Monthly Archive for January, 2009

Thriving in the Age of Collapse

Published
by
john
on January 14, 2009
in Collapse
. 0 Comments

A few months back I read Dmitri Orlovs book “Reinventing Collapse”. It’s definitely a worthy read. He comes from the perspective of having seen the Soviet Union collapse and draws parallels between their situation and ours. Here is a very informative series of articles about what individuals can do to prepare themselves for the coming (currently in progress) economic collapse:

Thriving in the Age of Collapse - part 1

Thriving in the Age of Collapse - part 2

Thriving in the Age of Collapse - part3

We’re Homeowners!

Published
by
john
on January 6, 2009
in Yurt
. 0 Comments

Well that took a lot less time than I expected! We originally got our yurt by getting a loan from my ‘ex’, who is also the mother of our son River.  She had come into an inheritance and was happy to help us to escape the rent-trap. Also it enabled us to move much closer to her (100 feet to be exact) making it a lot easier for us to share custody of our son with no driving.

Last week she received another large chunk of money and in an awesome gesture of generosity absolved us of our debt to her for the Yurt! So that’s it… we are now officially homeowners! Our home may be small, but it can never be taken away from us by a bank. Thank you Stephanie!!!!

The Story of Stuff

Published
by
john
on January 4, 2009
in Uncategorized
. 0 Comments

Great little 20 minute video about “Stuff”. It’s pretty simple and a good intro even for kids.

Amazing Pic

Published
by
john
on January 2, 2009
in Random
. 0 Comments

I have no idea where I got this so I can’t give it proper credit, but it’s an amazing summation of the hidden side of life in America that few would want to face up to.

Radically Reducing Expenses

Published
by
john
on January 2, 2009
in Money Stuff
. 0 Comments

There is  a desire in most of us to always make more money. I’ve found that one of the best ways to make more money is to simply reduce your unnecessary expenses. Here are a few ways that we’ve cut our costs to simplify our lives and have to work less:

  • We have no credit cards (just one hooked up to my bank account for convenience, but I can’t go below what is in my account so no debt)
  • We have no store credit accounts
  • We have no cell phone..I use skype for my phone which cost me $7 a month for unlimited calls.
  • We don’t subscribe to any magazines (plenty to read in the internet!)
  • We don’t subscribe to cable television (just internet)
  • We have one car that is used and that I paid cash for
  • We don’t pay rent (we own our Yurt)
  • We grow a good amount of organic produce in the summer
  • When we go on vacation we almost always opt to go camping which we love. We despise campgrounds so go to wild places where it’s free. We can camp for weeks at a time having a blast for nothing but the cost of food which we eat anyway. We do love going to festivals too though.
  • We seldom eat out (we’re raw foodist so mostly it isn’t even a temptation)

I think people living fast paced lives in the cities would think our lives quite dull, but we love it. We’re almost always having fun doing things that we love….art, reading, having dinners and get togethers or just hanging out…well we do have to work a little bit on the side..we both work pretty much part time at this point which leaves us plenty of time to explore other things that we actually have interest in. We may not go on luxury vacations or have the latest hi-tech gadgets, but what we do have is plenty of time to enjoy our lives!

Here is a good short article I just read on a couple who greatly simplified their life: