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On that income level, you might qualify for assistance from some of the food banks in your area. That's something to look into.
Also, concerning utilities, if you don't already know this, try to find a house with gas utilities. They're cheaper than electric. To save money, keep your heat turned down to around 62 during the day, and about 58 at night--just layer up in blankets. You'll be warm, don't worry. Also, turn the temperature setting down on your hot water heater. (gas hot water heaters are preferable over electric in terms of economy)
Regarding electricity, obviously turn off your appliances and lights when not in use. Also, unplug the appliances you can when you're not using them. Get energy efficient bulbs. If a light fixture has sockets for four bulbs, for example, only screw in one; that will save you on electricity.
I have a lot of other tips on frugal living if you'd like to discuss them.
I'm not sure if I could do the food bank thing - seems to be for people that are really in need. Right?
All of my utilities are gas. I keep the water heater dial in the middle. I've heard going any lower can allow pathogens to grow. I havn't fully researched this though.
I keep the heat set at 70 because I really dislike being the least bit cool. I'm trying to move it down gradually though and wear more clothing instead of the usual gym shorts and t-shirt. I have also bought a small electric heater to use in the bedroom at night - setting it to 70 and turning the furnace down may save money but I haven't ran the numbers. Surely heating one room cost less than heating the entire house.
I definitely turn out lights when not in use and try to use lamps instead of the 5 bulb ceiling fan. I may have to use your advice about only screwing in one light on the ceiling fan - my GF has a terrible habit of always using that light instead of the lamp. I always point to the lamp and say "one bulb good" and then point to the ceiling fan and say "five bulbs bad". She just laughs. Arrg!
Last edited by eddiehaskell; 01-01-2014 at 07:38 PM..
I'm not sure if I could do the food bank thing - seems to be for people that are really in need. Right?
All of my utilities are gas. I keep the water heater dial in the middle. I've heard going any lower can allow pathogens to grow. I havn't fully researched this though.
I keep the heat set at 70 because I really dislike being the least bit cool. I'm trying to move it down gradually though and wear more clothing instead of the usual gym shorts and t-shirt. I have also bought a small electric heater to use in the bedroom at night - setting it to 70 and turning the furnace down may save money but I haven't ran the numbers. Surely heating one room cost less than heating the entire house.
I definitely turn out lights when not in use and try to use lamps instead of the 5 bulb ceiling fan. I may have to use your advice about only screwing in one light on the ceiling fan - my GF has a terrible habit of always using that light instead of the lamp. I always point to the lamp and say "one bulb good" and then point to the ceiling fan and say "five bulbs bad". She just laughs. Arrg!
People fret so much over lights, but if they really looked at their impact on an electricity bill they'd probably laugh. Yes, turn them off when you aren't using them. But beyond that, you're talking hardly anything. If you used a 5 CFL bulb ceiling light instead of a single CFL lamp for 5 hours a day every single day of the year, the difference between using the ceiling lights over the lamp is literally probably $3 for the entire year depending on the electricity cost in your area.
Some people spend a lot of time cheaping out on the wrong stuff. Another thing: natural gas is relatively cheap all over in the US. We used to be much more frugal with our gas furnace is the winter. Trying to use a heater just to heat the bedroom and night and keeping the rest of the house as 60 when we slept and 65 when awake. After crunching the numbers I stopped worrying about it. I keep it at 69 when we are awake and at night keep the downstairs at 60 still but upstairs on the whole 2nd floor where we sleep I still keep it at 67. Our natural gas bills are only $15 higher this year and our electrical bills are a few dollars cheaper (from not using the electrical heater at night). We probably saw an $11 increase is all in a 2500ft2 house. That means we were only saving an additional $11/winter month the year we kept the house between 60 and 65 to "save money." Not worth it in the end.
If you're going to try and be frugal to live cheap, I'd really assess where it counts. Don't cheap out to the point of freaking out over light bulbs or being uncomfortable in your own home. I used to do that and then realized how minor things like that were in the grand financial scheme.
For example, get a well-built, well-insulated home instead of living in a refrigerator during the winters. Our house is 2500ft2 and our average electric bill (TOTAL AC, appliances, etc.) is around $40/month this year. Our natural gas during the warmer months is usually about $11 a month and during the winter months we are around $30. We aren't super frugal about anything. We turn off lights when not in use, don't leave the heat or AC blasting when we aren't home...but when we are we live comfortably. That's a total of $70 for electric and gas in the winter this year so far. Any savings on top of that by being frugal would barely be worth it. My advice is find a small, energy efficient home and then live comfortably. Buy LED bulbs and then feel comfortable using them when you need and not worrying about leaving some unscrewed. Get a well-insulated house with good windows and live in comfortable temperatures. Focus on quality and efficiency up front to be able to live comfortably. Much better than being cheap up front and then living like a miser. I say this as someone who saves well over half my GROSS income. So I'm not a spendthrift. I just like to be smart instead of cheap.
Last edited by Sunbather; 01-01-2014 at 07:59 PM..
The heart if the question is - can one live well on $20k/year given their home and car is paid for?
Don't forget to add IF that person lives in a low COL area. Location, location, location!
Eddie, you bought a house under the price of a brand new car! How many people can find a house under the price of a brand new car? It was probably a big fixer upper but what if the person is not a handyman?
It's too bad you weren't born here in the most expensive city in Canada. I would like to see you try to get by on 20k a year here. I paid 1400 a year for car insurance, and that's on a 2003 Honda CRV with no car accidents since I got my driver's license back in 92. Gas today is 1.33 a litre.
A standard condo is 419K in Vancouver. Average Canadian Housing Prices - RBC Royal Bank Taxes here are high. There's no way you would continue to live here because your 20k would massively fail in Vancouver.
If you want to, and can retire on $20k/year, and be happy then more power to you. It's your life, and you are the one that needs to enjoy it. If you can wake up every day with something to look forward to, and fully fund this on your own dime (and not taxpayer subsidized) then what is the big deal? Go for it.
Personally, I couldn't do it myself. I always said if I hit the lotto, I'd still work and get a job that pertains to one of my many hobbies. Work in an aquarium shop because I love salt-water reefs maybe? Or maybe an paintball/airsoft shop because I frequently play? Or maybe work at a gun shop because I enjoy firearms and shooting? Or I could even do a golf course? My point is, I couldn't just wake up and Not do anything all day. I'm fortunate enough that I love my job. It's fun, pays very well, never consumes more than 40 hrs per week and leaves me plenty of discretionary income (after savings) for my hobbies.
I guess my point is that If you could retire on $20k/year so young, why would you want to? But that's a question only you need to answer and don't need to justify. If you can be happy and live the life you want to live and die happy, then go for it. More power to you. If you think I want that sort of life for myself.....nah.
I think the point of this is that eddiehaskell & Ellise - have OPTIONS that many others do not. If eddiehaskell wants to get a job at some point or this lifestyle no longer pleases him, he's free to do that. Maybe he will write that book or find something to do part time or for a few weeks/months/years and then reevaluate and do something else.
Same with Ellise and others who have chosen to stop this insane consumerism and chasing money. For me, the lesson is to really examine what is important and then create a life to reflect that.
It's interesting how many posters here are trying to tell these folks that what they are already doing, can't be done or is wrong in some way! Hello... this is not a dream on paper, it is a lifestyle that is working for them.... I say congratulations!
I think the point of this is that eddiehaskell & Ellise - have OPTIONS that many others do not. If eddiehaskell wants to get a job at some point or this lifestyle no longer pleases him, he's free to do that. Maybe he will write that book or find something to do part time or for a few weeks/months/years and then reevaluate and do something else.
Same with Ellise and others who have chosen to stop this insane consumerism and chasing money. For me, the lesson is to really examine what is important and then create a life to reflect that.
It's interesting how many posters here are trying to tell these folks that what they are already doing, can't be done or is wrong in some way! Hello... this is not a dream on paper, it is a lifestyle that is working for them.... I say congratulations!
I agree.
It is not only possible to live on $20,000/year, all sorts of people are doing it.
Some live on half of what they earn and put the rest away for when they no longer care to work.
Paid for home. Garden. Cook most of your meals. Cut your own hair. I know a woman who lives like this on $1,000/month and feels like she is living large. She is so excited to have health insurance today. She has never been able to afford it before and had that constant worry about how it could all come tumbling down at any moment.
The funniest thing about this thread are all the people saying that it can't be done. They aren't doing it, they haven't tried to do it, they dont HAVE to do it, but they say it can't be done. Sorta like when people told the Wright Brothers that you just cant get that pile of junk off the ground. People who never even tried to fly an airplane, never tried to make one, but they were the ones telling the brothers it can't be done.
For every single person who has given an argument why it can't work, the OP has shown that it can. He has shown how it can work, but the naysayers just seem to have reading comprehension issues. I think this is a fabulous thread for young people to read, since the work opportunities now are so limited.
The bottom line is, it can be done and he's proving it can be done. And oddly enough, he's not the only person in the world doing it.
It's interesting how many posters here are trying to tell these folks that what they are already doing, can't be done or is wrong in some way! Hello... this is not a dream on paper, it is a lifestyle that is working for them.... I say congratulations!
When I worked at the shop, that was what was said - it's a lifestyle. It certainly wasn't about the money! I had gotten that idea in the last year of the death job. That year I bought a kayak and a mountain bike and couldn't believe how HAPPY these people were that worked in those shops. I was making more money than I ever had, but had gained close to 30 lbs and often cried at work out of sheer frustration. These people were making peanuts and were fit and happy. I couldn't understand how they could be so happy on what was probably not more than minimum wage.
I asked one girl what they did in the winter as business obviously slowed. She rented a room in a large house, and every winter headed south to do the same. She was probably in her 20s. I thought that was fascinating and scary all at the same time! But she was living HER dream.
When my death job contract ended, they thankfully didn't offer me a position. I was eligible for unemployment so I took a month off and just tried to get my life in order again. Went down to the local shop a few times, made some great friends, helped out and was offered a part time job. I had that job (became the unofficial assistant manager, did the books and sales) for over 5 years until it shut down due to a merger. I'm still involved with the past owner at his new place of work, and when a friend of his found out we were shutting down back then, I was offered TWO jobs - one from a sales rep and one from an eventing company. Years later, I'm still at the eventing job. I have a room of my own, come and go as I please (except for events, we are NOT late for those). In addition, I still help out at a local event one day a year - once the shop closed the event offered to pay me for my time as they didn't want to lose me. I also picked them up as a client for my own business. Funny how things work out.
If I hadn't been brave enough to step out of the traditional world that I was told I had to be in, I'd never be so happy and I would wonder for the rest of my life how people were able to do such crazy things with "no" income. Now I know, and I am working towards that myself.
BTW - all but one of my jobs are within 3 miles of my house. I have one job for 3 hours a week that is 16 miles away. I don't even need a car if I don't want. And even if I get stuck in traffic on that one day a week, there is no stress because I don't have to be there at any set time as long as paychecks are written by Thursday. How many of you drive an hour or more twice a day, stuck in traffic or on a train? (I get carsick so public transportation and car pooling are not for me)
For those of you that say Eddie won't be able to get a job as he hadn't been in the workforce, that's not true either. There are many many things that people do in every day life that can relate to a "real" job. Look how many moms drop out of the workforce in their 20s for 10-20 years. I have a friend who NEVER had a job until she was in her 30s.
I don't have passive income so I will probably be working in some way all of my life. But that's ok because it won't be full time and it will be doing what I like. I won't be like the people in my death job who were so depressed and would count the years towards retirement. They had been there so long they knew they couldn't start over without losing everything. That's not life, that's prison to me.
I wish Eddie the best of luck! He seems like a smart guy and I'm guessing he'll figure something out.
My main contra argument isn't that it can't be done, but rather it can't be done like the OP's situation. Ask yourself this: How many of us accumulated $500k (because that's what you'd need in the bank to earn 5% interest for $20k annually in a safe investment) in order to retire before 30? Not saying it's impossible--Zuckerberg can do it right? But I can't do it, you can't do it, go ask 1,000 people and I'd bet 99.999% of those people can't do it.
This topic was discussed to death on SD's forum and it turned out very much the same as here.
If the message is to "live within your means" or "spend less than your income" then everyone in the whole wide world would agree and this thread would get a handful of replies. OP probably knew this and went for the controversial "retire by 30" trolling schtick.
Quote:
Originally Posted by carnivalday
The funniest thing about this thread are all the people saying that it can't be done. They aren't doing it, they haven't tried to do it, they dont HAVE to do it, but they say it can't be done. Sorta like when people told the Wright Brothers that you just cant get that pile of junk off the ground. People who never even tried to fly an airplane, never tried to make one, but they were the ones telling the brothers it can't be done.
For every single person who has given an argument why it can't work, the OP has shown that it can. He has shown how it can work, but the naysayers just seem to have reading comprehension issues. I think this is a fabulous thread for young people to read, since the work opportunities now are so limited.
The bottom line is, it can be done and he's proving it can be done. And oddly enough, he's not the only person in the world doing it.
My main contra argument isn't that it can't be done, but rather it can't be done like the OP's situation. Ask yourself this: How many of us accumulated $500k (because that's what you'd need in the bank to earn 5% interest for $20k annually in a safe investment) in order to retire before 30? Not saying it's impossible--Zuckerberg can do it right? But I can't do it, you can't do it, go ask 1,000 people and I'd bet 99.999% of those people can't do it.
Actually, you could do it. Truck drivers hauling crude out the Dakota oil fields are pulling down $100K/year.
Couple of friends bought an old mansion, turned it into a B&B, plowed all the income back into fixing the place up and paying off the mortgage. Owned it for seven years and sold it for just under a million a few years ago.
What other ways can you think of to make $100K/year with minimal living expenses?
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