Lately I have been intrigued by Tiny Houses. They look so cute and efficient. Just as much space as you need and no more. I can see myself living in one of them. Of course, my RV at 27' is almost like a tiny house and I am perfectly happy living in it. The only downside in the few I have seen is that you sleep in a loft. At my age I would worry about climbing up and down the ladder. Especially if I was still half asleep. A good place to get info on tiny houses is Tammy's blog. I would need to downsize a bit more I think to fit into one but not much. I just finished reading Tammy Strobel's book called "You Can Buy Happiness (and It's Cheap)" and I really enjoyed it. You can get it for your Kindle through the above blog or on Amazon. We can all learn from her and reduce possessions, get out of debt and live simply.
Simplify your life and enjoy it more.
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
On The Road Again!
Well, I was able to keep my Mom at home and out of the hospital except for one time when she had a huge hematoma that needed to be removed on her leg from a fall. She was slowly having more difficulty moving around until Jan 1, 2012 when we had to take her to a Hospice facility because I could not safely help her move around anymore. While she was there, she had a stoke and died Jan 12.
She had a long life and was ready to go. Even so, it was hard losing her.
Now I need to figure out what I will do next. I can't afford to stay in this apartment without her paying some of the rent so I am moving back into my motorhome and living the dream I interupted to take care of Mom. Not sure how long I will be traveling around. I may find someplace I really want to stay and stop for a while. I will say, I prefer living in my RV than an apartment though.
She had a long life and was ready to go. Even so, it was hard losing her.
Now I need to figure out what I will do next. I can't afford to stay in this apartment without her paying some of the rent so I am moving back into my motorhome and living the dream I interupted to take care of Mom. Not sure how long I will be traveling around. I may find someplace I really want to stay and stop for a while. I will say, I prefer living in my RV than an apartment though.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
What's happening
Here I am again. I finished my son's sweater and took it to him in October. While I was visiting him, my Mom had to go to the hospital so I came home as fast as I could. It was extremely windy and I was driving a full sized van so I had quite a struggle keeping on the road. Arrived home to bring my Mom home from the hospital and was told I had to take her to an infusion clinic daily to get a shot. I didn't think that would work very well but Medicare would not pay for the shot if it was done at home so I tried it. She kept getting weaker each day and on the second day she fell getting to the wheelchair and we had to call 911. Back to the hospital for 3 days and then to a nursing home for 6 weeks. When she came home from there, I stayed with her and my sister, sleeping in the living room. Mom has been in and out of the hospital and nursing homes since then.
To make a long story short, we decided I needed to stay with Mom 24/7 and I moved us both into another apartment at All Saints where she and my sister live. So here I am confined to an apartment taking care of Mom. We have Hospice coming in to help care for her and with their help, I believe we can keep her out of nursing homes and hopefully the hospital for a while. There is a lot more room in this apartment for Mom to move around with her walker and wheelchair since she has the master bedroom and bath. It was getting difficult for her to move around in the old apartment.
Sometimes life interferes and we need to put dreams on hold for a while. I still have my dreams and hope to get back to them in the future.
To make a long story short, we decided I needed to stay with Mom 24/7 and I moved us both into another apartment at All Saints where she and my sister live. So here I am confined to an apartment taking care of Mom. We have Hospice coming in to help care for her and with their help, I believe we can keep her out of nursing homes and hopefully the hospital for a while. There is a lot more room in this apartment for Mom to move around with her walker and wheelchair since she has the master bedroom and bath. It was getting difficult for her to move around in the old apartment.
Sometimes life interferes and we need to put dreams on hold for a while. I still have my dreams and hope to get back to them in the future.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Knitting and Minimalism
One of my hobbies is knitting and although I am somewhat of a beginner as far as knitting goes, I am trying to finish a sweater for my son. Hopefully it will come out good enough so he will think about wearing it out in public once or twice.
I have been following a blog written by Robyn Devine called Minimalist Knitter. She has a goal of knitting 10,000 items for charity in her lifetime. She just finished knitting 100 hats in one year! I am looking forward to knitting one hat for myself this fall and maybe a few for my family if mine turns out OK. Robyn just finished an interview with Chris Guillebeau of The Art of Non-Conformity which was very interesting. Hats off to Robyn for writing an interesting blog. Wish I could knit as fast as she does.
One of the advantages to retiring early is the ability to do things you never had time to do while you were working. My problem is that I have too many things going at once. I will need to prioritize them and concentrate on the most important and let the others slip for now. Blogging and finishing that sweater need to be my priorities for now.
Live and be active.
I have been following a blog written by Robyn Devine called Minimalist Knitter. She has a goal of knitting 10,000 items for charity in her lifetime. She just finished knitting 100 hats in one year! I am looking forward to knitting one hat for myself this fall and maybe a few for my family if mine turns out OK. Robyn just finished an interview with Chris Guillebeau of The Art of Non-Conformity which was very interesting. Hats off to Robyn for writing an interesting blog. Wish I could knit as fast as she does.
One of the advantages to retiring early is the ability to do things you never had time to do while you were working. My problem is that I have too many things going at once. I will need to prioritize them and concentrate on the most important and let the others slip for now. Blogging and finishing that sweater need to be my priorities for now.
Live and be active.
Monday, September 6, 2010
Achieving Financial Independence
I do not claim to be a financial adviser so I will not give any detailed financial advise but there are some general steps to take to achieve financial independence.
First of all determine how much money you will need to live your dream lifestyle. You need to be reasonable about your dream lifestyle to make it possible. In my case, I wanted to retire early and travel around the country in my motorhome. Research how much it costs to live your dream by talking to people who are already doing it. The internet is wonderful for research. Find blogs, look up costs of living in your target area, how much will health insurance cost and any other costs you will incur. Look into your current expenses. Quicken is great for detailing where your money is going. Many of your current expenses will continue on into your retirement.
After you have a rough idea of how much your dream will cost, figure out how to fund it. Look into retirement options at your place of work. Is there a pension plan? Do you have a 401k? I certainly hope you have been putting some money away into a 401k. From now on you should dump as much money in your 401k as you can. It would be nice to have your retirement income come from multiple sources in case there are problems with one of them.
As I said earlier, I will not give specific financial advise, but I will tell you what I had to work with. I had available three sources for income. The company I worked for would provide an annuity, my 401k and my savings. I could not do much about increasing the annuity except to work long enough until it would provide one third of my projected income, I was close so that was not a problem. I needed to grow my 401k until a 4% withdrawal would provide another third and I needed to increase my savings to provide the final third of my income. I kept a spreadsheet to help me determine where I was in reaching my goal. One of the happiest days of my life was when I determined I had what it would take for me to live without my job and could go into work and tell my boss I was leaving.
How can you make this all happen? Minimize your expenses. Pare down your life until you have enough to live your dream. Go through your current expenses and cut wherever you can. Question whether you really need all the stuff you think you do. This is where the minimalist lifestyle comes in. Sell everything you can live without and put that money into your savings. Stop buying things that are not essential. You may find you can move into a smaller house, cheaper apartment, or even move into a motorhome or RV. Some people even live in vans or cars, but that is rather extreme for me. Just do whatever is necessary to save up enough money to fund your dream.
Need extra income? Some people have been successful earning extra income with blogs using affiliate marketing or selling ebooks they have written. Sell stuff on Ebay. Provide consulting in your area of expertise.
What if you have no job and want to fund a dream of traveling? There are other options. Check out Workamper.com. Here you will find ways to get temporary jobs as you travel around the country. If you want to live in different places but not in an RV, you could work for companies like Home Depot or Camping World that will allow you to move to different areas and still work for them. Amazon has multiple distribution centers where you can get temporary jobs before Christmas.
Once you determine what you want to do and how much it will cost, keep digging until you find a way to achieve it or modify your dream to fit your funds. You can do it!
Have other ideas on how to fund a dream lifestyle? Post below.
First of all determine how much money you will need to live your dream lifestyle. You need to be reasonable about your dream lifestyle to make it possible. In my case, I wanted to retire early and travel around the country in my motorhome. Research how much it costs to live your dream by talking to people who are already doing it. The internet is wonderful for research. Find blogs, look up costs of living in your target area, how much will health insurance cost and any other costs you will incur. Look into your current expenses. Quicken is great for detailing where your money is going. Many of your current expenses will continue on into your retirement.
After you have a rough idea of how much your dream will cost, figure out how to fund it. Look into retirement options at your place of work. Is there a pension plan? Do you have a 401k? I certainly hope you have been putting some money away into a 401k. From now on you should dump as much money in your 401k as you can. It would be nice to have your retirement income come from multiple sources in case there are problems with one of them.
As I said earlier, I will not give specific financial advise, but I will tell you what I had to work with. I had available three sources for income. The company I worked for would provide an annuity, my 401k and my savings. I could not do much about increasing the annuity except to work long enough until it would provide one third of my projected income, I was close so that was not a problem. I needed to grow my 401k until a 4% withdrawal would provide another third and I needed to increase my savings to provide the final third of my income. I kept a spreadsheet to help me determine where I was in reaching my goal. One of the happiest days of my life was when I determined I had what it would take for me to live without my job and could go into work and tell my boss I was leaving.
How can you make this all happen? Minimize your expenses. Pare down your life until you have enough to live your dream. Go through your current expenses and cut wherever you can. Question whether you really need all the stuff you think you do. This is where the minimalist lifestyle comes in. Sell everything you can live without and put that money into your savings. Stop buying things that are not essential. You may find you can move into a smaller house, cheaper apartment, or even move into a motorhome or RV. Some people even live in vans or cars, but that is rather extreme for me. Just do whatever is necessary to save up enough money to fund your dream.
Need extra income? Some people have been successful earning extra income with blogs using affiliate marketing or selling ebooks they have written. Sell stuff on Ebay. Provide consulting in your area of expertise.
What if you have no job and want to fund a dream of traveling? There are other options. Check out Workamper.com. Here you will find ways to get temporary jobs as you travel around the country. If you want to live in different places but not in an RV, you could work for companies like Home Depot or Camping World that will allow you to move to different areas and still work for them. Amazon has multiple distribution centers where you can get temporary jobs before Christmas.
Once you determine what you want to do and how much it will cost, keep digging until you find a way to achieve it or modify your dream to fit your funds. You can do it!
Have other ideas on how to fund a dream lifestyle? Post below.
Saturday, August 28, 2010
What to do about pictures
After moving into my motorhome and having more time available, I tackled the problem of the many boxes of pictures I had accumulated over my lifetime. I brought them in from my storage area a box at a time and scanned them into my computer. This is a rather slow and tedious process but was well worth it. I had a digital camera at that point so all future pictures would be on my computer as well.
I now have all my pictures on the computer sorted by subject. You could also categorize them by date but since I did not know the date many of them were taken, that was not an option for me. I rather like being able to see all pictures of a certain person as they were growing up all in one place. To have unique names for all pictures in a folder, I just put the name of the subject and a number. I still have all my pictures available to look at but now they take up no physical room, which supports my minimalist lifestyle.
This also provides you with a backup of the pictures. In case of a fire, flood, tornado or some catastrophic event, your single physical picture would not fare so well. I made copies on CD or DVD and gave one set to my son who lived in a different city, kept one set in my motorhome and took another set in to work. So I had four electronic copies of my pictures as well as the physical copy still in storage. Overkill, I know, but making copies is very easy and my son wanted a copy of them anyway and I never have to worry about losing the precious pictures of my son as a baby. That peace of mind was worth the extra work.
I also now have my pictures available as a screen saver on my computer and since I have copied the pictures to my iPod, I can show those precious pictures of my son as a baby to everyone I meet. LOL Not really, but I can if I want.
So what have you done with your pictures?
Live long and simply.
I now have all my pictures on the computer sorted by subject. You could also categorize them by date but since I did not know the date many of them were taken, that was not an option for me. I rather like being able to see all pictures of a certain person as they were growing up all in one place. To have unique names for all pictures in a folder, I just put the name of the subject and a number. I still have all my pictures available to look at but now they take up no physical room, which supports my minimalist lifestyle.
This also provides you with a backup of the pictures. In case of a fire, flood, tornado or some catastrophic event, your single physical picture would not fare so well. I made copies on CD or DVD and gave one set to my son who lived in a different city, kept one set in my motorhome and took another set in to work. So I had four electronic copies of my pictures as well as the physical copy still in storage. Overkill, I know, but making copies is very easy and my son wanted a copy of them anyway and I never have to worry about losing the precious pictures of my son as a baby. That peace of mind was worth the extra work.
I also now have my pictures available as a screen saver on my computer and since I have copied the pictures to my iPod, I can show those precious pictures of my son as a baby to everyone I meet. LOL Not really, but I can if I want.
So what have you done with your pictures?
Live long and simply.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Cutting back
I have finished moving into the new apartment and organizing my room so I can start sorting through everything and get rid of anything I have not used in the last year. That will include lots of hard decisions on things that have a sentimental value. Maybe I can just take a picture of it or scan it into my computer if it is a document. It will be interesting to see how far I get with reducing my stuff based on a years criteria.
One major item I have decided to sell is my motorhome. Go over to my born free blog to see information on the motorhome. Hopefully selling it won't drag out too long.
I really like it better if I don't have too much stuff. Cleaning is much easier. :-) If I am looking for something, it doesn't take much time because there are only a few places it can be. There is less worry about things like storage spaces, breakage, maintenance, moving things around to get at other things and moving to another place to live. I would like to get to the point where I could move all of my possessions minus the furniture in my van. Actually, I may not be too far off from there now. Most of my furniture is on loan to me from my family so I just need to give it back if I move on. I do need to cut back on my books though. I always have too many.
Being minimalist is an ongoing process. You need to constantly re-evaluate what is essential and what can be eliminated. When buying things, make sure it is a necessity and you have nothing else that could be used instead. If you really keep on top of it, you will save money by not buying things and not needing a large home to store it all.
Sounds good to me.
One major item I have decided to sell is my motorhome. Go over to my born free blog to see information on the motorhome. Hopefully selling it won't drag out too long.
I really like it better if I don't have too much stuff. Cleaning is much easier. :-) If I am looking for something, it doesn't take much time because there are only a few places it can be. There is less worry about things like storage spaces, breakage, maintenance, moving things around to get at other things and moving to another place to live. I would like to get to the point where I could move all of my possessions minus the furniture in my van. Actually, I may not be too far off from there now. Most of my furniture is on loan to me from my family so I just need to give it back if I move on. I do need to cut back on my books though. I always have too many.
Being minimalist is an ongoing process. You need to constantly re-evaluate what is essential and what can be eliminated. When buying things, make sure it is a necessity and you have nothing else that could be used instead. If you really keep on top of it, you will save money by not buying things and not needing a large home to store it all.
Sounds good to me.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)