Your Lifestyle?

[Slywoody]

61 yrs. old, barely remember the 60' but i had a blast. Lived and worked in the cities for 25 yrs. Moved back up to the lake i was born on. Bought an old fish camp, paid cash. Burn wood, fish, pick up road kill, sell flowers in the spring, misc. junk anytime. Drive an old beat up van and i'm debt-free. I have 1 daughter who is citified. She visits a few times a year. I have a lot of friends. I get to go fishing everyday if i want and do a lot of it. I have a few orps for eggs. Do some gardening. Love the solitude and i'm the happiest and the luckiest guy in the whole world. I wouldn't trade this anything.

 

[chickinlickin]

This is a really cool thread.

I'm 48 and will be married 29 years next month (Valetine's Day!) to the love of my life. I've never paid a penny for rent. Saved and bought a house when I was 19. About 10 years ago we decided to take the plunge and build a house in the country....We are thinking that when the real estate market comes around, we'll sell and get out of debt (I've regretted building this house for quite a while...too much house not enough $$)). I've worked all kinds of jobs, but for the last 15 years I've worked for a small surveying firm. We get by. Neither my wife or I have any kind of college degree....but have both worked 2 jobs (off and on) to make sure that each of our 2 daughters get one. One daughter is a school teacher (26 yrs old) and our baby will graduate this June with a BA in nursing.....and she'll be getting married June 26...and that wedding is probably the biggest thing for us (my wife!) since we've had kids!.... We've never had a big bank account...and probably never will. Never really took a vacation...just camping on long weekends. My wife has worked for the County Auditor's office for 24 yrs...and will retire after 30 (hopefully). I probably won't. I graduated high school with the guy that owns the company I work for....and the gal that keeps our books. Kinda like Mayberry. I've known my neighbors my whole life. I drive a 96 chevy 4x4 and my wife drives a 99 camry. Neither one looks too good, but they have been paid off for quite a while....we have a pop-up camper that we love to take all over the place.

Our life has been all about family. I live about 1.5 miles from where I was born and all of my 3 siblings and their families have done about the same. We've all raised our kids together and are a big part of each others live's. My sister's and brother's kids are like my own...and all my siblings feel the same. I wouldn't trade that for anything. Other than family, our social life isn't much to talk about..but we have lots of friends. We love our dog just like a child....and treat her like one. We have a garden and can what we have time to. We go to church and love the Lord. We love each other...and have very much to be grateful for.

 

[Stumpy]

I'm middle-aged and have been married about 17 years. We've always lived within our means. I hate payments and debt. DH has a masters degree and I only have an Associates. We built a house in the "as you go" method, using a lot of our own labor. We live in the woods on a lake in a very rural county with very little of interest culturally, etc. My career ended a few years ago because of health problems. We have no children and never go on vacations, basically. We live in several miles from the nearest small town and I rarely leave the house, only about 3 or 4 times a month. We have a '97 SUV, '85 pickup, '85 T-bird. Just can't bring ourselves to pay what cars are costing these days. We have 2 inside dogs and 5 outside dogs, which were all strays we didn't need but couldn't sentence to the pound. I enjoy sewing, gardening, photography, birds and cooking, but am limited in what I can do because of tendonitis and carpal tunnel.

 

[warmfuzzies]

This is fun! We are a couple in our mid-twenties, with three children ages 4, 3 and 1. We were married when I was 19 and he was twenty. We are in the country and I feel like we are pretty normal, but every so often I get reminded that we are country hicks. Our nearest town has a population of about 200.

We rent our house, and we are blessed to be able to have our livestock here. We have about 15 chickens now, but last summer we hatched over 60 chicks from our flock. I am plannig to get 75 meat birds this spring, and I am tripling my garden to about 1300 square feet. Not huge, but I am excited. We are not trying to go off the grid at all, just take responsibility for ourselves as much as we can.

We just got a small evil pony, who my DH is working with, and we are also getting a full size horse in the next week or so. I am not sure how we all fit on our 1-2 acre place.

I am a stay at home mom and I homeschool my four year old in kindergarton, and the others in preschool. We really enjoy learning together, and today the oldest asked me why we can't do school all day.

"ummm mommy has to do laundry some time sweetie! "

We are relatively boring, we stay at home most of the time. Our idea of 'going out' is going out to the boondocks to shoot bottles. We love spending time with our family and just being at home together.

DH is a local truck driver for a grain company. Neither of us have college degrees, though he is working toward being able to get a degree in Criminal Justice. We have two trucks, the '96 is paid off, and the '99 is almost there. We are getting crowded with three carseats in the backseat, but we are really trying to put off getting anything else, since we are so close to being free of vehicle payments.

We wear clothes from garage sales and hand-me-downs, I think buying brand new clothes for kids who will outgrow them in 3 months is really stupid.

We try to save money everywhere we can, and our kids think getting new crayons is a real treat! We do not have any TV at all, but we enjoy watching movies together and like to read in the evenings. I try to save enough money so that it is cheaper for me to stay home then work.

Not to hard considering day-care costs for three kids.

We are conservative Christians, and we LOVE disscusing politics together in the evenings. Our families get tired of us talking about that stuff over the dinner table at family dinners.

We enjoy hunting together and this year we all went together and the kids got to watch me shoot an awesome 4x5 mule deer. We got to eat our first roast Sunday.

 

[joannadale]

Plight79 ..... Amazing! I'd be over the other side from where you lived. I was taken to Renwick to visit some vineyard owners shortly after arriving in New Zealand so I know where you mean.
I'm out through Motueka and the other side of Takaka off S.H.60 then you hang a left on what seems to be a sealed road but it fools you and after a mile or so turns to gravel or metal as it's known here. You carry along that road and it climbs for about an hour. Stunning spot and far away from the town let alone city!! but it's nature at its best.

Joanna

http://gardencottageblog.ruqqa.com

 

[plight79]

Quote:
Joanna! I LOVE Motueka. It is a really lovely place. I worked at a brewery for a while...we got all of our hops from Mot and I got to go on a few sales calls in the area. There are so many funky little shops in Mot...great farmer's market and awesome housebuses! I also dated a guy from Ruby Bay, have friends who own an orchard outside of Mot and, of course, went to Golden Bay and Abel Tasman. I always thought that the Nelson/Mot area would be a great place to live. What a beautiful country!

 

[NT]

Quote:
Hippy on the inside (local and organic food, homebirthed and breastfed kids, environmental values) "Hootchie" on the outside (tight jeans, big hoops, pedicure) Let's just say if you saw me at Target you probably wouldn't guess That I was headed home to go build my chicken coop. I drive a minivan, I wear designer jeans (but never pay full price) paired with yard sale finds, I am raising chickens for eggs and would like to use them for soup when they stop laying but that may be a little hard after my kids become attached, so we will have to cross that bridge when we get there.

 

[Cat Water]

I raise my chickens for pets. I basically am dedicating my life so far to raising all kinds of animals, trying to start buisnesses anytime I can, and doing my best in school and sports. I'm trying to improve the future generation!

 

[Chickanmanfromarkansas]

Paycheck to paycheck. Drive an old ford pickup that's about to go out on me and an AC that doesn't work. Too many biils to pay and too many mouths to feed.

 

[nuts4chickens]

Been married 14 years. Had my first daughter at 19. We have 2 daughters, 14 and 10 (do the math on that one). Went back to school after my youngest was born. I'm an ultrasound technologist and work at the local hospital. Husband got laid off last June and is now finishing his education, so we live paycheck to paycheck, too. I drive a Mazda tribute (paid for) he drives a Toyota Tacoma (paid for). We've been together since I was 15. We had a rough start in the beginning, being young parents and didn't have any money or help from family, so when I finished my education, we vowed to live modestly and moved to the country for a more simple life, away from the ratrace. We don't use credit cards. We have a garden every year. We sit down and eat at the dinner table every night. We have a small home on two acres. We have 4 dogs and 25 chickens. We originally got chickens to eat, but soon found out we couldn't eat them because they all ended up with names.So now, they are strictly for eggs and "chicken therapy" We do everything together as a family and my girls are heavily involved in sports. Both are straight A students. We don't care about name brands, or big houses, or fancy cars. I clip coupons. We go to church (not as often as we should). We are very happy and wouldn't change anything even though we got here the hard way