Some thoughts on living within our means, priorities & projects.
We’ve all experienced the rising cost of everything. Gasoline more than double that of a year ago, car insurance rates increasing, electricity providers adding fuel surcharges, grocery bills skyrocketing, and so on.
There are some things that we don’t need to deal with here – mortgage and rent in particular. This is more due to good luck than good planning, but we are very happy with this. Our property is family land, and we were given an old single wide with the proviso that it got moved from the property it was on.
It was quite the rodeo to more it here, and we are still getting basic repairs done.
We have in numerous discussions taken the least costly option. Salvaging materials, shopping around, buying used, trading for labor, going far beyond frugal to channeling my Scottish heritage. I also apply my grandfather’s favorite comment that money spent on books or tools is never wasted.
I did have to use a buy here / pay here car dealer to get a decent truck. This has not been a bad decision. We got a much better truck than we could have afforded for cash. The engine was replaced the year before we got it, and now we had to replace the transmission. While that was a very steep repair bill, the dealership has a repair shop on premises, and the repair is rolled into the car loan.
The car loan itself is improving my credit.
Another this we are doing is rainwater collection. A DIY collection system can be budget-friendly, but mistakes can also be made.
We tried a non-caged IBC tote. Nope. It leaked.
I was able to find a half dozen 55 gallon food-safe drums for $20 each, and paid $30 to get them delivered yesterday.
We plan to do a different manifold system for these, and will probably change the other three barrels also.
I’ve done a specific post on rainwater collection, and will revisit the topic soon with some DIY filtering setups.