How do you do it? Budgeting

Along with the e-bay/garage idea is those storage units. Lots of people give up on paying the rent on those and the storage unit folks auction off the whole lot quite inexpensively around here anyway. I have some friends that buy the contents and resell on e-bay and then do a garage sale a few times a year with what isn't worth selling (or doesn't sell) on e-bay.

PCdreams,

Perhaps I am misunderstanding or missing something, which is quite possible. How can I say this in a gentle, friendly way? If it is COSTING you money to work do you really have a job or are you just are being charitable toward the pizza company – and paying to work there?

Why would one choose to deliver pizzas if doing so costs them far more than they are paid? Having no time to look for a job because you are "employed" (at considerable cost to yourself) does not seem to make any sense.

Are the family members who tell you to keep working and donating money to the pizza company aware of the numbers you conveyed to us? If they are, it doesn’t seem wise to take their advice on financial matters.

Given what I understand of what has been presented, I would have quit 7.5 years ago and made (saved) money doing so. Working for the sake of working is not my definition of a work ethic. It is something else entirely.

__________________
Whether you believe you can or you believe you cannot – you are usually right.

This does not include flying or moving mountains unassisted or attempting to prove the existence of an “afterlife”.

OBSER :

I believe what he was saying was that the past year he worked at the delivery the gas was costing him more than he was making. I did not take it to mean this was the case every year.

__________________
If you can dream it, you can do it. Time isn't an excuse; it's just part of the challenge. Pursue your dream whenever you can, however you can. The first step is belief.

Hengal, Thanks. I must have missed that.

With that new information, would it make sense to have quit when the difference between gross income and expense became zero or negative (i.e., no net income or a net loss) (a year ago)?

Prior to that time was net income (difference between gross income and expense) sufficient to justify performing the task for 60(?) hours per week AND paying for maintenance and depreciation of the vehicle?

Two thousand miles per week equals 100,000 miles per year. That is probably about a representative "half-life" of most automobiles. If that is anywhere near true, one "uses up" half the utility value of a vehicle every year. If not compensated separately, that is pure loss to the "employee" who furnishes his own transportation and yields no profit or negative profit after subtracting only fuel from gross income.

I have been “counseled” many times to be less analytical; however, analysis can determine whether a given action is wise or otherwise. Keeping a “losing proposition” job and actually going in the hole doing so does not make economic sense – for any length of time. If one keeps such a job to satisfy family, they might be wise to calculate the true cost of family approval.


PCdreams, if you are interested in comparative budget figures for two people living contentedly and comfortably on $1000 per month, PM or email and I will send a summary.

__________________
Whether you believe you can or you believe you cannot – you are usually right.

This does not include flying or moving mountains unassisted or attempting to prove the existence of an “afterlife”.

What about lawn care? A $60 used mower, some hand clippers, and two feet can make a lot of money.

House cleaning? Going rate here is $20 an hour.

Concierge service? There's a chick up this way who has started a business doing things like picking up dry cleaning, meeting repairmen at people's houses, booking flights, trains, rentals, etc., buying gifts and flowers, making reservations, etc. She charges $15 bucks an hour plus expenses.

I'm thinking since everyone down your way seems to have all the jobs you need, maybe you should cash in on the fact that they're probably too busy to do all the other things they need to be doing.

Three more ideas:
1) It seems people always need horse-sitters, farm-sitters, or just people to help them get the work done a few mornings a week, but there's nobody (around here at least) that advertises those services. It's all word of mouth, and hard to find. If you could post an ad in a local feed store, tack shop (the fancier the better), etc., I bet you'd get some calls.

2) My mom lives alone now and has a lot of house and yard that she has a hard time keeping up after. She's always needing someone to just do small things, like paint a room, or put in a section of fence, or help her haul bulky items out of the basement for charity/trash. A local church has a service that hooks homeowners up with helpers like that, but it seems like the helpers are always busy when my mom needs one. There must be a big demand! You could advertise at the grocery store or local paper for something like that, or contact local churches to see if they know of anything like that.

3) If you live near any suburban neighborhoods, I bet you could get a gig as a dog walker. I have three dogs that I walk (my own dogs), and I can't tell you how many people pull their cars over and ask me if I'm a dogwalker and how much I charge. I know a person who does this here, and if you charge $10 per walk per dog and can walk multiple dogs at a time, you can make some good change.

Good luck!

__________________
And the wolf shall dwell with the lamb.. And the lion shall eat straw like the ox.. They shall not hurt nor destroy In all my holy mountain For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord.

Babysit a couple of kids....you'll get paid and it will help decide if/when you want some critters of your own

Substitute teach during school year.....

No you nailed it right on the head.. And the family members were my wife and my father.. yes they knew the numbers but refused to believe them. The latter is easy to ignore the former.. not so much

I was making good money when I started(2K+ per month including tips). But that last year is what killed me..

I'd certainly like to see that $1000 plan you were talking about.. I'll pm my email addy

__________________
"Let the beauty we love, be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground." Rumi

pcd,
I think your best bet is to focus on that apprenticeship....even if it's in another trade, you're working toward training that no one can take away from you. I wish my hubby would have started his plumber's apprenticeship a few years before he did so we could've started our biz sooner, etc.
Best of luck!
--f.g.

__________________
Make April 15th just another day! www.fairtax.org

Apprenticeship is a great way to go - you earn while you learn.

Another option, should that fall through ... is there a coffee shop or a restaurant near or in the hospital? Most food service places are in a perpetual hiring mode as turnover is so high. If you could get on with a place that was willing to usually match up your shifts with something close to your wife's shifts at the hospital, you could carpool (again, that cheap commuter vehicle might be a good thing - trucks use so much fuel) ... or maybe if the shifts didn't line up well, you could put a little camper/capper thing on the back of the truck and whoever's shift isn't started yet/is over first can catch forty winks in the back waiting for the other.

There's decent money to be made waiting tables, and if you are serving up coffee, well, at least you'll have a free cuppa joe when you need one!

I say think outside the box ... drive your wife to work one day and then hit the pavement, walk all around the place and see if you can find any business nearby that is hiring for any kind of job you are capable of - serving tables, mopping floors, greeting folks at Wallyworld ... take a stack of resumes with you and be ready to hand them out or fill in an application at any place that is within walking distance of the hospital.

Or, have your wife start looking for nursing work in VT and move out to your land! Hopsitals have showers their staff can use, so if you were in temporary housing of some kind, she'd at least be able to get presentable before her shift started!

__________________
Apple Jack Creek
near Edmonton Alberta
author of Just Keep Knitting: a journey of healing through forgiveness, faith, and fibre and The Rookie's Field Guide to Supported Spinning

Springfield is a city of over 150K. It has public transportation. If you live in a 100 year old house withint the city limits of Springfield you live within walking distance to a job. Even a minimum wage job at $5.15 per hour with a 35 hour work week will generate $7-8K a year take home. Not enough for a single person to live on...but this will be in addition to what you are currently living on now. You will have $7-8K and still have time to look for a better job.

From you current budget:

The land in Vermont -- what exactly are you getting for $160 month; and how long will you have to wait to relocate there? What's your current interest rate? If you are in the beginning years of a long term loan - most of your $160 is going towards interest and not principal. Do the math - what will your principal balance be when you relocate? Would your $160/mo. be better spend placed into interest baring savings?

Utilities: Others are going to surprised to hear that $200/mo for utlities in this area is still too high. Can you live without air conditioning? It's silly to try to cool an uninstalled house. I hope installation if at the top of your home improvements list.

Phone: -- You can also live without phone and internet service. I know getting all this free advise is worth $60 a month for you right?

Trash - $17 -- that's usually in with one of the city utility payment -- hopefully you are not counting this one twice?

Farm Equipment: $50 month - why are you paying for farm equipment that you do not actually have a use for yet; nor access to? I take it you can't sell it either?

Auto Insurance $75 month, you can get that down to less then 1/2 that if you park your trucks, and walk to work as I suggested.

Gas: $160...how far does your wife have to drive to work??

As everyone else has mentioned, two people can eat well on 1/2 of $300.

Lets see...I've added $7-8K a year to your income. And have cut nearly $550 from your monthly expenses; giving you an additional $6,624 towards your homesteading dreams. In five years you could have $68,120 to put towards your dream. All you gotta do is ask yourself if keeping your pride in tack, eating well, being cool in the summer, and having three vehicles is more important too you.

Hugs
marlene

__________________
It is the one with persistence and determination that brings great ideas into being.

WOW!!!

I bet that I attended the same seminary. Everyone there was a window-washer.

You could go out into a mission field assignment [they called it the W.O.W. field] , and in one day work-up a list of clients. A bucket, squeegees, pole handles and chemicals; and your in business. Ladders are only needed for 'specializing' on taller windowed clients.

I have known folks who have supported themselves and later even supported families. all from a business that fit inside a 5-gallon bucket.

One guy I knew specialized on high-rise buildings, he was into 'technical climbing' and had 5 employees. He was the only one who did the climbing, but he had a long list of clients.

MarleneS -

A great post.




Our summer Utility bills run $50.



I agree. We have raised five children with monthly food budgets running $300. Coupon clipping and any store-brand flavoured rice, or potato instant meal for 33 cents [two boxes and a 1/2 pound of marked down meat will usually feed a family].

It can be done.

I had seperate rations in the amount of $220 a month when I was in the army the first time 96-00 for the last 3 years of that period I saved all my reciepts and I ate fine for $50 to $75 a month.

__________________
marching to the beat of a different drummer

10 acres we plan to homestead.. Pay off is in 4 years at 7%

We don't use ac much at all. Maybe a total of 1 wk per year. No we don't plan for insulation. We plan to move within the next 6 mths one way or the other.

I don't know where you get your info but this is NOT included in city utility bill. Each house is responsible for its own trash service..Not having it is not an option in this city.

for the same reason we're buying land to homestead on. We need it in the future and its avaiable now not years from now. No we can't sell it and wouldn't anyway..

16 miles round trip per day

You sure have a lot of opinions and assume a lot.. First off I don't have pride. If I did I never would have stayed at that dead end job for 7 1/2 years would I ? Eating well is essential to good health..Sorry if that burns your ass.. We don't have 3 vehicles. Don't know where you got that idea.. As for staying cool.. I've already discussed that..

__________________
"Let the beauty we love, be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground." Rumi

Copied this from another site:

http://www.doctoryourself.com/eatwellcheap.html

At the time this was a $12.00 a week grocery list,1995. Even eating these meals a few times a week will help to cut the grocery bill.

A Week Of Cheap Eating
Quality budget meals are going to rely on quality, budget foods. That's why you have to shop right. The foods to buy include:

Dry Foods:
Brown rice
Navy, or pea beans
Lentils
Split green peas
Whole wheat flour
Alfalfa seeds
Mung seeds
Salt (optional)
Yeast (for baking)

Frozen Foods:
Corn
Green Beans
Squash (any variety)

Canned Foods:
Tomato puree
Pumpkin

Fresh Foods, In Season
Apples
Carrots
Cabbage
Squash, any variety
Onions

Jar Foods
Cayenne pepper sauce (e.g. "Frank's")
Vegetable oil
Unsulfured molasses
Honey (optional)

Beverages:
Water
Herb tea
Cider, in season
Grape juice, or other
100% juice of any kind (optional)

Dairy Foods:
Butter
Cottage Cheese
Other cultured Cheeses

This is your shopping list. With the exception of the alfalfa seeds and mung beans, you can find all of the above at a good supermarket. You may need to go to a health food store for seeds to sprout, and if a food co-op has better prices on any of the above, I'd certainly buy those items there, too

PC, you go right ON being analytical, at least where the budget is concerned! A budget is math, and with math being analytical is a real ASSET!

The idea of riding with your wife to work and then putting out your application is a very good one. With you both working for the same cost in gas, a minimum wage job WILL show you a profit! Dinner could be put in the oven before you 2 leave, and the timer set if you have one. Or, you could put it in a crock pot.

The temptation to stop and buy burgers on the way home can be over-whelming unless you have a chicken roasting in the oven or a quick meal set out ready to cook: I found that expecting to START a meal after a day at work was often too difficult, but if the meat was out and the salad ready it was not so hard at all. I also used to buy hamburger patties that could be dropped on the grill while still frozen. While they cooked I would slice a tomato and break off lettuce to top it with, which provided a veggie.

A full-time job on the assembly line will gross you $1000 a month, and if you can hang on to most of it you will have a good nest egg by the end of the summer. It is deadly dull work, but better than no work. And, they often do not have to advertize for jobs (at least they did not have to) because they had a lot of people that would work for just a few months out of the year.

Tell me about your homestead: does it have a home on it or is it bare land? If it has a home on it, you can start putting out applications for work in the area. But, at only $160 a month, I suspect it is bare land.

some people have been able to score free mobile homes for temporary housing. If you could do that, you would only have to pay for moving the home onto your land, and for getting utilities and a septic tank in. That would mean that you could move in in one years time *IF* you can get a job that will not cost you much in gas! And, yes, I HAVE heard tht delivery people are having trouble paying their gas bill.

A good place to score mobile homes (or so I have been told) is mobile home parks. People skip out on the bill, leaving their mobile home for the banks to reposses or the park owners to get rid of before they can rent the space again.

Or, you can put a notice on all of the local grocery store bulletin boards "have pickup will travel", and you can help people move. Or, "have lawn mower will travel" and you can put your mower in the back.

I have found that I can earn almost as much money putting my mind to home making. It worked just FINE until a car wore out and payments were added! And, now I HAVE to make it work because I am slightly disabled and I cannot work. Blast it.

Some of my money-saving tips:

Recreation: Try out new recipes from time to time. Not the Julia child recipies that call for goose liver and truffles: try out recipies for things you would enjoy buying. Like, doughnuts or focaccio bread. You can find recipies in the library or on-line.

Will your wife eat home-packed lunches? my DH wouldn't because he wanted to go out to lunch with the guys. If she WILL, then get some of those cheap tupperware containers and put leftovers in them. That can be done when the leftover food is being cleared away so there is no increase in labor.

Recreation again: these summer evenings use a grill. Grill some of your home-raised veggies for variety. A little oil and garlic salt and pepper is good for giving them even more flavor.

Competative shopping: yard sales, freecycle, loss leader groceries, and so forth. It concerns me a little that you have no money set aside for clothing and misc. but if you decrease the grocery bill you will.

Look in the weekly grocery sales paper and decide then what meals you can make out of the very cheap items. Is pork steak 90 cents a pound? figure out a pork steak recipe! And, use all of your leftovers. Those 2 things cut my grocery bill by 25%. If you cut YOUR grocery bill by 25%, you will have about $75 more or less for clothing and tires and misc. That is much less frightening than $3.

When DH and I were newlyweds, we were both in college. College was cheaper then than now but it wasn't free. Even so we lived happily on $500 a month (That is worth $1000 at todays costs). Our entertainment was usually TV and popcorn, or animal burgers a couple of times a month. We bought no clothes to speak of, and the car was paid for and we generally walked anyways for anything short of grocery shopping or driving (us both) to campus. Campus was only a mile away. Then again, we paid books and tuition so that helps to make us more even.

You have 2 housing payments instead of one, because your homestead is separate from your home. That makes it harder. It is ALSO harder because you have been financially tight for a while now, which means you need to replace some clothes. Yard sales are good for that. You will never find all that you need there, but you will find SOME of what you need for a quarter a piece.

You have worked for free for a while now, and you are naturally discouraged. Yes, you CAN scrimp, but you are starting to feel deprived when you see all of those people dining out at $25 per person. Been there, done that.

Redirect your mind a bit. Think about grilling on a hibachi instead of fast-food burgers one a week, think about popcorn and scratch desserts and an evening with a loved one instead. Think about competative shopping.

To get you started:

fancy sweet rolls:

Start with home-made bread dough. Let it rise.Cut off a walnut-sized piece, dip in melted butter or margerine, roll in a combination of brown sugar and cinnamon. Place in an angel-food pan or any other pan with an interesting shape.

Let rise just a little more and bake it. Turn out while still hot or it might stick to the pan. If all goes well, you will have sweet rolls in an interesting shape, that is easily pulled apart.

OR, and this is easier, let the dough rise until it is rather soft and roll it out. drizzle with butter or margerine, sprinkle heavily with brown sugar and cinnamon, roll it up and slice it. Let the sweet rolls rise and bake. Turn out while they are still hot or they might stick. They are addictive while they are hot.

Serve with a low-cal meal like chicken. I like chicken baked in cream of chicken soup, then served with rice or whatever. At aldis, cream of chicken soup is something like 80 cents and whole chickens are 65 cents a pound. That means a whole chicken is $3.50 and if you cut it up it will last you at least 2 meals.

Also, learn to make chinese food with non-instant rice. Very cheap and it gives variety. It is rather a lot of chopping, so I do not make it on busy days. You do not need a wok if you have a heavy frying pan.

Living on a shoe string can be fun. I enjoy living in the lap of luxury MORE, don't get me wrong, but I really enjoy the challenge of living on a tight budget as well. The victories have such IMMEDIATE results!

If you're planning to move within 6 months, then I would focus on looking for work where you want to live. Either both of you find jobs near your new place (or maybe just DW finds a good one at a hospital there and you focus on the homestead?) or you move closer to the hospital she is at now, so you can avoid any commuting and get yourself into more cost efficient housing. Is renting near the hospital an option? If you sold the place you have now, put the money from the sale towards paying down your new place and making a few strategic investments towards getting you more comfortable for a bit while you get everything organized, then maybe you could both work close to home and save up until it's time to make the big move to the homestead.

Renting is generally a bad idea, as it's not an investment but your old house is eating up a lotta money so maybe as a short term plan you rent close to work for the two of you and focus on paying off your homestead.

__________________
Apple Jack Creek
near Edmonton Alberta
author of Just Keep Knitting: a journey of healing through forgiveness, faith, and fibre and The Rookie's Field Guide to Supported Spinning

thank you for you're encouragement terri.

I talked with the wife today about this.. I told here that I don't mind working and working hard when I can see us making some headway.. Truth is that in that delivery job I was getting further and further behind.. No joke that we are actually doing better on just one income than we were with that one. NOW she see it..And not to mention the stress it was causing (I ---- near had a stroke from the stress)..

But we don't see any solutions yet. I think it has a lot to do with the economy today and I honestly think we're headed for another depression like the 20's.. I think thats what its going to take to make these companies realize 1) paying people slave wages only cuts their own throats in the end 2) people WILL stop buying things that are imported once they wake up and realize that the reason they are so cheap is because all the jobs are overseas and they're cheating those folks also.

I'm going to find a job and I'm going to save every penny come hell or high water.. But I refuse to work more than one full time job to do it.. I can't see wasting life that way..

Some will think this is selfish.. so be it..But dang It I'm sick of making these bastards richer while I (and 95% of the population) remain in poverty.. I think this is reasonable. I'm asking for a simple life ... self sufficiency done not mean relying on someone else to put food on the table..It means us growing food to feed ourselfs. and so on..

__________________
"Let the beauty we love, be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground." Rumi

Then start your own company and start making yourself richer. Figure out what you are good at and market that skill. My husbands entire family (parents, brothers, sisters, self) all work for themselves and have all done well. They each do what they are good at and find ways to have people pay them to do what they like doing. You are only limited by how much work you want to put into it.