Circling home
Many years ago I read a book of essays by Wendell Berry called "Home Economics", and his primary point that I remember, in my words, is in seeing a "household" as a primary economic unit, and that there was a wide range of responsibilities that a household required, AND lastly that modern specialization and marketing has corrupted these internal responsibilities into economic activity, making us more dependent on money and less capable of taking care of itself.
At least that's my take, not to say there's ever been an ideal time, not to say the opportunities and affluence allowed in modern life is to be fully rejected, but to me it comes out as a question of where you want to draw a line. Our time is one where opportunities are wide and vast, much bigger than we can take in, and there's a danger in just following the path of least resistance, and not trying to seriously prioritize what deserves our care and attention, and what must be dropped for being too low on the list.
I have a sort of fantasy that my goal is to maximize my time doing what I want, and that more money usually demands more time (to earn, invest and spend), so it's better to earn less if I do something I like more, OR work less if I can get away with it!
The other side of the fantasy is my goal to try to live without debt, and that means I have to save money for future expenses which means I have to earn more than I need NOW, which means I have to work now more than I might if I merely worked to pay for the bare necessities of life now.
Well, when I was 26, self-employed, but no work at the moment, I took a job at Rainbow foods, doing night stock work part time for 3 months, figuring my minimum hours I needed so my savings would stop depleting. At only $5.15/hr, it was more hours than I'd have liked, BUT I sort of thought it was "free exercise", AND once I got going, I could "daydream", or at least zone out and it was pretty low stress. The 9pm-3am shift worked well, but the 3am-11am shift was bad for me, couldn't get used to it.
Anyway my little dreams of cheap living worked pretty well, sharing an inherited debt-free house with two siblings. I never aspired seriously to make more than $20,000/year, seemed like more than enough money, but did computer programming contact work for $15-$25/hour, so I could work part time and earn more. Now I live in a different world, with a regular job, and much more money, BUT paying down a mortgage on my house and another mortgage an investment property I rent to a friend. Money flows in outrageous levels compared to my old thinking, but if I continue I could have two debt-free houses in 6 years, a crazy idea, but seems a prudent investment in my conservative views of what it means to invest.
The main weakness of my position is I have a 3-bedroom home to myself, and don't really spend much time there. My connection to my neighbors and community is minimal, compared to my renting friend, with 3 kids, and home daycare. In short, its rather a wasted asset, at least my house.
My security issues just say, okay in 10 months, my house can be mortgage free again, but its still empty in my imagination, useless. I do gardening, but less active in recent years. The yard could use more attention.
I wonder if things turn down, like a depression. On the good side perhaps I have a house I can share, but no real process to feel safe letting strangers share it with me, especially those most in need. I feel safe if I have no mortgage because then if I lost my job, my expenses would be lower, but still higher than when I shared expenses with siblings. I probably could still get down to $12k/year spending, but harder to imagine $6k/year, even without a car, without sharing my space with someone who can seriously help with bills, not that $500/month is a high rent, but I'm too used to people who don't seem to even be able to afford that, whether due to income or spending habits.
It is a curious question, if I'm feeling generous, if I wanted to merely share my home to help others, without consideration for rental income. Anyway, I see there's great value in owning a home, in having something to offer, but no great vision how it could be done. AND some past uglier visions, living with a brother and brother-in-law for a while, both smokers, even outdoors, most annoying, and not even getting into drug use.
I think Berry's vision is for a household to not require every adult to work outside of the home. I share that vision, at least by full time employment - life is too short to fight for a career unless it falls into your lap or you have a great drive for one. Otherwise I wish the world could support lifestyles that didn't require 40k/year/adult to sustain.
I suppose my ideal might be to share my house with a single parent, 1-2 kids, at least that works for my house space. I say parent mainly because I think being a single parent is crazy, so they could use help, but also nice to have kids around, noise and all. I'm not even against a couple and 2-kids, but gets a bit tight, AND the reality of modern couples is they generally don't WANT to share a house. They want their privacy, and can't easily imagine sharing a house. If I didn't have a house myself, I might as well look to rent a room from someone with a spare room, but again, probably at best a retiree/widow, and not as likely with a family. Sharing a house means inconvenience and always possible to appreciate a spare room when you got one.
Mostly there's no great point to sharing. I suppose when more hardships come, people will share more space. It just sort of seems a sham to have such homes as we have now, such nice yards, and have them neglected because we're too busy working, or driving, or spending our money.
I guess the SECRET I'm looking for is to make a home "interesting/attractive", a place to want to be, besides hiding in front of a TV (or computer!). And neighborhoods too. Large cities (and their circling 'burbs) and good transportation options make it easy to make everything interesting too far away to walk or bike, and make places neglected.
I suppose I'm just a dreamer mostly, content to live with less money, but for now glad I can earn more and invest it in a home or two. Our neighborhoods are not super dense, but not bad, and perhaps when transportation gets more difficult we can create more interesting things closer to home. Who knows?
I read tonight an article and opinions on high gas prices at:
http://www.mercurynews.com/localnewsheadlines/ci_5806986
http://pod01.prospero.com/n/pfx/forum.aspx?msg=4396&nav=messages&webtag=mn-comments&redirCnt=1
I'm one of the bad persons hoping for $4-6/gallon gas, thinking it's the only medicine that will get us off our butts and into action, to reduce our dependence on oil, our foolish life decisions that encourage the average person to spend 2+ hours/day in a vehicle, and worse behind the wheel, as their life energies slowly get drained away.
I just can't easily have sympathy for those who have "chosen" lifestyles that require them to drive 100 miles/day. The future can't support that luxury for the majority, so we have to change sooner or later.
A nicer article at:
http://www.evworld.com/article.cfm?storyid=1244 Failing the Energy IQ Test
What’s our immediate strategy for averting the worst impacts of peak oil?
1. Start with education.
2. Focus on efficiency.
3. Switch fuels substantially from liquids to electricity.
4. Improve land-use planning.
5. Ramp up investments in mass transit.
6. Conserve.
7. Reconsider alternative fuels.
I'm in agreement that electric cars seem the best bet, at least for city driving. Most people don't drive more than 100 miles/day, so batteries that support that range ought to be acceptable.
I like the idea of plug-in hybrids, but seems rather a waste, to have all the extra weight (and cost) of a gasoline engine if most of your driving can be done 100% on electricity. So to me its sort of a marketing failure - there's perhaps a failure of imagination, to consider the possibility of "downsizing", that less could be more. Admittingly the same issue exists for people who drive trucks and SUVs because SOMETIMES they need to haul big stuff, but most of the time are just wasting energy on dead weight of an empty truck.
Fuel efficiency would suggest our vehicles are always running at peak capacity, so you might have 6 vehicles and swap which one you use based on need. Of course this duplication fails on construction costs. A few people might have 6 cars, but its pretty much a waste of money in insurance and upkeep costs.
As well, city buses are pretty inefficient at times, sometimes a capacity 40 bus will be only carrying a couple people, and so the cost of a bus, averaged per passenger mile, unsubsidized can be more than the costs of owning your own car.
Well, must go. Someday again perhaps homes can be for more than sleeper and couch potatoes!
At least that's my take, not to say there's ever been an ideal time, not to say the opportunities and affluence allowed in modern life is to be fully rejected, but to me it comes out as a question of where you want to draw a line. Our time is one where opportunities are wide and vast, much bigger than we can take in, and there's a danger in just following the path of least resistance, and not trying to seriously prioritize what deserves our care and attention, and what must be dropped for being too low on the list.
I have a sort of fantasy that my goal is to maximize my time doing what I want, and that more money usually demands more time (to earn, invest and spend), so it's better to earn less if I do something I like more, OR work less if I can get away with it!
The other side of the fantasy is my goal to try to live without debt, and that means I have to save money for future expenses which means I have to earn more than I need NOW, which means I have to work now more than I might if I merely worked to pay for the bare necessities of life now.
Well, when I was 26, self-employed, but no work at the moment, I took a job at Rainbow foods, doing night stock work part time for 3 months, figuring my minimum hours I needed so my savings would stop depleting. At only $5.15/hr, it was more hours than I'd have liked, BUT I sort of thought it was "free exercise", AND once I got going, I could "daydream", or at least zone out and it was pretty low stress. The 9pm-3am shift worked well, but the 3am-11am shift was bad for me, couldn't get used to it.
Anyway my little dreams of cheap living worked pretty well, sharing an inherited debt-free house with two siblings. I never aspired seriously to make more than $20,000/year, seemed like more than enough money, but did computer programming contact work for $15-$25/hour, so I could work part time and earn more. Now I live in a different world, with a regular job, and much more money, BUT paying down a mortgage on my house and another mortgage an investment property I rent to a friend. Money flows in outrageous levels compared to my old thinking, but if I continue I could have two debt-free houses in 6 years, a crazy idea, but seems a prudent investment in my conservative views of what it means to invest.
The main weakness of my position is I have a 3-bedroom home to myself, and don't really spend much time there. My connection to my neighbors and community is minimal, compared to my renting friend, with 3 kids, and home daycare. In short, its rather a wasted asset, at least my house.
My security issues just say, okay in 10 months, my house can be mortgage free again, but its still empty in my imagination, useless. I do gardening, but less active in recent years. The yard could use more attention.
I wonder if things turn down, like a depression. On the good side perhaps I have a house I can share, but no real process to feel safe letting strangers share it with me, especially those most in need. I feel safe if I have no mortgage because then if I lost my job, my expenses would be lower, but still higher than when I shared expenses with siblings. I probably could still get down to $12k/year spending, but harder to imagine $6k/year, even without a car, without sharing my space with someone who can seriously help with bills, not that $500/month is a high rent, but I'm too used to people who don't seem to even be able to afford that, whether due to income or spending habits.
It is a curious question, if I'm feeling generous, if I wanted to merely share my home to help others, without consideration for rental income. Anyway, I see there's great value in owning a home, in having something to offer, but no great vision how it could be done. AND some past uglier visions, living with a brother and brother-in-law for a while, both smokers, even outdoors, most annoying, and not even getting into drug use.
I think Berry's vision is for a household to not require every adult to work outside of the home. I share that vision, at least by full time employment - life is too short to fight for a career unless it falls into your lap or you have a great drive for one. Otherwise I wish the world could support lifestyles that didn't require 40k/year/adult to sustain.
I suppose my ideal might be to share my house with a single parent, 1-2 kids, at least that works for my house space. I say parent mainly because I think being a single parent is crazy, so they could use help, but also nice to have kids around, noise and all. I'm not even against a couple and 2-kids, but gets a bit tight, AND the reality of modern couples is they generally don't WANT to share a house. They want their privacy, and can't easily imagine sharing a house. If I didn't have a house myself, I might as well look to rent a room from someone with a spare room, but again, probably at best a retiree/widow, and not as likely with a family. Sharing a house means inconvenience and always possible to appreciate a spare room when you got one.
Mostly there's no great point to sharing. I suppose when more hardships come, people will share more space. It just sort of seems a sham to have such homes as we have now, such nice yards, and have them neglected because we're too busy working, or driving, or spending our money.
I guess the SECRET I'm looking for is to make a home "interesting/attractive", a place to want to be, besides hiding in front of a TV (or computer!). And neighborhoods too. Large cities (and their circling 'burbs) and good transportation options make it easy to make everything interesting too far away to walk or bike, and make places neglected.
I suppose I'm just a dreamer mostly, content to live with less money, but for now glad I can earn more and invest it in a home or two. Our neighborhoods are not super dense, but not bad, and perhaps when transportation gets more difficult we can create more interesting things closer to home. Who knows?
I read tonight an article and opinions on high gas prices at:
http://www.mercurynews.com/localnewsheadlines/ci_5806986
http://pod01.prospero.com/n/pfx/forum.aspx?msg=4396&nav=messages&webtag=mn-comments&redirCnt=1
I'm one of the bad persons hoping for $4-6/gallon gas, thinking it's the only medicine that will get us off our butts and into action, to reduce our dependence on oil, our foolish life decisions that encourage the average person to spend 2+ hours/day in a vehicle, and worse behind the wheel, as their life energies slowly get drained away.
I just can't easily have sympathy for those who have "chosen" lifestyles that require them to drive 100 miles/day. The future can't support that luxury for the majority, so we have to change sooner or later.
A nicer article at:
http://www.evworld.com/article.cfm?storyid=1244 Failing the Energy IQ Test
What’s our immediate strategy for averting the worst impacts of peak oil?
1. Start with education.
2. Focus on efficiency.
3. Switch fuels substantially from liquids to electricity.
4. Improve land-use planning.
5. Ramp up investments in mass transit.
6. Conserve.
7. Reconsider alternative fuels.
I'm in agreement that electric cars seem the best bet, at least for city driving. Most people don't drive more than 100 miles/day, so batteries that support that range ought to be acceptable.
I like the idea of plug-in hybrids, but seems rather a waste, to have all the extra weight (and cost) of a gasoline engine if most of your driving can be done 100% on electricity. So to me its sort of a marketing failure - there's perhaps a failure of imagination, to consider the possibility of "downsizing", that less could be more. Admittingly the same issue exists for people who drive trucks and SUVs because SOMETIMES they need to haul big stuff, but most of the time are just wasting energy on dead weight of an empty truck.
Fuel efficiency would suggest our vehicles are always running at peak capacity, so you might have 6 vehicles and swap which one you use based on need. Of course this duplication fails on construction costs. A few people might have 6 cars, but its pretty much a waste of money in insurance and upkeep costs.
As well, city buses are pretty inefficient at times, sometimes a capacity 40 bus will be only carrying a couple people, and so the cost of a bus, averaged per passenger mile, unsubsidized can be more than the costs of owning your own car.
Well, must go. Someday again perhaps homes can be for more than sleeper and couch potatoes!
posted by Ares Olympus at 5:40 PM
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