OT: a learned perspective, or what to do with your paycheck

greenspun.com : LUSENET : TimeBomb 2000 (Y2000) : One Thread

A few misc. thoughts about household economics (redundant).

1) It's not what you make (money). It's how much things cost.

2) Goal: reduce the need to buy.

3) Move from buying a product to buying the means to produce it.

4) Saticfy your own needs and sell the excess (income, subject to taxes) or trade locally (no one pays taxes on barter).

5) Goal: a comfortable lifestyle with time to spare.

6) Determine the time cost to you of using money.

You work for a living. It costs you a 20 to 40% premium for every dollar you can spend. If you make $100 you only take home about $60 in spendable money. Of that $60 you will only get about $30 of goods or services due to taxes on the other end eating into their bottom line. Lastly, you will pay more for an hour of their work than you take home for an hour of your work.

Example: You work 6 hours for $100 pay and take home $60. You pay your mechanic $60 for an hour of labor. Result is that you worked 6 hours and only got 1 hour of services rendered. The end result of this game is that you will run yourself ragged working for a living and never having a life due to the tax burden that you and those you hire to support your "lifestyle" are shouldering.

So why play the game?

What you want to do is minimize your need to use money for making a life. You want to find opportunities to develop a 'producer' mentality and not foster a 'consumer' mentality.

Look at what it costs you in terms of time spent working to support all the people (and governments) you are buying from. If you 'do it yourself' you have saved a tremendous amount of time, focused your energy on supporting your own life and possibly created your own 'industry'. Working for 'The Man' can be costing you alot more than you realize.

How this relates to Y2K-ness

We are more aware of our 'dependencies' due to investigating Y2K issues. Part of our overall economic goals in life should be to saticfy our basic needs/wants without recourse to commerce and at the same time to obtain the greatest control over our own labor (time and effort). There is a balance here. No one wants to be in the position of producing every single thing they need only to live a life of drudgery in primative conditions. On the other hand one can live a modern kind of 'drudgery' where it takes three and a half meager incomes to 'live' at a middle class level. Anyone else feel like that?

If I raise my own food, provide for my own heating needs, can live comfortably without the need for huge expenditures of time in boring, tedious and emotionally deranged work...hey that sounds pretty good to me. If the power goes out or the next blackout comes along...no problemo. Economic crisis? Who cares! AOK.

At this midpoint in life one begins to think that there are other ways to 'make a life' which make a much more agreeable life indeed.

-- ..- (dit@dot.dash), January 06, 2000

Answers

I could not agree with you any more! At 39, I purchased unresticted land in the country on a hill. No restrictions means you don't need inspectors for framing, wiring and plumbing of your home. Every septic system needs inspection, yet that is a given. My 4,500 sq.ft. home cost me 70 - 90 grand to build, however, I did it all myself starting from section to section, peer and beam on the initial structure. The other half of the design is a slab. The home is overkill with 2 by 8 walls on the south side and 2 by 6 on the rest. R30 insulation in floors and ceiling and R19 to R25 insulation in walls. I built 2 story because it costs the same for the roof, regardless of how many stories your home is. The paint is a ceramic elastomeric paint that reflects the heat off the structure (as opposed to absorbing it) and requires much less cooling in the summer. Naturally the insulation keeps the heat in during the wintertime. Due to Y2k preps, I bought solar panels for my D.C. powered water well and Some to generate lighting. Pay as you go and everything will be paid for. In the end, you can sell for a complete profit if you decide to do so. Capitol gains tax law allows for 250,000$ profit for a single person and 500,000$ for a married couple when they sell their home without paying taxes. Spare time can be very profitable. Hell, take the T.V. set with you where you are working in the home.

-- Feller (feller@wanna.help), January 06, 2000.

Nice article. Admirable values. Wish I could own land, and make a complete go of it, but there is no private ownership of land in this country. Instead you gotta pay thousands in "rent" to Uncle Sam each year, depending on what he thinks the lot is worth, and endure tedious employment to procure those monies... Hearing these acceptable tips though of integrating a producer and barter mentality within the confines of consumerism is refreshing.

Is that another black 'copter buzzing my roof? heh, that one nearly hit the tree in my neighbor's yard.

-- Hokie (Hokie_@hotmail.com), January 06, 2000.


Feller, that kicks a$$; good for you!

-- Hokie (Hokie_@hotmail.com), January 06, 2000.

Self-sufficiency is useful, to a degree... You can grow many of your food items, but I cannot easily grow strawberries, peaches, rasberries, lettuce, and similar produce; most of you cannot easily grow banana, coffee, papaya, cocoa, tapioca, etc. It is by the exchange of goods (facilitated by a relatively universally accepted exchange medium) that we both can have what the other produces...thus enriching our (otherwise) meager lives.

-- Mad Monk (madmonk@hawaiian.net), January 06, 2000.

That's the spirit! A perfect example too.

Mad Monk, the only thing I'd comment on about your post is that there are some things which are small luxuries and low in cost as well. I'm not saying give up on the larger economy. Hardly! The point is we have been sucked into thinking that there is really only ONE way of making a decent and acceptable life. The only problem is I see an aweful lot of folks who are slaving away under that method, on a treadmill, under bonds of indebtedness. They work long hours for little pay which goes nowhere. They accept as natural the idea that 'owning' a mortgage that they will pay 3 times the agreed price in interest is the ONLY way to live. It sucks, literally.

Today, purchasing power erosion and taxation burdens are forcing us to work like slaves simply to get up the next day and do it all over again. I'm beginning to think about this and to ask 'why' and 'how' to do it differently. Do you have any suggestions?

-- ..- (dit@dot.dash), January 06, 2000.



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