As mentioned below I'm trying my hand at gardening. I'm doing this not only because I'm curious if I can, but for the past couple quarters I've been seeing signs that Carter era inflation is on its way. I suspect it will be seen everywhere by late summer to early fall.
The primary reason I moved to NC was to buy a house outright and to be fully out of debt. But that wasn't the only reason. By early 2005 I saw crazy things happening in the northern VA area. Huge numbers were attracted to the area by the then popped dot com salary bubble. So much so that my (one-way) just over an hour 60 mile commute grew to three hours. This drove the insane housing market in that area. The cost of living continued upwards at a remarkable rate regardless of the fact that six figure incomes were no longer common. Further, the county governments were implementing ever larger budgets based on property taxes.
I thought northern Virginia was nothing more than a ticking bomb. With the stories coming out these days of LA type gangs and squatters in foreclosed houses, I think I was right.
Well, soon after I got to NC my allergies went into overdrive and caused my mild sleep apnea to become very severe. The thing was that my symptoms were not clear and the docs thought it could be all sorts of horrible things. Long story short, my debt free status went away with mounting hospital bills for tests. Thankfully, that is in the past and I'm on my way to paying that all off.
So where does that put my household?
The plan is to get rid of the debt, lower expenses, and hunt for ways to pay the bills/taxes with something I can do at home.
The "something I can do at home" is slow going, but I'm not yet discouraged.... just frustrated.
Expenses are a different story. We're good about not falling for the current shiny thing and while we do indulge in a luxury now and again, they are a rare treat.
I'm eyeballing solar but for now only homeowner subsidies make it viable. Also, with energy costs going up, the tech involved will improve and the cost will drop. So jumping in now would be like my purchase of GDX... jumping in right before a pullback.
I've also thought out a system of three crawlspace dehumidifiers powered by a RV solar panel to harvest water. But water is still cheap here and the cost/benefit ratio isn't there yet.
That leaves food.
I ran across Mel Bartholomew's site Square Foot Gardening last month and picked up his latest book. I've set up a 4x4 for myself and a 3x3 for my wife and daughter. Currently I'm learning what deals with the partial/dappled sun in my back yard. Considering how freakishly cold it is this time of year, I'm not sure my findings will have much use in a normal year (some of my pole beans and small melons do not like the current cold snap).
Another thing my wife found was Angel Food Ministries. At first this struck me as something for very poor folks (like government cheese) and I didn't want to participate in something where I'd be taking away from folks in genuine need. But in reading over their site it looks like they operate by way of bulk purchases and volunteerism. Their base package is nicely priced but their meat add-on prices are very good. We're picking up a package very soon to determine if it is something we'd like to do.
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