@C40, that's a great point, thank you for reminding me.
@Kriegsspiel, I absolutely feel that way. So much of home building goes into the 'behind the scenes' work that you never think about when you've finished a room. A consequence of that is doing a whole bunch of work, yet everything is still torn apart. It also doesn't help I'm bouncing from bathroom to bedrooms and so the work gets drawn out even more. That is a hell of a long time to wait for a counter top....really glad my tiling didn't take more than a month.
On that note, I can also attribute a bit of my mood to the weather ( hot and humid { I really hate July! } ) and also my motivation cycle. I definitely hit motivation rock bottom the past week, but still kept at it. I think I'm coming out of it now as we are getting to the final stages of the first bedroom. I finished all the insulation yesterday and we are ready for drywalling after I remove the old plumbing vent and install the closet door.
Bedroom 2 is being torn apart by DW as well. Yesterday she took down all the drywall....much better than plaster. We came to discover that the previous owner insulated the ceiling with R19 insulation, so we are just going to leave it. Less work!! Less money spent.
I am also doing a bit of cleaning of the shower tile and am planning to grout this weekend. Then it's just sealing it up and we can enjoy our new shower.
cmonkey's journal
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Riggerjack
- Posts: 3191
- Joined: Thu Jul 14, 2011 3:09 am
Re: cmonkey's journal
I have to add stress, but re-read that 200 page pension document. Pay particular attention to early retirement discounts and early severance. Pensions are usually geared towards a Early retirement of age 55, with many years of service. In my case, even when I get my "points" leaving before age 55 means leaving about 3%/year under 55, and even though I will FI before I have my points, leaving only 1 day before is a 60% reduction, and 2.5 year delay of benefits.
Just read carefully. Good luck.
Just read carefully. Good luck.
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Riggerjack
- Posts: 3191
- Joined: Thu Jul 14, 2011 3:09 am
Re: cmonkey's journal
Your lump sum is based on annuity costs for your defined benefit. This will be dependent on rates at the time. You should look at early retirement penalties to your defined benefit, as they will be separate calculations until you retire.
Re: cmonkey's journal
It's been nearly a month since I last posted photos. A lot has changed!!!
July has been the WORST month.... To add to the rotten list I already had, one of our chickens got really sick. Lets just say it involved an inverted vent (from laying a large egg), chicken poo and fly larvae.....
She also had a small infection start on her foot. I have been playing veterinarian with her living in a cage in my basement all week. She seems to be recovering well. Her vent is back to normal.
Our neighbor is also in the hospital. He got bit by a horse fly and contract Tularemia. Also known as Rabbit Fever. I guess there are only 100-200 cases annually in the US. It can be fatal, however, it can be treated if caught right away. We haven't heard how he's doing yet.
July is ending on a good note though. I sold my car!! I got $260 bucks for it which I feel lucky to get. It took a month to sell.
We also have made a lot of progress on our work, especially the last 3 days. Pictures say a lot more than words.
Items completed over the past couple weeks include swapping out our sliding door for a large 5x4 window, installing both closet doors, all electric completed, everything insulated and all the vapor barrier is up.
Tomorrow I have a friend coming over to help drywall, so we should have most if not all of it up. The next 2-3 weeks are going to be long and boring doing all the mudding.
One final note - we are done with our shower except for caulking the corners!!! So we haven't used it yet. But it won't change in appearance. I'm debating whether to show ya'll or not before I reveal the whole bathroom....
Here's from before. We are moving this sliding door to our living room.
July has been the WORST month.... To add to the rotten list I already had, one of our chickens got really sick. Lets just say it involved an inverted vent (from laying a large egg), chicken poo and fly larvae.....
She also had a small infection start on her foot. I have been playing veterinarian with her living in a cage in my basement all week. She seems to be recovering well. Her vent is back to normal.Our neighbor is also in the hospital. He got bit by a horse fly and contract Tularemia. Also known as Rabbit Fever. I guess there are only 100-200 cases annually in the US. It can be fatal, however, it can be treated if caught right away. We haven't heard how he's doing yet.
July is ending on a good note though. I sold my car!! I got $260 bucks for it which I feel lucky to get. It took a month to sell.
We also have made a lot of progress on our work, especially the last 3 days. Pictures say a lot more than words.
Items completed over the past couple weeks include swapping out our sliding door for a large 5x4 window, installing both closet doors, all electric completed, everything insulated and all the vapor barrier is up.
Tomorrow I have a friend coming over to help drywall, so we should have most if not all of it up. The next 2-3 weeks are going to be long and boring doing all the mudding.
One final note - we are done with our shower except for caulking the corners!!! So we haven't used it yet. But it won't change in appearance. I'm debating whether to show ya'll or not before I reveal the whole bathroom....
Here's from before. We are moving this sliding door to our living room.
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SalutNounou
- Posts: 39
- Joined: Sun May 08, 2016 2:45 am
Re: cmonkey's journal
Yes, this is really impressive!
Re: cmonkey's journal
@ffj, Thanks for the compliment. 
@Salut, Thank you as well!
The past month has really been a blur, we have had so much going on and much of it stressful. This week I am feeling much better emotionally and was thinking about all we got done in July. Much of the work I didn't even post because it was work in the bathroom. We are pretty close to revealing at least part of it I think.
3 weekends ago we got our floor tile and I spent that weekend putting the floor down and grouting. Then we spent that week recoloring the grout and working on the bedrooms.
2 weekends ago we got the rest of our shower tile and I spent that weekend tiling the shower. It was more difficult than I had anticipated but in the end I took my time and everything is great. The rest of that week we worked on the bedrooms.
1 weekend ago I grouted the entire shower. It was quite challenging as the grout kept falling everywhere! We then spent about a week cleaning up the grout and recoloring that as well. We finished late last week. We also kept pushing through the bedrooms.
In fact, the bedroom I'm showing in this post was still drywalled and the door installed exactly 13 days ago. That's the day we started ripping it apart.
Here's where it is as of Monday! It helps that we didn't need to insulate the ceiling or do anything to the floor.
I also have the closet for the other bedroom done. This was quite tricky since the panels were larger than the door. I had to take out a stud and put it back.
I need to get posting more so I don't forget all the stuff I am actually getting accomplished. Sometimes it feels I'm getting nothing done, but I really am! Plus I'm not sure how many folks are actually following my remodel, but I bet it's more than I think and I don't wanna disappoint by not sharing. I think we'll be sharing some bathroom photos this week as I have to toilet on now, the vanity is nearly hooked up (just need a faucet) and the shower is done except caulking the edges.
@Salut, Thank you as well!
The past month has really been a blur, we have had so much going on and much of it stressful. This week I am feeling much better emotionally and was thinking about all we got done in July. Much of the work I didn't even post because it was work in the bathroom. We are pretty close to revealing at least part of it I think.
3 weekends ago we got our floor tile and I spent that weekend putting the floor down and grouting. Then we spent that week recoloring the grout and working on the bedrooms.
2 weekends ago we got the rest of our shower tile and I spent that weekend tiling the shower. It was more difficult than I had anticipated but in the end I took my time and everything is great. The rest of that week we worked on the bedrooms.
1 weekend ago I grouted the entire shower. It was quite challenging as the grout kept falling everywhere! We then spent about a week cleaning up the grout and recoloring that as well. We finished late last week. We also kept pushing through the bedrooms.
In fact, the bedroom I'm showing in this post was still drywalled and the door installed exactly 13 days ago. That's the day we started ripping it apart.
Here's where it is as of Monday! It helps that we didn't need to insulate the ceiling or do anything to the floor.
I also have the closet for the other bedroom done. This was quite tricky since the panels were larger than the door. I had to take out a stud and put it back.
I need to get posting more so I don't forget all the stuff I am actually getting accomplished. Sometimes it feels I'm getting nothing done, but I really am! Plus I'm not sure how many folks are actually following my remodel, but I bet it's more than I think and I don't wanna disappoint by not sharing. I think we'll be sharing some bathroom photos this week as I have to toilet on now, the vanity is nearly hooked up (just need a faucet) and the shower is done except caulking the edges.
Re: cmonkey's journal
Ohh, the bathroom photo's will be timely because I have to re-caulk mine too!
Lets compare
Lets compare
Re: cmonkey's journal
Oh definitely! I hadn't even thought of that. To this I say meh. By the time they crack, if they do, I will have moved and the next owner can just do what I'm doing.ffj wrote:Why are all of the butt joints on the ceiling on the same ceiling joist? You should stagger your joints to minimize cracking. I'm sure you were wanting unsolicited criticism.
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NickHalden
- Posts: 67
- Joined: Wed Nov 04, 2015 3:48 am
Re: cmonkey's journal
Made the same mistake and they cracked 3 months later..cmonkey wrote:Oh definitely! I hadn't even thought of that. My ceiling joists are all in a range of 22-24 inches apart and it was a bit of a challenge to even find a layout that worked. To this I say meh. By the time they crack, if they do, I will have moved and the next owner can just do what I'm doing.ffj wrote:Why are all of the butt joints on the ceiling on the same ceiling joist? You should stagger your joints to minimize cracking. I'm sure you were wanting unsolicited criticism.
Haven't replied here before so other than that I would like to say that I am impressed with all the work that you did! Also funny to see the architectural differences between this and the way people build houses in The Netherlands (we use a lot more stone/concrete and much less wood
)Re: cmonkey's journal
@NickHalden, Thanks for stopping by and the kind words I really like European styles of building.
Regarding the staggering of butt joints, all of the joints were lined up in this room previously and had been for at least the 5 years we had been here and nothing had cracked. My guess is the room was redone back in the early 2000's, so 15 years and no cracks. I also see most people around the web say it's pretty unnecessary except to hide where the joint is. Cracking has more to do with a poor mudding job. My in-line butt joint in the basement hasn't cracked at all and we are walking over it constantly.
FWIW, in my living room every single joint is cracked, even the tapered edges. The mud is super thin and all they did was put primer on. Not even painted.
I really like European styles of building.Regarding the staggering of butt joints, all of the joints were lined up in this room previously and had been for at least the 5 years we had been here and nothing had cracked. My guess is the room was redone back in the early 2000's, so 15 years and no cracks. I also see most people around the web say it's pretty unnecessary except to hide where the joint is. Cracking has more to do with a poor mudding job. My in-line butt joint in the basement hasn't cracked at all and we are walking over it constantly.
FWIW, in my living room every single joint is cracked, even the tapered edges. The mud is super thin and all they did was put primer on. Not even painted.
Re: cmonkey's journal
Monthly Update, July 2016
Expenses/Savings
I think I've forgotten what it's like to actually save money! It's been over 3 months since I saved anything substantial outside of my 401K.
In fact, this month we did overspend by about 1K which I passed off to August expenses. Sigh.
More positively, we are definitely over the top of the mountain of renovation spending!!! Since we only have two more rooms to get supplies for things will get better from here on out. Everything except for a bit more drywall and paint/trim is purchases for the two bedrooms. Bathroom purchases are done besides a few misc things. I think I MIGHT save something this month!
Normal Spend - $1269.69
Remodel Spend - $3192.92
Total Spend - $4462.61
Total Savings - $1114.24 ; 20%
Account Details
Total FAI - $4014.93 (+103.62) (YIPPPEEE!!!)
Time to Bills Only - 5 Months (-5)
Time to Bills & Food - 16 Months (0)
Time to TTM Expenses - 30 Months (+1)
Time to 3% LC - 53 Months (0)
TTM Expenses - $14787.44(+263.28)
We hit a great milestone in FAI this month, cracking the $4000 barrier. Yahoo!
We also had less charge offs this month and higher recoveries so Lending Club income topped $200 for the first time!!
We received dividends from GPS, PPL and MDU this month. CMI raised their dividend which gave us an extra $3.04 in dividend income per year.
Renovation
One month ago we had just painted our bathroom and had it as complete as we could get it. We were still waiting for our tile and wouldn't get all of it until mid-July. We also were missing a part of our vanity which we finally got last week. In the mean time we worked on our bedrooms. Well actually we hadn't done any work in the room that I shared photos of. I had finished tearout for the other room and had about 50% of the framing up, according to my last monthly update. I hadn't done any insulating or electrical. No doors were installed but I did have the windows done on the east side of the house.
As of today we have the bathroom completely tiled, the vanity is installed (sans faucet), the toilet is installed and about half the trim is up. 100% of insulation, electrical and drywall is up in both bedrooms. I have perhaps 30% of our bedroom mudded with the first layer which I did last night. I am actually going to focus on our personal bedroom first and get it mudded and painted over the next week or two because we are going to store everything we have shoved into our living room in this room since it is the only room we will not be carpeting.
So while DW moves stuff from livingroom to the bedroom starting in a couple weeks, I will finish mudding/painting the other bedroom at the end of this month. I will also probably start tearing out the dining room. By my next monthly update, bathroom will be 100% done and the two bedroom will be 100% sans carpet and baseboard trim.
Then only 2 rooms left!!!!! I am getting excited. At the same time, I'm feeling lazier and lazier the closer I get.
I also have a goal this month of getting the washer and dryer closet built in the new bathroom. Right now they are in the room we are making our dining room.
Expenses/Savings
I think I've forgotten what it's like to actually save money! It's been over 3 months since I saved anything substantial outside of my 401K.
In fact, this month we did overspend by about 1K which I passed off to August expenses. Sigh.More positively, we are definitely over the top of the mountain of renovation spending!!! Since we only have two more rooms to get supplies for things will get better from here on out. Everything except for a bit more drywall and paint/trim is purchases for the two bedrooms. Bathroom purchases are done besides a few misc things. I think I MIGHT save something this month!
Normal Spend - $1269.69
Remodel Spend - $3192.92
Total Spend - $4462.61
Total Savings - $1114.24 ; 20%
Account Details
Total FAI - $4014.93 (+103.62) (YIPPPEEE!!!)
Time to Bills Only - 5 Months (-5)
Time to Bills & Food - 16 Months (0)
Time to TTM Expenses - 30 Months (+1)
Time to 3% LC - 53 Months (0)
TTM Expenses - $14787.44(+263.28)
We hit a great milestone in FAI this month, cracking the $4000 barrier. Yahoo!
We also had less charge offs this month and higher recoveries so Lending Club income topped $200 for the first time!!
We received dividends from GPS, PPL and MDU this month. CMI raised their dividend which gave us an extra $3.04 in dividend income per year.
Renovation
One month ago we had just painted our bathroom and had it as complete as we could get it. We were still waiting for our tile and wouldn't get all of it until mid-July. We also were missing a part of our vanity which we finally got last week. In the mean time we worked on our bedrooms. Well actually we hadn't done any work in the room that I shared photos of. I had finished tearout for the other room and had about 50% of the framing up, according to my last monthly update. I hadn't done any insulating or electrical. No doors were installed but I did have the windows done on the east side of the house.
As of today we have the bathroom completely tiled, the vanity is installed (sans faucet), the toilet is installed and about half the trim is up. 100% of insulation, electrical and drywall is up in both bedrooms. I have perhaps 30% of our bedroom mudded with the first layer which I did last night. I am actually going to focus on our personal bedroom first and get it mudded and painted over the next week or two because we are going to store everything we have shoved into our living room in this room since it is the only room we will not be carpeting.
So while DW moves stuff from livingroom to the bedroom starting in a couple weeks, I will finish mudding/painting the other bedroom at the end of this month. I will also probably start tearing out the dining room. By my next monthly update, bathroom will be 100% done and the two bedroom will be 100% sans carpet and baseboard trim.
Then only 2 rooms left!!!!! I am getting excited. At the same time, I'm feeling lazier and lazier the closer I get.
I also have a goal this month of getting the washer and dryer closet built in the new bathroom. Right now they are in the room we are making our dining room.
Bathroom Reveal Part 1
Well ok, I'm calling you out! You gotta post a photo as well. We'll let ERE forums decide who did a better job.vexed87 wrote:Ohh, the bathroom photo's will be timely because I have to re-caulk mine too!
Lets compare
FYI, I caulked in front of the wall tiles and around the perimeter of the floor.I thought I would reveal our finished shower today. I caulked everything this morning and we are 100% done now except for putting on a door. For now we are going to put up a cheap curtain rod and curtain so we can use it. We aren't sure what we want for a door and just really wanna use it. We did take showers yesterday for the first time in 5 months! You don't know how nice a shower is until you can't take one. Yesterday felt like a turning point in this whole upstairs project because now we can actually use something we've built upstairs.
I will reveal the rest of the bathroom later this month once we have the laundry cabinet built (although you can probably already guess a bit ).
Here's is a photo timeline of how I changed this space. It went from old nasty bedroom to beautiful shower over the past 3 months or so.
Can anyone guess what the design in the shower is supposed to be ?
Re: cmonkey's journal
Is it a waterfall?Can anyone guess what the design in the shower is supposed to be ?
Your bathroom is beautiful!
Re: cmonkey's journal
EMJ wrote:Is it a waterfall?Can anyone guess what the design in the shower is supposed to be ?
Your bathroom is beautiful!
Yes it is.
We designed it to give the feel of showering in a rock/waterfall alcove.We did all the design togther. We really didn't want the more popular horizontal mosaic accent that many people put in these days. It took several trips to the tile store, but once we saw that glass tile with the grey, it clicked in our minds what we wanted and how we could make it go with the theme of our bathroom.ffj wrote:Nice tile work. Accents look really good. A glass door would really set that off. Who designed it?
Re: cmonkey's journal
It's been a pretty boring quiet week of remodel work. I have been finishing the drywall in bedroom 1 and finished up today. Tomorrow we paint! While DW paints, I will move on to bedroom 2. I have some more panels to put up and then will start finishing it. I would say about 2 weeks to get that room and the two closets ready to paint.
This week I also got the vanity 100% complete with faucet and caulk. So shower, toilet, and vanity/mirror are all done. I still have to trim around the door and window and the washer/dryer alcove to build yet. I also spent all week enjoying the shower.
I forgot to mention that we also foam insulated all the cracks in the sheathing of our exterior walls. We had a HUGE problem with drafts coming in around outlets and such and it was a big source of heat/cold loss. Not anymore. It make a tremendous difference. Bedroom 1 is now consistently 5-8 degrees colder than the rest of the house and the thermostat when our geo is running now that we have it all insulated and drywalled.
Here is the best photo I have of the foam insulated sheathing. This was 2 weeks ago back on July 25.
Anyway, here's the room now. The reason it goes so quick is that I don't do any more than 10 minutes of sanding and that is just skimming it over all the joints a couple times. If you'd like to learn how to do that you can watch these videos. I haven't actually sanded yet and it looks really good.
This week I also got the vanity 100% complete with faucet and caulk. So shower, toilet, and vanity/mirror are all done. I still have to trim around the door and window and the washer/dryer alcove to build yet. I also spent all week enjoying the shower.
I forgot to mention that we also foam insulated all the cracks in the sheathing of our exterior walls. We had a HUGE problem with drafts coming in around outlets and such and it was a big source of heat/cold loss. Not anymore. It make a tremendous difference. Bedroom 1 is now consistently 5-8 degrees colder than the rest of the house and the thermostat when our geo is running now that we have it all insulated and drywalled.
Here is the best photo I have of the foam insulated sheathing. This was 2 weeks ago back on July 25.
Anyway, here's the room now. The reason it goes so quick is that I don't do any more than 10 minutes of sanding and that is just skimming it over all the joints a couple times. If you'd like to learn how to do that you can watch these videos. I haven't actually sanded yet and it looks really good.
Re: cmonkey's journal
@ Dragline, Hehe! Darn tootin'.
@ GandK, Thank you.
I managed to strain my lower back today and so am moving a bit slower than usual. I'm still able to work but...yea. I did get the wall built, drywalled and mudded for our laundry alcove in the bathroom.
DW was going to paint but the drywall isn't quite dry yet. One spot flaked off when she started and so she quit. We'll give it a go on Monday. It's been so humid here it's not surprising it will take a while to dry. So instead she picked and processed 30 LBs of tomatoes for ketchup/sauce/anything else.
@ GandK, Thank you.
I managed to strain my lower back today and so am moving a bit slower than usual. I'm still able to work but...yea. I did get the wall built, drywalled and mudded for our laundry alcove in the bathroom.
DW was going to paint but the drywall isn't quite dry yet. One spot flaked off when she started and so she quit. We'll give it a go on Monday. It's been so humid here it's not surprising it will take a while to dry. So instead she picked and processed 30 LBs of tomatoes for ketchup/sauce/anything else.
Re: cmonkey's journal
August Mid-Month Update
I am attempting to simplify the way I am tracking our progress toward FI. One thing that bugged me was the our TTM value was not "the" goal we were striving for, rather it looked like we were striving for an income beyond what was necessary. It came to light more so when I was making some changes to my P2P investments. It's a bit more complex than I'd like to explain, but anyway, I have made a couple new charts. They tie together our actually expenses and our SWR and the goal we have of reaching a 3% SWR on that level of expenses.
In reality our income will be nearly double what our TTM expenses are. I am just reporting the safest income level we have achieved. Our actually progress toward these goals hasn't changed at all, I am simply looking at different numbers.
This is going to be a yearly chart since the multi-year version is much out of scale.
I am attempting to simplify the way I am tracking our progress toward FI. One thing that bugged me was the our TTM value was not "the" goal we were striving for, rather it looked like we were striving for an income beyond what was necessary. It came to light more so when I was making some changes to my P2P investments. It's a bit more complex than I'd like to explain, but anyway, I have made a couple new charts. They tie together our actually expenses and our SWR and the goal we have of reaching a 3% SWR on that level of expenses.
In reality our income will be nearly double what our TTM expenses are. I am just reporting the safest income level we have achieved. Our actually progress toward these goals hasn't changed at all, I am simply looking at different numbers.
This is going to be a yearly chart since the multi-year version is much out of scale.
Re: cmonkey's journal
Work Life Balance & Motivation to Cut Expenses
I haven't really talked about it but my work life has been incrementally becoming more miserable this year. I work in an IT infrastructure/support role and our entire department has been going through 'efficiency restructuring' . To put it more bluntly, some clueless manager read a book and decided it would be a good fit for everyone. Everyone is now miserable.
Changes to my work life now include daily standup meetings where we talk about every little thing we did the day before and what we are doing today. All of this is documented in a 'kan ban' board. Development team stuff*! We are also now required to fill out project timelines for the projects we have going on (which are really small projects, so the actually filling out of the timeline often takes more work than the project).
So we are being transformed from "doer's" into "undoer's" where at least 2 hours of each day is now administrative instead of actually doing real work. This is all on top of a workload that has also been increasing.
All of this is spurring me to get serious about reducing our expenses. I took some time today and hashed out an action list of things I can do "right now" that could help us get down to around 10K annually in expenses. To be honest I haven't really made much of an effort to reduce expenses. We are just naturally frugal.
The list below comes from the past 12 months or so of "pondering". It's time to get serious!
- reduce internet plan to basic
- reduce garbage plan (after remodel)
- unplug/sell fridge in basement
- disconnect attic fan (sucking cold air from downstairs)
- less microwave
- power off computer each evening
- switch to laptop/laptop equivelent?
- no dryer?
- cheaper cat food
- chickens - let into orchard (natural feeding) - grow supplemental winter food
- 1 eat out per month (super cheap)
- sub $200/month groceries - take out cash
- no more 'organic', go with cheapest possible - > 99c/lb meat - > 99c/lb produce - staples only!
- don't renew tracfone (can use as data device at home)
- gasoline expenses- walk to dollar general - bi weekly trips to town
- garden expenses - only spend from seed account
One thing I want to do differently though is to engage DW on this. Typically I have handled nearly 100% of financial matters, but DW is super smart and could definitely think of other things we could do to cut our expenses even more.
How low can you get your expenses? Depends on how miserable your work life is!
*just because one methodology works for one type of worker doesn't mean it works for everyone!
I haven't really talked about it but my work life has been incrementally becoming more miserable this year. I work in an IT infrastructure/support role and our entire department has been going through 'efficiency restructuring' . To put it more bluntly, some clueless manager read a book and decided it would be a good fit for everyone. Everyone is now miserable.
Changes to my work life now include daily standup meetings where we talk about every little thing we did the day before and what we are doing today. All of this is documented in a 'kan ban' board. Development team stuff*! We are also now required to fill out project timelines for the projects we have going on (which are really small projects, so the actually filling out of the timeline often takes more work than the project).
So we are being transformed from "doer's" into "undoer's" where at least 2 hours of each day is now administrative instead of actually doing real work. This is all on top of a workload that has also been increasing.
All of this is spurring me to get serious about reducing our expenses. I took some time today and hashed out an action list of things I can do "right now" that could help us get down to around 10K annually in expenses. To be honest I haven't really made much of an effort to reduce expenses. We are just naturally frugal.
The list below comes from the past 12 months or so of "pondering". It's time to get serious!
- reduce internet plan to basic
- reduce garbage plan (after remodel)
- unplug/sell fridge in basement
- disconnect attic fan (sucking cold air from downstairs)
- less microwave
- power off computer each evening
- switch to laptop/laptop equivelent?
- no dryer?
- cheaper cat food
- chickens - let into orchard (natural feeding) - grow supplemental winter food
- 1 eat out per month (super cheap)
- sub $200/month groceries - take out cash
- no more 'organic', go with cheapest possible - > 99c/lb meat - > 99c/lb produce - staples only!
- don't renew tracfone (can use as data device at home)
- gasoline expenses- walk to dollar general - bi weekly trips to town
- garden expenses - only spend from seed account
One thing I want to do differently though is to engage DW on this. Typically I have handled nearly 100% of financial matters, but DW is super smart and could definitely think of other things we could do to cut our expenses even more.
How low can you get your expenses? Depends on how miserable your work life is!
*just because one methodology works for one type of worker doesn't mean it works for everyone!