Money - dollars, green, bread, loaf,
bucks, payola, whatever you call it, money is involved in everything we
do. Throughout our history, Money has been a safe store of value, as
well as a convenient way to handle the day-to-day exchanges in the
marketplace. Money has had many faces: from gold coins, to warehouse
receipts, to grain, to sea shells, to paper with pictures of presidents or
monarchs on it. These days, more and more, Money is just an electronic
blip on a wireless computer system. We can no longer say that Money is a
“safe store of value”. Worldwide, we have seen literally trillions of
dollars in “Value” wiped out in a day (that is a 1 followed by 12 zeros
1,000,000,000,000.00. To put that in perspective, the annual gross
national product [the value of all the goods and services] of Canada is
1.265 Trillion dollars a year - so effectively the yearly labor of 30
million people was wiped out overnight). While we still have to use Money
(dollars) to handle our “trade” with the Government, the Store Owner and
the Gas Station, we need to start looking more and more to ourselves, our
ability, our knowledge, and our land as the best store of value.
Given the uncertain
employment picture and shaky economic future a lot of people are facing,
it only makes sense to protect and insulate yourself as much as possible
from the impact of job loss. Toward that end we set the following: Our
First Goal has been to reduce, and keep reducing, our fixed monthly cost
(utilities, phone, transportation, etc.) as well as the cost of food, to
the point that we could manage on one minimum wage job. Thankfully, at
present I make more than minimum wage and that has allowed us the room to
work on our second goal.
Our Second Goal is
to improve our homestead, by investing in wind and solar power, wood heat,
a
bigger and better garden, and to invest in ourselves, by learning a host
of skills that will allow us to become less and less dependent on the
utility companies, and the purveyors of goods and services of all types.
Our Third Goal is to
be prepared to better deal with natural disasters (blizzards, hurricanes,
tornados, or earthquakes), financial system crisis, or infrastructure
collapse.
The easiest way to
make these goals a reality is to find ways to NOT spend money you don't
have to spend, and then what money you do have will go further. Now one of
the cold hard facts of life is that some things just have to be paid for
with good old fashioned coin of the realm. BUT a lot of things you can
barter, salvage, improvise, do-it-yourself or just decide you can get
along without, so you do not have to part with your hard-earned cash.
This last month I
have had the “joy” of replacing our leaking hot water tank. This event
became an interesting experiment in Cheap-O Economics. After turning off
the water and throwing the breaker on the electrical panel, I closed my
eyes and had a vision of a pile of $20 bills flying away. After moaning
for awhile and mumbling about the injustice of the whole thing, I started
to plan how to get the hot water going again. After careful consideration
I ruled out a few options:
1.) Just
forget the hot water - we could do the dishes, shower and shave in cold
water. That got shot down real fast in an array of suggestions as to what
I could do with the cold-shower water.
2) Forget
the hot water tank and use the tea kettle to heat water for shaving and
sponge baths, then make a weekly trip to the public swimming pool for a
real shower along with a swim. For some reason the wife didn't see the
humor or practicality in this one either.
3.) Break
down, go out and buy a new hot water tank, then get it installed. This
would be about $300.00 plus installation at $100.00 an hour, plus tax on
everything.
That settled is,
time to be cheap.
I had noticed before
that one of my neighbors had a small hot water tank sitting outside his
garage. A phone call later, I had a FREE hot water tank that
had been salvaged out of a trailer house. It worked, but needed a
new element. I zipped over and picked up the tank, then off to the
hardware store to get a new element ($19.00), then home to play plumber.
I accomplished a couple of things by doing this. First, I got the
hot water back before it became a marital issue. Second, I managed
to not spend $450.00. Third, I was able to learn some more about
plumbing, and, as it was a smaller tank using half the wattage, we will
save money on our electric bill as an added bonus.
The first step is to
decide that you are not going to hire and pay someone else to do it. You
need to become a Do-It-Yourself (DIY) enthusiast, doing everything you can
for yourself or find a friend to barter with. Even if you have never used
a screwdriver or a hammer, now is the time to start. Yes, it may well
take you longer to do it than if you hired it done, BUT even if it takes
you 4 times as long it is still a better deal to DIY.
