I just wanted to say that this post really gave me food for thought. I’m only seventeen and my family is secure, but I’ve always been paranoid about paying for college, or living on my own with bills and everything. My mother’s family grew up very poor, and she’s a little worried about what will happen if she’s laid off. After reading this I think I have a better understanding about what that might mean, what sorts of things we can do to minimize the hurt if it does, and what habits I can adopt when I leave my home to keep from falling too far into debt. I know I’m not really you’re desired audience, but I was really glad for this.

Thank you.

Just to re-iterate a good question someone asked: Do you have any thoughts on how to be not completely doomed when housing and energy get tight if one rents?

I like your idea for a housing alternative. I have heard of people doing this, and there are a few built like this in our county. My husband mentioned doing this very thing a few months ago.

We have a chain home improvement store around here called Menards; I’m not sure if it’s all over the US or not. Anyway, they sell garage and small pole shed kits from about $6,000 to $40,000. My husband said someone he works with bought a $12,000 garage kit, put in septic, a foundation, and a well for about $60,000. This includes the land. It looks like your average ranch-style home. Definitely sounds easier than the national average price for a home!

We are looking into many alternative housing projects to see what would suit best. You kind of have to take the land into consideration, aesthetically and utility-wise too, I think.

Congrats Pea, too, on converting to a simpler lifestyle. This is my goal as well. We have kids and don’t enjoy daycare centers. We will do anything to avoid losing time with our children.

Thanks so much for always giving me lots of food for thought. I wanted to suggest a housing alternative to people. My husband and I sold our too large house about 2 years ago. We bought five acres and a travel trailer. We then put up a metal building so that we could do rainwater collection. We built a small apartment inside as we had the cash to do so. Metal buildings are relatively inexpensive. In some areas you can buy 1000 square feet for about $4000. You will have to pay for a foundation and plumbing, etc. A septic tank will set you back some money and it varies depending on the area. If you can erect the building yourself you will save around 10K. When we began this journey, we had grand ideas of building a large “dream” home, but now we have become addicted to our simple lifestyle. We love not having a mortgage and we only build when we have cash. In the beginning we built a tiny apartment inside the metal building . We thought this would be the guest house, but we decided to add another bedroom and call it home. We have only one child so having one bathroom is not a hardship for us. I grew up in a home sharing one bathroom with my parents and two other siblings so having 3 bathrooms in our house was a luxury that I find I don’t miss. Unfortunately, we will need to wrap our metal building in limestone because our home owner’s association is getting peeved with us, but we wouldn’t do it if it was left up to us. The upside to this is that it will provide even more insulation from heat and cold. I quit my job to stay home with our daughter and this lifestyle enables me to do that without feeling a pinch in our finances. I no longer miss wearing suits to work each day and trying to keep up with fashion, spending hundreds of dollars on my hair, etc. I love this life, it gives me many more gifts than our yuppie lifestyle ever did. I hope more people consider giving some of your suggestions a try. I think after time, they will realize many rewards.

I must have sounded a little anti-mortgage back there. Actually, I think a mortgage is an good debt to have as long as you can live within your means. Unfortunately, many households around me have two people working and still live house poor.

We may take on a mortgage if the conditions are right. That is, if we have 20-30% down plus some fixer-upper cash. In Western Wisconsin, however, it is tougher to get a country home on an acre than a house in a small town. I haven’t seen much of anything decent sell for under $160,000 in the country. And then you have the commuting issue; gasoline is ruminating at $3.29 per gallon. The further out we are, the bigger our wallets are hit in the transportation category. So do we really want to live way out there with limited job prospects?

This all brings me to my point. We want to buy land for cash (within two years) and start planning, planting, camping on it, etc. When we have saved a bit more, we will go ahead and slowly build a home to our liking. This will take some crafting and manipulating, as zoning laws can really suck these days. What’s nice is, as long as we own the land free and clear, the bank’s jurisdiction of our property is eliminated. No PMI (mortgage insurance), no contruction time limits, etc.

We’ve determined that if we can build a home this way, our outside employment requirements would lessen over time. We could then be working and producing right off our own land.

Thanks for all your encouraging posts.

Paula

Sharon, who has an official nickname for the cheerios on the floor (“floorios”)

From the title I thought this post was going to be about housekeeping – i.e., how to keep your house tidy, clean, etc. Noooo. Wrong again, Pat. (Just thought you’d enjoy this thought.)
Pat Meadows