Today is a day of many headaches, literally and figuratively. As soon as we got up we had people come over. I didn't bother hiding that it was 11am and we where just having breakfast, the headache there came from Ellowyn. She has decided that she needed to act like she was on a sugar rush all day and constantly run to get into things. She has started to thrive on negative attention me thinks, me thinks it is because of that stooopidddd!!!! Christmas tree. Again, in case you didn't catch it I am not a fan of the holidays. They put plastic ornaments on her level, but they get on her case for taking them off, or turning off the tv, or eating the dogs food, and allot of other things. So, all during my visit of new peoples I had just met at church yesterday (lovely people, really enjoyable) Ellowyn decided to try for negative attention. It continued all day, which resulted in a real headache (probably from lack of food, hard to eat and keep up with her), which headache worsened when I fell down the stairs with her when I was taking her to bed. Can't sleep now, lucky for you this means I have had more time to look up stuff and actually might have something interesting to say!

So, as you now by now my new obsession is with Netflix and the tv show 17 and Counting of the Duggard family. I went onto their website and found that they pay for everything with cash, including they built there 9,000sq ft house with cash. This really intrigued me when I saw Jim Bob (love the name) asking how people could live with debt because they will pay 10-15% more then he will. I always knew that was true but never really thought about it because we always here that a mortgage is "good debt". It only took me a second to realize how rediculous this sounds, really its "good" to owe someone money and have to pay interest on it plus loan origination fee's plus house inspection fees plus fees and more and more fees to get a mortgage. I started thinking about it and realized that this nation wasn't built and didn't become prosperous off of borrowing money to do things and then expecting that thing to be sucessful, this is a relatively new phenonemon in this nation and since it became widespread our economy has slowly been tanking. How much better would this nation be if it had never taken on debt? Where did this come from? I think it probably was around ww2 when everyone was coming home from war at the same time and had jobs but needed housing, and probably spread into other facets of life as it became easier and easier to owe money. Our parents became spoiled (I am in my 20's), and now we are paying for it and our children will be as well. So, how would one do it exactly? I don't exactly know, I am still figuring all the details out but I found a few that are the beginning of my road map to not ever taking out a loan. Micro houses are a new trend, makes sense. People used to build log cabins on land they bought and live in those until they could afford a real house unless they inherited one (referencing little house on the prairie and other historic novels that where popular when I was a child). One can build a cabin, or cottage for $10-30k. Its small but extremely energy efficient.

So, my plan:
I am going to continue making my own soaps and shopping at Trader Joes so I can eat and live cheaply. Cell phone is turning off on the 13th. Car insurance is going down in coverage and we will just be extremely cautious drivers. Clothing (except pants) will continue to come from the thrift store and be remade to look new (I sew and like to create). When Aaron gets a job we will move close to work to cut on gas and get a cheep but not hole in the wall apartment for a year. We will save money and start looking for property in the area for cheap, hopefully find some foreclosed property or someone looking to sell off extra land. We will then start to build by hand with the help of brothers as we can get it, a micro house style cottage. I figure all in all by designing it to fit my needs and whims we will be able to cut the kitchen down to nill and make the bathroom mostly shower/tub with a toilet and sink squished in. This will leave the rest for a huge living area with the upstairs being a loft bedrooms set up with three rooms (walls in-between I need privacy). If I build the clothing cubbord with a place to hang nice clothes into the walls, that leaves only needing a bed in the room and a small shelf for a night stand type thing with space for the shoes underneath. I think I could make it feel pretty roomy doing this and end up with 600-800 sq ft but have it feel much bigger thanks to not wasting space. I will have to do research on how to make it energy efficient and make the electricity work without being on the grid, but people are doing it so I know it can be done. This was by the end of our lease that first year we should have our own house to stay in that won't cost really anything utility wise because we will be off the grid, or using very little from it if we decide to be on it. Then we can just save save save save until we have enough to build a house. This will eliminate all the extra utilties and expenses that come with renting (it is always cheaper to buy vrs rent), and all the fee's and interest that comes with buying a house. Also if everything goes kaput and we end up jobless again we will not have to move back in with the inlaws because we will be able to garden more and use our house savings to live off of until we find work again. This feels amazing just writing about it. Thinking about not ever having the stress of not being able to make rent or a house payment, of always having a place to live unless there is a natural disaster, and being able to have money in the bank instead of living paycheck to paycheck. I watched my parents live paycheck to paycheck and now they can't sell there house. Seriously though who would buy it? Thats the problem with houses they get old and then no one wants them so they just build somewhere else, and take up more forest which hurts the ecosystem even more. Seriously where are we going to be able to hunt or go to breath if this keeps up!? I love taking walks in the woods, but the farms destroyed most of what Michigan had and now the farms are being turned into housing complexes and the old houses sit vacant or with residents will be vacating within the next 10years except for the select few that will be kept as historical houses. Really!? I am so glad that so many people now are seeing the foolishness in this and looking towards more sustainable options. I think we should all look into them really. I would much rather have a new little cottage and then be able to build a nice new house then to spend my hard earned dollars on a old house that is just getting older while I try to pay the fee's and interest I agreed to so I could have it. Sounds much better.
Moving on down my plan I would hope that by living frugally until we are comfortable with our savings and we have a plan that will for sure make it so we can retire and help our children that we will then be able to get the nice things that we would have not paid attention too during this process. I wouldn't plan to go completely without. Once we have our little house I would hope that we would have enough work to provide our needs and extra so we could save but also vacation and have a few extra's here and there. Every retiree I have spoke to lately have all said that by the time they retired they where too and achy to enjoy the vacations and experiences they thought they would have in retirement. So, logic dictates to enjoy life now by taking what experiences and vacations one can, so as to not leave anything to chance and be able to truly say that I lived life to its fullest. This way if it works out that I can travel after I retire, well good for me I will have had double the vacations I would have gotten if I would have just waited until then :-) Reminds me of one of my favorite quotes, don't remember who its from but they said that they wanted to show up to the pearly gates of heaven with tires squealing and rubber burning in there convertible to step out covered in little children smudges from playing with grandchildren and helping little ones with lunch, hair a mess, and screaming "wooohooo what a ride!"