My husband and I are moving to an apartment that is four hundred dollars a month less than what we currently pay in NYC. It will be on 8 acres, permitting me to grow the chickens and vegetables that I have been wanting for a while. I do part time freelance computer work (more on that in a bit) and will be using that money to pay for the chickens and vegetables and this will be my contribution to our family's food. Ideally, if all goes well, I will also be bartering eggs and meat for produce with one of the many local farms. I'd also like to have enough money leftover from my weekly income to accumulate a disaster preparedness supply (food, water, meds, etc).
When we move, my husband is going to be telecommuting from home. This will cut down on commuting costs, but also it permits him to have more than one job at a time. He does free lance work at the same time (since programming has lots of dead time while programs compile). The freelance jobs pay more per hour, but of course have no benefits, so living off of those is difficult. I know many people who have no health insurance, but I have a serious back injury and use it every year. Just this fall, I have another MRI and at least one procedure scheduled. (Which reminds me that I need to figure that out schedulewise before ordering birds).
When my husband was laid off two years ago, he started working through a freelance web site (
www.guru.com, no referral bonuses so feel free to sign up directly). It isn't required for you to join, so he applied for work using a free membership. Once he got enough work to pay for the paid membership, he used that money to upgrade, since the paid membership has much lower fees attached to it. Still, it meant that he was able to bring in enough money to keep us afloat for a while.
Then a stay home friend of mine mentioned needing help, so my husband and I paid for a membership for her. She went in a very short time from not earning money to earning enough to cover all of their food costs for their family of five. Then she found another site called Elance. Like Guru, you can sign up for free, but you get fewer free "bid points" and paid membership costs more than Guru. The good part is that there's MUCH LESS competition for jobs.
She referred me to them (there's a referral bonus involved, I'll post the link in a moment) and I was able to land a small part time job the very first month. I write three articles a week for him every week and will be starting transcription very soon, perhaps as soon as I move. I've been earning enough so that by this fall, I should be making enough to cover my chicken and gardening costs without help from my husband. This will truly be MY contribution to the family.
If you're interested in elance, here is my referral link:
http://www.elance.com/p/landing/buyer.html?1BBTI
The only bad thing is that my friend recently mentioned that the lower end jobs at Guru have been swamped by international competition, so the job offers have changed to reflect that. You know, things like "Want brilliant self motivated blah blah.... will only pay $2/hour". There's some of that at Elance, too, but since it's more expensive to pay for the bids, there's less competition.
