Focus On Yourself

Focus on yourself. Focus on doing what you can do. Everybody has a unique situation so what works for one person won't necessarily work for another. Maybe you have a job which makes good money that you can do from anywhere so you live on a nice ranch/ farm out in the hinderboonies. You might be tied by job or family to an area that isn't ideal. Maybe you have complex medical needs and physical limitations which will prevent you from a self sufficient lifestyle and require you to live near certain medical facilities.

Economics are probably the area where we have the biggest variation. Of course you can't spend money you don't have and being into debt up to your eyeballs isn't prudent. We have to choose how to allocate our limited resources to best meet our needs and desires. For folks who don't have much of a surplus after meeting basic life sustaining requirements little if anything is left over. This means for a lot of folks the option is to figure out how to prep on a small or nonexistent budget or to not prep at all. [Please don't get discouraged and think you can't afford to become prepared.]

All of our situations are so unique that it is impossible to really measure ourselves by anybody else. We all have different incomes, obligations and spending habits.

Even in the theoretically non materialistic area of preparedness we often measure ourselves against others. The temptation to keep up with the Jones family is high. They have a safe full of nice spiffy rifles and cement bunker house with a big barn while you just have a couple well used not at all tacticool guns and a mobile home with a 3 sided shed in back. We say we aren't materialistic but it is just that we are being materialistic about different stuff.

As much as possible try to ignore what everybody else has or doesn't have or whatever. Work on what you can do. If you aren't where you want to be then figure out a realistic path to an attainable (for you) situation. It might be a 2 year plan to the set of guns you have been drolling over for years. It might be a 5 year plan to having a couple acres with a little off grid cabin (that some folks might call a shack) and a CONEX to store some gear. Maybe in 10 years you want to retire to your 'hunting cabin'.

Raiding the Emergency Fund: When and to What End?

First of all don't worry things are fine here at the TOR household. No need to raid the emergency fund, in fact we will add to it this week on pay day. I have just been thinking.....

Under what conditions should you raid the emergency fund?
1. If you are married, domestically partnered, living in sin, coupled up or really in any other situation where you share money with another person only get into that account with both people being involved. This isn't the way to cover up (not that you should be covering up anything but that is not the point) that you spent a bit too much on naked dancing girls, designer shoes, poker night, handbags or whatever. Obviously things are really bad (not borrow a few bucks from a friend bad but ski mask and handgun kind of bad) or you would not be wanting to raid the emergency fund. Do you really want things to be that bad AND have an incredibly pissed off spouse? I certainly wouldn't. Sit down and have a serious conversation about what is going on and what the two of you are going to do to get through it. Make this decision together.

2. What are you going to raid the emergency fund for? First of all if married, etc all read above again. Second this is personal and you might have a different answer than I. To me it is for covering sudden unavoidable expenses (think broke down car or sudden plane ticket home to bury a close relative, not a deal on a .308 or a boat or a diamond ring), job loss or something else completely lame and unexpected like a house fire or needing to flee a natural disaster and spend a month in a motel in Nebraska. I think it is good to keep it open because you don't know what sort of crappy thing is going to happen to you but the odds are over any given decade at least one probably will.

To what end will you use these funds is the more unique thought I have been mulling over.

One of my low probability (lower than being mugged but higher than say a lightning strike) concerns is something getting completely fucked at work. My job is very stable, like prostitution and gambling stable. As long as our Federal Government exists in anything near its current state my industry will be safe. For the foreseeable future given our current world circumstances (two conflicts, various threats on the horizon) we will probably be a growth industry. Given said current circumstances there isn't really much of a worry about job stability because people are leaving left and right, if you stay in you will move up.

However just because things are pretty stable doesn't mean they are 100% guaranteed and reliable for every person. Anything can happen in life (everything is just fine at work don't worry) like sometimes a boss gets a serious case of the ass at someone and crushes them in evals or a subordinate does something stupid and they crucify the first officer and NCO in line so I have thought about it a little bit.

I make pretty good money but it is our only income. [Wifey is looking like crazy and hopefully will find a job that will make her happy soon.] Also there are not a whole lot of places where my current skill set would be valued without a real change in scenery and job conditions. It isn't exactly like I am a plant manager in a town with 8 plants.

Odds are we would get home and spend a couple months with relatives but it could be awhile before we were back to around our current income. Lets say that before we got back to meaningful work things came to a head at the relatives place (doubt it would but lets say it did). Right now we have more than enough to buy a piece of junkish land in the general area we want to settle plus get some sort of a functional shelter (travel trailer, mobile home, etc) to put on it sitting in the bank. We could live all Dakin like on around minimum wage for a long time in this sort of situation. Heck we could do this on what I would get in unemployment.

The reason we (might potentially ) choose to take this extreme course instead of just getting an apartment or whatever then looking for jobs is that we would not know when real jobs could be had and the odds are it would be awhile. In two years time things would be fine but there would probably be a rough 6-9 months before then. There would be a high probability that things would come to head in terms of finances (if we kept more or less our current budget) before jobs could be had so we would need to drastically change expenses to survive.

Some folks say to have a 6 month emergency fund, some say 12 months or maybe even 18. Heck why don't you just have a 96 month security fund as well as 400 ounces of gold, $100,000 face in 90% silver, a dozen M1a's and a 12,000 acre retreat! The simple answer is that we live in a world of unlimited desires and limited resources. Most folks need to scrimp and save and sacrifice just to bank a little bit each month and keep it there till it adds up to much of anything.

Also money that is sitting in an FDIC insured account (or a safe) is money that can not be put towards anything else. To me as a relatively young person the idea of saving up 12-18 months wages before starting to save for a home down payment doesn't make a lot of sense. I would rather have less in the bank (say 4 months) and be paying myself instead of some other guy.

My point is that it might not be bad to have a contingency plan for radical long term or even permenant changes in income. You might (depending on your funding,age, levels of risk, etc) not even need to do anything toward putting this plan in motion unless your personal circumstances really change but it is probably wise to think this one out for awhile and discuss it with the spouse.

Thoughts?

The Middle Path

I think we often forget to think about the middle path. Don't get me wrong I love (no homo) Creedmore and Dakin. They have awesome blogs full of great advice on dirty cheap living. Some people can't or won't live in a travel trailer. Just that somehow we often talk like the only two options are to live in a trailer on an acre of junk land or in a McMansion with an ARM mortgage.

Between living absolutely as cheaply as possible and having an unsustainable over leveraged lifestyle there are other options. Think of all of the shades of grey between black and white. I will call it the middle path.

The balance between not being a total slave to debt but still enjoying some of the nicer parts of living in modern society. This is mostly about being harshly realistic with yourself. Living well within your means and managing your relationship with debt in a smart reasonable way.

To many people end up living at the edge of their income. Maybe they get a bit lucky and get a job which is (for their skill level) highly compensated or maybe they start getting some overtime. These folks need to make every penny of a normal pay period every week or they are screwed. Some of them are in trouble if they don't get overtime.

These folks are just waiting to fall victim to one of lifes little emergencies. My regular economic emergency amount seems to be $400. Every 2/3 months something happens that randomly costs us 400 bucks. Maybe it is a car repair or the need for a sudden plane ticket home (funerals and such). Maybe it is a pay period at work where things are slow and instead of the normal 40 hours you only get 24. Maybe things are a little screwy and the boss can't make payroll and the mid month paychecks will be late. These things happen and being ready for them is essential. I am not talking about the emergency fund specifically here but suffice to say that if you spend more than you make it isn't going to get set aside.

How we use debt is the real issue. That borrowing money to pay for an education which will greatly increase your earning power or to finance a reasonably priced home is fairly common sense. You don't need a McMansion but a 3 bedroom place with 2 bathrooms or a mobile home in good condition would be be bad at all. If it is on some land all the better.

I have been thinking and have sort of changed my opinion on car loans. I did this for one reason. Real cheap junker cars are often money pits and will either totally break down or $500 you to death. I make OK money and we may need to get a new car in the not that distant future. I am not willing to drop all our savings on a car but we don't want to get some fucking POS clunker either. Maybe you are more mechanically inclined than I am so that isn't an issue but most of us aren't. As I see it the thing is that if you need to finance a car/ truck to get a reasonably priced one. Assuming you make OK money putting 3k down on a car that costs 6k is not insane or a truck that costs 8k. What starts to sink people is when they get a loan for a car that costs 20k or a truck that costs 30k or both. Plenty of my peers have two brand fancy new vehicles in their drive ways. The amount they must be putting towards car loans probably keeps them from savings for the short or long term and paying more then the minimum to get ahead on other debts.

Don't get me wrong I would love to drive a sweet Toyota FJ Cruiser and Wifey would love some sort of a little sports car. Will may have these eventually, but not for awhile. We could have them both but the goal is to get ahead not to drive the shiniest vehicles.

Using credit to live beyond your means is just not smart. Aside from an education, a reasonably priced home or maybe a reliable modest vehicle there are few reasons to use credit. If you can't pay for big tv's or new computers or fancy super shiny appliances then keep your little tv and buy a used washer and dryer out of the paper for $200. If you can't pay for a new couch but must have one then get it out of the paper for $100.

I know at least one guy who completely furnished their residence from rent a center. I don't have a clue what he pays for all that shit but I know he is barely treading water. He is certainly not saving for unexpected expenses or the future. When you are spending darn near everything you have to pay off debts you aren't saving.

It isn't that you can't have nice things. It is just that you need to save money, make reasonable choices and purchase things as you can afford them. Getting into the 'we deserve it' game is the doom of many people.

Thoughts?

Unconventional Housing Question?

That was good advice for a conventional house buy. Could be you are one of those people who need to look outside the box? Like the guy on thesurvivalistblog who lives in a travel trailer on a paid for lot? That is 'out of the box' thinking.

Are you the sort of person who could do it themselves or do you really need to buy a ready to go place?

A lot depends on where you are, who you are, the climate, the laws and culture. Can you afford to buy just the land (a building lot or maybe acreage)? Can you put up a pole barn and park your travel trailer in there while you build a house.

Will a real 'fixer-upper' work for you? Can you live in and fix a place at the same time? Can you do it paycheck to paycheck and with scrounged materials? There is a whole world of shelter ideas and thoughts (and advice type help) out there if you are able to go 'out of the box' in your search for shelter.

We bought out first place on a land contract out of the back of a magazine. After several years we paid the land off and everything we did to the place was ours.

There are risks but it can be done.

TOR here: Interesting question. As for unconventional housing I think generally speaking we (if you don't include your spouse in the decisions your asking to become single, sorry but its true) are pretty open minded. For a time we lived in in RV both on a relatives land and in a trailer park. Glad we did it but also glad it is over. Can't say we would never do it again but it would not be our first choice.

I have gone over most of the outside the box options in the past and there are some possible options.

Could we do it ourselves? The short answer is YES! We do have the rather unique situation that at least for the foreseeable future we will be moving every 3 years or so. This means it is not worthwhile to do the sweat equity thing that will create a cheap long term place to live unless we could get out money back out of it. Factoring in what our time is worth lots of the conventional outside the box housing ideas do not make sense in this context. Mobile homes don't move real well and finding land that you can purchase which is hook up ready is fairly rare, certainly not something you would want to try and find every 3 years.

I could build a pole barn (be on the phone to my Uncle every few days but that is OK) but again putting improvements into land just to sell it and gamble we will get the $$$ back isn't something I'm going to do.

Of all the ideas you have mentioned getting a real fix er upper is very realistic for us. As long as a home is structurally sound I can do just about everything. The idea of living in a home for a few years during which we do a lot of repairs and increase the value is realistic. Since we are going to move anyway it would fit into our plans pretty well. I think depending on the overall situation (how much we pay for the place, what needs to be done, the market, etc) doing repairs/ improvements as cash comes is would be doable. As for scrounged materials they can work but as I have seen at friends places the end result is a scrounged mis matched place which can hurt value on resale.

Buying land, paying it off and then building (and or fixing up) down the road is a real possibility. It will depend a lot on when we finally settle, our financial situation at the time and what is available. Living in a travel trailer while we substantially repair or build is a very valid option. Wifey's folks lived in a travel trailer and had their stuff in the barn while their home was build and we may well emulate that plan.

Did I miss anything?

The Plan- Cheap housing

I got a good amount of comments on my previous post on this matter. After a lot of helpful comments and thinking we realized that buying a new mobile with the intent to keep it for the long term and move it from place to place wasn't sound. A couple comments (Pearls and Mayberry) suggested getting a big travel trailer and just moving that from place to place. I've been mulling that idea over for a couple days. Today Wifey and I had a conversation about it. To put it mildly she is not a big fan of that idea. We did it already more or less and she isn't keen on doing it again. After some discussion on the matter we came to an interesting place. She is not down with the travel trailer thing and I don't like the economics of renting an apartment.

The newest (and I think more reasonable and realistic) idea is to just buy a used mobile home wherever we are. There is no intent to move it around for the long term but a move might be in the cards. This plan is pretty darn cheap as used mobiles can be had for a song. Paying a couple- three hundred bucks a month to park it someplace would be just fine with me. Bank the rest of the BAH and save for a house down the road. We do intend to purchase a home and then continue to sell and move (but not upgrade) as needed for my job. This plan seems like a good stop gap measure between the next duty station and being able to really afford to buy a house.

Please by all means point out anything I failed to consider or underestimated. Thoughts?

Thinking On The Page- The Plan

Wifey was reading a book and found an interesting fact. Good ole .mil will pay to ship a mobile home if it is your primary residence. We looked up the regs and all that jazz. We are thinking the way to go for the foreseeable future (after a possible tour in Germany) would be to get an mobile. We could just move it from place to place as we move. It would get us out of the rent trap quicker then saving up for a house. Also whats the point of spending a bunch of cash on a place you don't love or a place you do love that you're going to sell in a year or two. Once we paid that sucker off we would just put cash away towards eventually purchasing the ideal place once done moving around.

I have lived in them before so I know the drawbacks of the whole thing in general. My concern is more about coming up with reasonable plans for economically finding a place to park that sucker. For the first while being in a mobile home park would be ok but long term I would want to have my own lot (or a few acres). My concern is in that area. Finding an empty acre or lot is easy enough but what about septic? Getting an acre is cheap enough but putting a septic in knowing we are leaving in a couple/ few years would really affect the economics of that. If I bought an acre or whatever and sold it with a septic would I get (at least most of) what that cost out of it?

I've just been kicking this around in my head for a few weeks now. You folks have an amazing collective amount of knowledge and the ability to fix or point out gaping holes in plans so I am wondering what you think. Did I completely miss anything? Good idea? Bad idea?

Building A Home On The Cheap

We have gone over RV and travel trailer living in the past, mobile homes have been discussed also. Let us assume that you want to live in a more permanent but want/ need to do it on the cheap. It is worth noting that cheap for a permanent structure is nowhere near trailer/ RV/ mobile home sort of cheap. The bottom line is that cabins/ houses/ whatever you want to call them just plain cost more.

Please check out some background by reading this post by Steve. All the good advice in it aside it got me to thinking. Three different people and their residences come to mind; I will now talk about them. Hopefully you will get something out of it. Here I go in no particular order.

Uncle B lives in a nice little cabin. It sits in a mid sized town that was small 20 years ago. The origin of the cabin is kind of a funny story. Grandpa was in construction and was building a park which included demolishing the structures that were on the land. He had a lot adjacent to the family home where they had a barn and kept the horses. Grandpa chose the best of the cabins on the land he was working on, sawed it in half with a chainsaw put it on a truck and drove it to the land in the middle of the night. This structure is fairly small but ingeniously designed to have a lot of space.

The cabin is about 20' x 35'. It has two small (queen bed, desk, dresser, small closet and its full) bedrooms on the left side that are about 10 feet wide. The little bit of space on the left side between the wall of the middle bedroom and the north wall was a tiny bathroom. The remaining space was split up with about 25' of living room and the rest was the kitchen. A brick fireplace is in between the two spaces. It looks like at one time the oven might have been attached but it was replaced by a gas oven. Later on a laundry room was added which tacked about 10 feet onto the end of the place. This place has pretty much everything you need and could be built pretty cheaply. My uncle and I were talking (he is a contractor) about homes and I gave this floor plan some serious thought. We agreed that adding a loft (very cheap space) would help out a lot. Admittedly in the cabin storage is somewhat short but between the barn and assorted outbuildings (one of which is basically a small apartment without a bathroom) there is plenty of space to put stuff.

This place has three lessons for me. First sometimes you can get a place just for moving it. This is of course more economic if you have the truck and such to move a place. However if that is your only expense for getting a livable structure it is worth looking into. The big thing in this is that for it to be cost effective the structure probably needs to be pretty close to your home site. Certainly not an answer for every situation but it is worth keeping in mind. The second lesson is that to a certain degree the floor plan and its livability are more important then total square footage. The third lesson is that if you have enough space on your lot additional storage space can always be added later on as funds allow. The cabin started with a tiny porch and no laundry room. After it became Grandmas full time residence I think the laundry room came pretty quickly. A few years later Pa and my uncles all got together and built a car port and a wrap around deck. Build a small place now, a shed in a year or two, a barn a few years later, maybe another room or two down the road, etc.

The second place is probably the smallest and almost definitely the cheapest. It belongs to one of Uncle B's friends who we will refer to as J. He owns ten beautiful acres of woods with an amazing view. He got the land about 20 years ago for a darn good price. He lives in an A frame. No foundation and no septic. He has a grey water system and an outhouse. To be honest I am not sure if there was a single permit involved in the place getting built. In any case the work was done by him, I imagine Uncle B and a friend or two. He has a nice barn also which stores all manner of things. The morale I learned from this place is that if you are willing to adjust your lifestyle (he has an outhouse) then substantial savings can be made.

The third place is the one I know the most about as it was recently built by a friend of mine. His folks have 40 acres they inherited and he was given a couple to build a house on. He of course has access to the rest should he want to have a cow or something. Most likely he would just get more involved in his parents rather substantial efforts (cows, pig, chickens) and have a piece of the rewards.

My friend built what could be best described as a studio house. Pretty simple layout with a bedroom in one corner, the bathroom kitty corner to the bedroom with the kitchen on the same wall to make plumbing easier. A wood stove sits by the doorway and the rest of the place is open. It sits on a slab and there is a small mud room in which the washer and dryer live. If I recall correctly he built the place for $45,000.

It took him about a year to build partially because he built as he could pay for materials. He thus owns the place free and clear. Being a union machine operator and generally a handy guy who knows lots of other handy guys he was able to get everything but the septic system and the plumbing done for trade or greatly discounted cash prices.

The good part of this plan is that he got the place for significantly less then it would have cost to have someone else build it. The bad sides are numerous but it is a question of what is important to you. When you get cabinets and such from leftovers at a great discount some weird combination's come up. When people are doing work for free or lower cash rates they show up when they can and feel like it. This means stuff takes a lot longer then if someone is there all day long. Expect to have lots of pauses while waiting for someone to come and finish their piece of things.

The building process being far lengthier is a big problem if you are paying rent/ mortgage/ whatever somewhere else. Paying for two places to live puts a strain on all but the biggest budgets. Living on site in a travel trailer/ barn (tent if you are a bachelor and the climate is mild enough) would be a good option. A friend of his who I don't know was building a place in the same manner and having serious financial problems because he was paying rent. My friend probably would have done things differently if he didn't have a room in his folks place. The bottom line is that he got far more of a place for his cash then through any other means. He did concede that if his time was factored in the cost would be far higher and really it was a pain in the ass. When he adds on two more bedrooms and a family room in a few years he is going to just have a contractor do the work.

I guess the biggest thing to keep in mind is that you need to think outside of the box to really cut costs. Thinking outside of the box means making sacrifices in some form or another. It is just a question of what you are willing to live without. Doing the average thing and getting a loan which you use to purchase a turn key home or having one built is going to lead to an average sized mortgage and all that comes with it.

Weekend Update

Yesterday I was pretty on topic and quantifiable, today is not going to be that way. Mostly I was woke up late and spent the day doing chores and such. Last night I took the Garand all the way apart and got it lubed up all nice.

Jim Dakin posted the beginning to a piece of fiction work. It could use a little editing but shows outstanding potential. Heck it is already a good read though it bounces around a little bit.

Backwoods Home had this article on Buying a used mobile home. Mobile homes or travel trailers are the cheapest and quickest way to get a real structure onto a piece of land. I've done the RV living thing in the past and if it was going to be permenant I would get a mobile home.

Some asshole (Brian Nichols) who shot and raped a bunch of people in GA got life in prison instead of death. More and more I find myself thinking that Panhandle Tex had it right that there should only be two punishments, restitution and execution. Of course the trick would be to figure out where restitution stops and execution begins. I think this goes well with a malum in se concept of crime. There would be no more "The State of X vs. Jimbo Tucker" only restitution (possibly with punitive damages) to individuals or groups that are harmed. So instead of Jimbo the drunken construction worker getting probation or a week in jail for getting drunk and driving his pickup into Bob's garage he will fix it and also build Bobs wife that deck she has been wanting.

I caught up with some friends on the phone this weekend. One close friend is about to get laid off for up to three months, if it gets to six he is going to be in trouble. On the bright side he is smart enough to live below his means and has something set away. We all need to do that but doubly so if your job is more prone to layoffs.

Another friend got ahold of me to say his wife is pregnant. It turns out that his twin sister is also pregnant. Guess I'm not up on home town news so much anymore. No matter what is going on in the economy or the world life goes on. People get pregnant (some planned and some not so planned) then have kids and raise them the best they can. This isn't the best time in history to raise kids but I can think of lots of times that were far worse. I guess the big parts of the human story are the same no matter what.

I've got to get ready to head in to work for a little bit and then try to get some sleep before my week starts.