Could You Live On Under 5000 Dollars a Year

Could You Live on Under 5000 a Year?

Posted on April 9, 2008
Filed Under frugal living |

by Denise1922

I came across this article by Brian Orr in the Mother Earth News. The Mother Earth News is a great source of advice for do it yourself projects for energy savings, alternate heating and cooling, and gardening. The author made approximately $4300 in 2005 and claims that he and his wife live well on it.

While this seems the height of frugality, the things that he suggests doing in the article are good commonsense ways that everyone could do. They don’t eat strange things or go without clothes. They even saved up their money and bought their land for cash. They have no credit cards or monthly bills and they don’t seem to want for anything.

Here are a few of the tips that Brian suggests:

Buy raw ingredients and learn to cook them.
Buy in bulk from a health food store or order in bulk online. If you can’t use that much, go in with another family and split it.
Organize a food buying club.
Avoid rent by doing elder care or helping to renovate a house in exchange for rent. I have also seen caretaker positions available in Northern Virginia.
Buy fruits and vegetables in season when they are less expensive and freeze them.
Barter for services. Some communities have local time banks.
Convert a diesel car to run on vegetable oil. There are kits available and used vegetable oil can be found for free.
Have a clothing exchange party. There is a church in my hometown that organizes one for children every year. It’s gotten so huge that they had to make it a two day event.
Need a special tool? Try borrowing it from someone instead of buying it.

He goes on with tips for vacationing and entertainment for less but I will let you read those if you are interested. The article can be read here. Overall he had some fresh ideas as well as some that the frugal among us already do.

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Comments

4 Responses to “Could You Live on Under 5000 a Year?”

Drew Kime (1 comments.) on April 9th, 2008 11:49 am

I’m always pleasantly surprised by the number of ways people come to the idea that they should cook form scratch. Here it’s about the price. For a lot of people it’s about health. Me, I just think it tastes better.

If you’ve just decided to start cooking from scratch and you’re looking for some tips, take a look at “How To Cook Like Your Grandmother” — http://blog.CookLikeYourGrandmother.com

Drew
Lindsay (17 comments.) on April 10th, 2008 2:34 pm

Wow, I don’t think I could live on less than $5,000 per year, or even $10,000. But this example did make me think about ways I can cut back on spending.
Rachel @ Master Your Card (6 comments.) on April 11th, 2008 6:59 am

I think even if I had a rent free house I would find it hard to live that cheaply. The council tax alone costs £1700, then there are the other unavoidable bills such as electricity, gas and water which would probably double that figure. I guess if I was being really frugal we could get rid of the TV, phone and turn the heating right down, sit in the dark etc! Obviously you need to retain some quality of life though.
bouncing betty on April 11th, 2008 2:10 pm

I really doubt I could do this even in my small house. My mortgage is $7000 a year. Maybe if my house was totally paid off and I could live more off the land I could really cut back,I’m fairly rural, but not that much but not on less than 5k