what you care to spend on groceries (or other budgeted items) and then set aside the cash in an envelope. The money you set aside is what you get to spend. If you buy with a debit or credit card, it’s not like real money.

[rfreedom4u]

I actually do a lot of these things already. I just need to convince my wife and kids that they are smart things to do. Our society is so “disposable” that we throw away too much and our landfills are bursting. The army has a saying.... reduce, reuse, recycle. I like that.

[Daffynition]

You ought to try living off the grid. It is quite an experience. You can do it but it takes almost all your effort, especially if you live in a cold area.

And washing your clothes in winter is near impossible ....

[Cedar]

Bookmark for the time soon when we “flee to the mountains”

[TenthAmendmentChampion]

Gorgeous! Where is it?

John McPhee wrote about the Alaska frontier in his book Coming into the Country. A lot of the cabins he wrote about would look like that, I'm sure. He said the same thing... in winter you're very restricted as to what you can do, because water can be hard to come by.

[bigdaddygop_nc]

Ping

[TenthAmendmentChampion]

Please remind me what you pinged me for. LOL!

[Daffynition]

Northern Maine ... practically a pistol shot from the Canadian border.

Snow and wood is easy to come by ... melting it is another story. I think making maple syrup is easier. LOL

For $25. you can have an annual membership to a motel in Caribou, where you can shower and take a dip in the pool. Pure luxury if you ask me.

McPhee was one tough guy. One amazing man.

[Tax-chick]

Where do they use the bathroom? And just try that with nine kids - you’d need to rent a tractor-trailer.

[Elvina]

I lived off the grid for several years in my twenties when I was a leftist. It is interesting to have come full circle and reach the same conclusion as a conservative. At least all of those years of being wrong in my ideology weren’t completely wasted. :)

[Notary Sojac]

Re: Mother Earth News:

I've found that liberals who are personally committed to live a more frugal, lower consumption life style (as opposed to those who merely want to legislate that status for people other than themselves) are generally decent people with whom I have not a few things in common.