[geeks] living cheap (moved from rescue@)

[Chris Hedemark]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1


On Monday, November 4, 2002, at 12:23 AM, Bill Bradford wrote:

> Sad thing is, I can live/work for less than 40K/year now.

/me nods knowingly

For the benefit of those who may be facing long term unemployment, 
coming from someone who is pushing a year and a half on the bench.

I've been dropping my rate like a rock to try to find work.  I will 
have to get rid of my toy (2001 Arctic Cat 500cc 4x4) and maybe work 
some mojo with other debts but in the end I have learned over the last 
16 months how to live cheap.  I don't remember when the last time was 
that I ate a steak, but I'm sure I didn't pay for it.  And I'm pretty 
sure that my revived interest in older hardware was a direct result of 
my sudden lack of ability to *buy* hardware.

Father in law offered to help me buy some lumber for the raised garden 
beds that I wanted to put in.  I need to start now to get the onions 
and garlic going.  Other veggies will go in when appropriate.  See 
"Cubed Foot Gardening" for good ideas on growing lots of food in small 
spaces.  Still, veggies are cheap and barely put a dent in the budget.

Dropping red meat off the menu has helped a lot.  Whole chickens are a 
money saver.  If they aren't butchered into filets and drumsticks they 
are dirt cheap.  One bird makes three meals for two adults and a baby.  
First meal the bird is carved at the table, and all the desired meat is 
eaten.  Second meal takes the scraps from the carcass and makes chicken 
salad sandwiches.  Third meal is chicken vegetable soup, using the 
nearly picked clean skeleton of the bird in conjunction with any of the 
leftover veggies from the first meal.  The bird is the word.

Big discount stores like Costco (where we go) or Sam's Club will often 
have HUGE amounts of meat on sale CHEAP.  We will from time to time buy 
pork chops and chicken filets this way.  One chicken filet will feed 
three adults (tested tonight when father in law came over) if you chop 
it up into small pieces and mix with fettucini alfredo.  Oh, pasta 
rocks by the way for cheap eating.

When I'm working again and can afford the wood to build the shelter, 
plus some wire fencing, we're going to have turkeys here at Casa 
Hedemark and will no longer buy chicken filets.  I'm keeping my eye out 
for a freebie freezer of large capacity.  Once you have one of those, 
you can negotiate directly with farmers to get half a cow, hog or lamb. 
  You just tell the butcher how you want it cut and pick it up when it 
is ready.  Since I'm fond of goat (tastes like lamb if you slaughter it 
young) I'm thinking of trying to get away with having some pigmy goats 
here (they look enough like pets) and having the kids mysteriously 
disappear when they hit 12 weeks of age.  I've got a little experience 
slaughtering/butchering small animals so this won't bother me.  Plus 
this is about as cheap as it gets for having a freezer full of meat.  
That might be too much for some of y'all so I'll leave it at that for 
the meat.

Power bill - This was a smart investment while I still had a regular 
paycheck.  I gradually replaced all the light bulbs in my house with 
compact fluorescent.  They screw into a standard incandescent fixture 
but use about 25% of the power for similar light output.  I'm lighting 
up my whole office nicely on 27 watts, and reading a book very happily 
by 11 watts.  They are expensive (Home Depot has 'em cheap though if 
you look), but they last a looong time.  I finally threw my first one 
out after over five years of heavy duty service.

I only keep machines on when I am using them, except for my Ultra 5 
(main server) and my firewall (little OpenBSD PeeCee).  My desktop 
workstation has pretty much been replaced by an Apple Powerbook G4 
(Titanium) which uses so little power it isn't worth mentioning.

Of course when you are living this cheaply, finding even an hour or two 
of consulting work on the side could mean a nice dinner out with your 
family, or a warm winter coat, or maybe enough $$ to a credit card to 
get them off your back for a month.

I'm starting to explore a lot of these issues on my web site at 
http://yonderway.com/dot

> Bill (please god, dont make me have to file for unemployment..

Do it as soon as you are able.  The money ain't much but it will put 
food on the table and maybe keep the heat on through the winter (though 
maybe that doesn't cost much out your way).

>       i've never been laid off or fired from any job in my life,
>       and even tho this wasnt due to performance, simply money,
>       it still hurts and I take it personally..))

Yes, it hurts.  I still sometimes catch myself wondering "what did I do 
wrong" and then quickly remind myself that the company tanked, but they 
tanked with an awesome IT infrastructure in place.  Heck, the servers 
are probably still running even though no one is around to mind them 
anymore.

Chris Hedemark
Hillsborough, NC
http://yonderway.com


-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.0.7 (Darwin)

iD8DBQE9xhHiYPuF4Zq9lvYRAvdhAJ0Q3wwTjUFIbPSmDMzm3IAbQGiazwCfd9Uq
fLRovSFu/4X3Ctz9YEcp+qg=
=B/uv
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----