For a very long time, I’ve worked only part time hours. That isn’t because I had to. I just wanted to. Fewer work hours meant more time to do other things, like writing novels or going to school. Simplifying my work life became an obsession.

I learned that I didn’t have to make as much money as everyone else wanted to make. There was a false sense of more equaled better. I didn’t find that to be the case. The more I had, the more I had to deal with and take care of. So living with less became something I really wanted to discover.

I squared myself to working only 4 hours a day, earning about $15 an hour, that’s $1,200 a month if I worked only weekdays. So how can a person living in Louisiana live off of about $1,000 a month?

Essentials
Rent $400
Utilities $140
Cable Internet $45
Food $200

Total $785
Remaining $215

The remaining money splits into entertainment and savings. On months I earn more money, it’s additional entertainment and savings.

Let me break this down.

Rent for $400

I took my time finding a prime apartment to rent. The one I found was downtown and within walking distance to the library, a must have for my own entertainment.

I was probably lucky to find one for $400, but the Cajun was living downtown as well, for about $425 a month. His was actually bigger and better than mine, and I could have easily afforded it.

Part of the big key for living off of $1000 a month is to find an inexpensive apartment very close to where you have access to work, food, and some fun via walking or riding a bike.

Utilities for $140

Of course, this was an estimate. My old apartment wasn’t a great example. I had to share my utility bill with four other apartments. The apartment was sectioned off from a big house. So it was one big bill given to the land lady, which in turn we split. So my old ability to be able to get the gas and electric and water down to around $100 a month or less wasn’t going to happen.

Normally, I can manage to get electricity way down, as well as water. I showered every other day. (I worked from home, I just didn’t get very dirty when I didn’t even leave the house.) I washed clothes every week and a half to two weeks, and I hand washed dishes. It’s never an exact estimate, because of the varying rates.

A lot of my savings came from not using as much electricity. I used a single lamp to read from or to work near the computer at night. I regularly left my lights off during the day. The most used device was the computer. Getting energy efficient light bulbs and monitors increases my ability to save money.

Cable Internet for $45

I used to have Cox Cable, which was about $45 a month for a middle tier of speed, about 15 Mbps. Now, we’ve got fiber at this house, which is $40 a month, at 30 Mbps.

This is our source for entertainment. We browse the internet and use the Wii to stream in Netflix. It saves us a ton of money from paying for rented movies and cable TV. Some people love cable, and as long as you actually watch it, that’s great, buy it. For us, we liked watching Lost and Tudors in order and when we want to, not when the programmers wanted us to.

Food for $200

I spent about $50 a week on food. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks. Plus at least $15 of that went to cat food and litter. It was more than enough to buy milk, cereal, bananas, chicken, veggies and other fixings. Days I ate out, it only came from savings.

Now I have $215 leftover. If you work from home, you may be spending $50 to $100 in health insurance, and maybe some more if you have debt. I don’t. I never had a credit card, so I don’t have the debt that comes with it. If I don’t have the cash to pay for it, I don’t buy it.

I also, right now, don’t have a car. I plan on buying a scooter soon. Even with a car, I could get one for $2000 from savings (that’s about 10 months of savings if I don’t spend too much on extras for a while) and buying used saves me money every month. Plus, when I purchase something in total like that, insurance rates are much lower. My old car used to be $40 a month in insurance and maybe $20 in gas a month. Working from home meant I didn’t have to buy gas that often.

Everyone’s situation will be different. There’s no way I could find $400 a month in rent in California. Mileage may vary for this, but I’ve lived in many states across the country. If you wanted to stop working so hard and live off of less money, this may be one way to do it. You live on less, you can have more time to do the important things. Like surfing.

What would you rather be doing? Working?

Photo by saine.

If anyone knows where to find the original tale, I’ll be happy to link to it. This is my ‘memory’ of how it went.

There was once a fisherman sitting on the beach, bringing in his catch. An MBA guy walks up to him and begins asking about his fishing business.

“So, how much money are you making here?”

“Enough to live on the beach, feed my family. I fish in the morning and have the whole day to myself. I surf every evening, visit the pub.”

The MBA asks, “How would you like to let me help you? You could work for me, I could pay a wage, and help you start up a fleet of boats.”

“What for?”

“To be rich. You’d start with another boat, hire on crew. It’ll be long hours in the beginning. Eventually, you’ll move up with additional boats, and additional crew who will need to be managed. The more boats you manage, the more money you’d make. Eventually you’d hire managers to manage the boats.”

“Sounds like a lot of work,” the fisherman said.

“You’d make a whole lot more money. I could make you rich.”

“What would I do with all of that money?”

“Well,” the MBA man thought about it, and then smiled, “you could retire in twenty years or so, and live with your family on the beach, surf every day, and visit the pub. Enjoying your hard earned life.”

What would you use your riches for?

And why are you waiting?

Photo by Auroqueiro.

FTC Cracks Down on Scammers

Chris Durst of Rat Race Rebellion mentioned that they were helping the FTC with a case on a rebate processing scam, ran by Michael Brooks.

Very few rebate processing work at home jobs are legit, and those are localized, you’d have to pick the work up at an office and enter data. The fake ones are similar to data entry scams. You’d sign up for ‘data entry’ and you’ll be asked to enter ads all over the internet, asking people to sign up for the same program.

Because people pay a fee to join these scams, you’re asking other people to pay you for basically… doing what you do. Pyramid scheme basically.

It’s nice that others are looking out for the well being of many and helping to rid the Internet of these scams.