Desirous Disaster

No, this is not a story about an ex-girlfriend, nope but instead about something else, that recently tempted me almost into disaster.

As you all know, I have been keeping an eye on the housing market, usually out of the city limits of where I am living and typically looking at large tracts of land or acreages and yes even houses. 

Basically I am looking for the most I can get for the least amount of cash that I have to spend (go figure).

Well, a tempting little place just turned up: out of town, within commuting distance to where I work an actual house on what it said was a two acre lot (remains to be seen). All that for just $100k asking price.

It is an older house but still seemed to be in good shape, and all in all worth a look, or at least considering.

I am now in a position to buy it, after all I do have the cash for a down payment. Then I got to thinking what it would all mean, as in after I am standing in the living room of my own house.

This would mean that paying off the truck next week would not happen. So then I would still have that payment for the next two years.

Naturally I would have a reasonable mortgage payment, but then I would have utility bills. Those, when combined with the extra gas that I would spend driving two and from work would pretty much eat up the rest of my budget.

So there you have it, in essence, buying anything now would be a fiscal disaster, as I would be back to having a maxed out budget and no room for savings and yes Wanda payments for the next decade.

While I do want, and will achieve, home ownership I will not shoot myself in the foot with a nail-gun that is debt. I must get debt free, and then work towards some sort of land ownership at least, all while trying to remain debt free.

My emerging motto is “Freedom first, comfort second!”

As always: Keep your head up, your attitude positive, and keep moving forward (preferably towards freeeeeeedoooooommm!!)

Water Woes

This weekend I went to a grocery store in my Western Home, which has one of those machines that you can fill your water jug with their filtered water.

Easy-peasy, or so I thought. Thankfully I was smart enough to walk over first without my jug to fill. This is because their machine was broken and there was no word on if or when it would be fixed.

I was down to my last gallon or so of water and so would need water soon. The other grocery store in the area didn’t have any machine like that or any large bottles.

To tide me over until Monday I bought two (no name) gallon bottles of water.

Yesterday after work I went to the outlet of that same grocery store chain that was not far from work.

Thankfully they did have the machine and it was working. I was able to pay for two jugs to fill for

just over six bucks.

Me, being the thrifty person that I am, wanting to get the most for my money, took my typical water jug but also my square blue jug as well.

They said nothing as I filled both of them to the max, as in to just overflowing. This means that I got a little over eleven litres of water for just over six bucks.

This should last me the better part of two weeks, but we will see how long it actually lasts. At least I have a source of water that is available and not insanely expensive.

For no reason whatsoever, other than the sunrise was amazing, here is your sunrise shot.

   

As always: Keep your head up, your attitude positive and keep moving forward!

Stopping the Spending

I have said before that I have grown into a habit where I will spend a bit here and there and put it on a credit card.

Typically I will do this on the weekends, as I am literally staying in a big box store parking lot.

With the card that is paid down to zero, I make sure to keep this at zero, by paying it off each and every payday.

This is not the problem, the other payday is the problem, the one with a balance. This one I put stuff on, knowing that I won’t be paying it off just yet.

I make a payment on the card each and every payday, sure, but I will then turn around and charge things up on that card. 

Sometimes the amount that I have charged is more that the payment that I put on the card. Needless to say, this is not good. 

The days for this card are numbered, however, and so I need to stop my spending and correct my bad habits.

I have stopped my spending on the card which is down to zero and got from one payday to the next without charging a thing on it.

I need to do the same with the other card, since I am looking beyond next payday and on to my next target: paying this card off.

So, I will redouble my efforts to stop my spendthrift ways so as to not shoot myself in the foot. 

We all stumble, we all make mistakes, but it is what we do to correct those mistakes that counts.

I will not beat myself up, I will just move on and do better from here on out. I have a bright future to move towards and sabotaging myself will not help.

As always: Keep your head up, your attitude positive, and keep moving forward!

Paydown Plans Progressing

So, earlier this week I moved the money that I had in my Long-Term Savings over to my Mid-Term Savings. Why?

Simple, since I am planning to pay the truck off next payday (exactly two weeks from today) I needed that cash to be accessible.

My Long-Term Savings is not a regular bank account, so it can take a few days to get the cash out of, or so I was told. 

This was the first time that I had withdrawn anything from it, so I wanted to know exactly how long and what surprise limits there were on withdrawals.

For example, what if there was a certain dollar amount limit combined with a certain number of days mandated waiting time in between withdrawals? 

I hate surprises, so I decided to make my withdrawal early since this was my first time. It worked fine and all in all it took just over one business day to complete. 

In the future I will allow at least two full business days for any withdrawal to take place. At least I know what to expect for next time (as in when I pay off Wanda).

This means, however, with that cash in my Mid-Term Savings I was able to factor that into my budget for the upcoming payday.

With real numbers on a real budget I was able to work it so that I could not only pay off the truck but do so without decimating my fiscal reserves (in the Mid-Term Savings).

I have decided to just keep my Mid-Term Savings at its minimum acceptable $1k level. I came to this conclusion after my thoughts were to trickle fund this back up to my previous target of $2K.

I had originally intended to put cash in there and steadily draw down on that account by transferring it over to the main account when my budget needed to be topped up. 

That way my savings plan of $1500.00 per payday would remain on track and operating like clockwork. I have decided on a slightly less ridged plan. 

After paying the Low-Interest Credit Card off by Nov 7th I will just move on ahead with my savings plan, one payday early. 

My target will still be $1500.00 per payday going up into savings. If I just can’t do it, I will not fret, because I know that there will be other paydays when I can put in a bit extra. 

Hopefully I will still be able to make the day of Total Debt Freedom Day on Nov 7, 2017. 

It would be nice to be able to pay things off earlier, but I will not fret, even if I somehow had to push the day back a payday or two.

The important thing is to save and to get debt free, target dates are nice, but in the end, they are just another day . . . no matter how momentous they may seem.

As always: Keep your head up, your attitude positive and keep moving forward.

Adjusting to Fall/Spring Mode: Hygiene

No pictures today I swear; as today we will be talking about how to keep yourself clean without running water. 

I know that there are all sorts of people who are have much more experience with this type of living than me, but this is my experience.

First of all, that juice jug (yes your typical 2 litre or half-gallon jug that usually contains juice) will be quite handy during Fall/Spring and into Winter Mode.

This is because this makes your potable water, portable. You can pump water into it and take it elsewhere around your trailer without having to lug the five gallon jug around.

Washing your hands is a necessity and still somewhat convenient in Fall/Spring Mode. What you do is pump some water into your juice jug and go to the sink.

First, pour a bit of water onto each hand, one hand at a time. Try to cup your second hand so as to retain a bit of water. 

Wet your hands by spreading that water around both hands. Now grab the soap and lather up (or pump the soap and lather up) and then scrub your hands.

Next grab the juice jug (yes with a soapy hand) and pour water over one hand. Then switch hands and rinse that hand. There, your hands are clean.

I say that this is convent because you can still use the sink and just let the water go down the sink drain . . . how convenient.  

Okay, now on to showering. To shower you first must boil a kettle of water. So get to it and boil a full kettle of water.

Since you have no running water, you have no hot water tank. As such, all of your hot water comes from a simple kettle that you can put on your propane stove. A whistle kettle is recommended.

With your boiling hot water in hand, now pour it into your juice jug a little less than half way. Fill the juice jug to an inch below the rim with room temperature water from your five gallon jug.

Next dip a finger in the water to see if the temperature is to your liking. If it is too cold, add more water from the kettle, if it is too hot, add more water from the five gallon jug. If it is just right, add an equal amount from each but fill the jug, regardless.

Next strip and take your: jug of warm water, shampoo and soap into the shower. Stand in the shower/tub area and first wet your hair then your body.

Keep your thumb on the lid to prevent the lid from coming off and so spilling all of the water (trust me). 

It is important to be sparing with the water so when pouring the water, pour as little as possible to get yourself wet, as you will need water to rinse off.

Next, lather up your hair with the shampoo; once done lather up your body with soap. Now rinse off your hair first, as the water will flow down your body and rinse it off, sorta.

Again, be sparing with the water and once your hair is rinsed, move on to rinsing off your body by pouring water over each part. 

If you have done it right you should have a bit of water left over to go back and rinse off whatever could use a bit of extra rinsing.

Now on to the least glamorous, yet essential parts of hygiene . . . the toilet. Okay, so you still can use your toilet, yet when you push the lever no water comes out to flush.

These RV toilets are essentially a bowl with a door on the bottom that pulls away letting whatever is in there just drop straight down.

To help the process, pour a bit of water into the bowl first from your trusty juice jug. Then push the lever to flush the toilet.

However, Star Trek is not the only place you will find Klingons . . . so use a typical scrub brush to scrub and nudge any bits that didn’t go down, to go down.

Rinse both the toilet bowl and the scrub brush clean with a bit of water from the jug an you are done. 

These RV toilets are not well designed and pale in comparison to typical house toilets, but they get the job done and guess what, it’s what you have, so do what you have to do to make it work. 

As always: Keep your head up, your attitude positive and keep moving forward.

Adjusting to Fall/Spring Mode: Heating

Okay, so it is getting a little chilly and thus our thoughts turn to turning on that furnace to keep our trailer toasty warm. 

I advise against this just yet for a few reasons. The first of which is the fact that colder weather is coming, oh yes, trust me. 

Why this is important is that your body needs to adjust to that colder weather. By not bundling up right away it forces your body to heat itself up. 

I don’t mean run around naked in the snow or anything like that, but just hold off on the sweaters or thermal undies just yet.

The human body is an amazing thing, we can live in a wide range of temperatures and be somewhat comfortable, if we are smart and if we let our bodies acclimatize to these temperatures. 

In the interest of prudence and as a systems test I trotted out my electric heater and used it last night.

Last evening I had to run Jenny to charge Wanda’s batteries so I took the opportunity to use my electric heater to warm the place up a bit.

The electric heater I use is essentially an electric radiant heater put in a box with a cord attached. This has no fan and so is silent (except for a slight hum).

  

This way I can (when I am at a campsite and plugged in) can leave this on and sleep with it going all night. Try that with those little boxes with a fan.

So last night as I was running Jenny I had my heater going, but there is more to it. With Jenny being a 2000 Watt generator she is essentially the equivalent of one 15 Amp circuit breaker

So I can’t just crank the heater to max as that will trip the breaker on Jenny. As well the main reason that I run the generator is to charge Wanda’s batteries so I want most of the electricity to go to the charger.

What I do is I put the electric heater on the lower of the two wattage ranges and set the variable dial to the mid level. This way I get some heat coming out and still charge my batteries. 

  

You may be asking why I don’t just run the Wanda’s furnace? The answer is that when I run that furnace it takes propane and electricity. 

Sure I am using electricity that Jenny is generating but the propane is an extra resource that I am using when I don’t have to.

I am running the generator anyways so I am not using more fuel, of if so, it is negligible. 

This way I can run the furnace during the mornings or evenings when I don’t have Jenny running. 

I will bundle up before I run the furnace, so as to lower my utility budget. Every little bit that I can do to conserve resources is a way to conserve cash. That conserved cash will nudge me further down the road to Total Debt Freedom.

I do look forward to a house, a warm house a house with a furnace that I am not afraid to run for fear of cost. Ah such days that lie ahead, if only I stay the course.

As always: Keep your head up, your attitude positive, and keep moving forward!

How to Adjust to Fall/Spring Mode: Dishes

Let’s suppose that you are considering living in an RV (like me). Let’s suppose that you plan to do the smart thing and begin to live in it in Spring, or rather the warm weather.

That’s great, but sooner or later you too will end up having to Winterize your plumbing. Trust me, this is unavoidable.

While it is possible to keep your plumbing active during winter, you would have to be parked somewhere with an electrical connection. That way you can do a few extra tricks, all of which require a 24/7 AC electrical connection.

So, that means that most likely you will have to kiss your water pipes goodbye until at least the May Long Weekend. 

This means that water conservation starts in earnest now. One of the first ways to conserve water is to re-examine how you wash your dishes.

My solution is to use the largest dish/pot to hold the water, and not the sink. This seriously cuts down on how much water you use, yet still you get your dishes done.

  

So for me, what I do is put some dishsoap into the frying pan that I dirtied, pump some water into the frying pan and heat it up.

This way I not only get hot water (now that I can’t use my hot water tank) but it also helps to heat and soak that frying pan. 

Then I use the scrub-brush to scrub the dishes one at a time, primarily using the water in the frying pan to wet the brush and thereby the dish. 

I typically scrub the dish whilst holding it over the water.

To rinse off the dish I use the water in that (very useful) plastic jug by pouring a bit of water over the dishes into the sink. For cutlery I stack the cutlery in the sink and rinse them all at once.

The washed and rinsed dishes I lay out on the other end of the towel. Once done I dry the dishes off and put them away. 

All in all I guess that I washed my dishes with about 3 litres of water. If pressed, I could use less, for that you use a small bowl and do the same thing.

The next way to really help conserve the water you use is to make it a bit harder to get. For me that is using my water pump on top of my jug.

  

The more water I want out of this thing the more I have to pump. This tends to get me thinking, okay, can I get away with just this amount of water?

Since I have to go find, or as a result of my recent resolution, buy my water, water is at a premium. I still do what needs to be done, but I just don’t waste water, I can’t.

After all, for me, my taps don’t give me as much water as I want just by turning the tap. Right now, they don’t give me any water at all, and won’t until late spring.

As always: Keep your head up, your attitude positive and keep moving forward.