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I’ve been reading lately and learning about a woman named Dee Williams. She’s been attracting attention lately because she lives in an 84 square foot home. That’s about the size of a parking spot!
My first thought was that the woman was out of her mind. But after reading the article on Katu.com, maybe she is onto something.
The obvious question: Why?
The simple answer:
“A simpler life, time, more money. I don’t have a mortgage. I don’t have a big utility bill,” Dee says.
[via Katu.com]
She claims her heating bill in the winter is only $6.00/month. Her electricity is provided by solar panels so her utilities compared to mine are basically non-existant. Just imagine how much more money we could have to pay off our debt if we lived in a home like that.
Don’t worry, I’m not going to try to fit our family of three in a home like that. I’m also not so keen on a mobile house that someone could drive off with (her home is on a trailer). But it makes me wonder about our next home and what it should be like.
I always thought we needed a little more room since two rooms in our homes are currently being used for offices. After seeing that video, it brought home to me how cluttered our life is with stuff. That’s the only reason why I think we need a bigger home. It’s so we have room for all of our stuff.
There is a company called Tumbleweed Tiny House Company that sells plans for these small homes. They also have some for sale. They will build them and you can have your tiny home delivered right to you.
If you look at the floor plans, they really try to maximize the space that is available. With a smaller home, you can save on maintenance costs as well as utilitiy costs. Perhaps getting a smaller, more efficient home is exactly what our family needs. We’re not planning on moving anytime soon, but it does give me some food for thought.
If interested, there is also a video where you can see more footage of the 84 square foot home. Go to Katu.com and look under the picture and click on “video.”
[Hat tip to Becoming and Staying Debt Free]
You have may heard of Chris Gardner. He’s the gentleman who was homeless with a two-year old son and he managed to work his way up and become a very successful business man. His journey was even shared with the world in the movie, “In the Pursuit of Happiness”.
I haven’t seen the movie yet (I’m waiting until it goes to 99 cents at my local video store), but I have watched Chris Gardner in interviews. Something always struck me about him. You hear him talk and you want to listen. I thought it was because of his rags to riches story. But after reading an article on Yahoo today, I think there’s another reason.
Passion
Passion defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary is
Intense, driving, or overmastering feeling or conviction.
Chris Gardner was so intense when he spoke. You could tell that he loved what he accomplished and he loves what he does. He credits everything to one simple thing…passion.
Quoting from the Yahoo article
“Passion is everything. In fact, you’ve got to be borderline fanatical about what you do.” Gardner says he was fortunate to find something he truly loved, something where he couldn’t wait for the sun to rise so he could do it again.
After reading the article, I started thinking about my passions. I had an opportunity to follow one of them, but I let money affect my decision and I didn’t pursue it. I followed dollar signs instead of my heart. Of course, if I followed that passion, my life would be completely different today and I wouldn’t have my husband or son. So I am glad life turned out as it did.
Sometimes, though, when I close my eyes at night I think about that passion and try to brainstorm ways to make it come to life. It would be difficult at this point in my life, but still possible.
If you haven’t already, read the Yahoo article. It is a very good read.
A while ago, I mentioned that there was a mistake on our 2005 taxes. After fixing it, it showed that we owed over $2,000 to the IRS. I sent as big of a payment as we could at the time (a little over $600), filed the amended return and waited for the official word from the IRS about penalty and interest.
Well, we got word. The total owed is a little over $1,600 and that’s about what I thought it would be. I am also pleased that the interest rate is at 8%. While not the best rate (the best rate is 0%, of course 
), I can live with that.
I still haven’t received information regarding the payment plan that I wanted in place for the debt. I am hoping that information will arrive soon so we can start paying on it. The thought did cross my mind to use a balance transfer check to pay it in full, but I still have that feeling to hold off on doing any balance transfers for a little bit.
The big question is whether I should include it in our credit card debt total. Technically, we are paying back part of a refund that we received. That refund went towards our credit card debt. In a way, I probably should add it back into our credit card debt total. The other thing I could do is track it separately with my NetWorth IQ profile. I still have to think about it some more.
I’m actually glad the bill arrived, because now that we have concrete numbers, I can plug that into a debt reduction calculator and gauge how we are progressing. While this added debt will set us back a little bit, I’m not about to give up trying to meet our goal date of May 2009.
Yesterday was a pretty hot and humid day. Today was supposed to be more of the same, so last night and today we did a few things to help keep ourselves cooler today.
Put fans in the windows to bring in the cooler night air. Once the sun went down yesterday, we got some relief. Unfortunately, our house was still pretty hot. We put some fans in the windows and sucked in as much of that cool air as we could before going to bed.
In the morning, I shut all of the shades. It’s a little depressing to live in the dark during the day, but it worked wonders to keep our home cooler. Just one ray of sunlight coming through the window can really heat up things. We have good shades in the home we have now, but in that past we’ve hung blankets on windows to keep out the sun.
Throughout the day, I drank water. I recently purchased a large jug/water bottle to hold 8 glasses of water. It will help to make sure that I drink enough water in a day. When filled with ice water, it it really hit the spot to help keep me cool.
After work, we headed to the lake. Lake Superior (the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface area) can be quite chilly for swimming. It’s so large that it takes a lot for the water to warm up in the summer. The minute I stepped into the lake, I couldn’t stop. I had to keep going because it felt so good. Before long, I was dunking myself and swimming around like an alligator (that’s what my son was calling me when I was chasing him around). Man, I love that lake.
I do have to confess that I did turn on the air conditioner for about twenty minutes around 3:30pm. My office gets the afternoon sun for about three hours before my trees start blocking it. My office is also upstairs, and all of the heat rises up there. I broke down and kicked on the air to help cool things down a little bit.
In all, it ended up being like a game for me to try to do what I could to prevent the need for the air conditioner. Making it a game where you are challenging yourself makes it fun. What Rob in Madrid discussed about fighting discouragement about debt applies here as well. I really wanted to see how much I could do.
I’m on a mission this summer to try to avoid the air conditioner and so far I have been successful. However, I was dangerously close to turning it on in my office today. It was so humid that I started sticking to my office chair. That is not fun at all. I did break down and bring a fan into my office, but at least I kept the air conditioner off.
Tomorrow is supposed to be hot and humid as well. One of my weaknesses in the past has been the heat. When I was pregnant with my son, we spent the night at a motel for the air conditioning and a comfy bed. That stay was put on our credit card. We also purchased our air conditioner (on credit) on a 90 degree day. Thankfully, we don’t have too many very hot days where we live.
I am hoping the weatherman is wrong about tomorrow’s weather 
I’ve very briefly discussed identity theft way back when I started this blog. I mentioned about using shredders for destroying documents. I also shared how I had an identity theft scare (turned out to be nothing). In all, I haven’t discussed it much. Then, I received this email a few days ago from a reader who wished to stay anonymous:
Hi, I enjoy your website as we are also trying to pay off credit card debt. I wish you would focus some on identity theft. It just happened to me. Someone stole my social security # and was able to obtain a personal loan for 12,000. Everywhere I went, banks, police, etc., either someone had it happen to them or someone they know. This problem is so much bigger than we can imagine. I am just an average working girl with average credit and alot of debt. I used to joke and say if someone wanted to steal my identity they could have it, with all the bills. Now i’m eating those words. I now have a long process ahead of me to clear my name, not to mention my new paranoia. Anyhow, I hope you can use my story as a example for people to be aware it could happen to them.
Reading that email gave me chills. Even I have joked about someone stealing my identity with all of my debt. I guess no one is really exempt from it anymore and it’s not only adults.
A recent Good Housekeeping article details how a little girl who was only 5 years old had at least 10 people (or someone with 10 different aliases) using her social security number to get employment. It started as early as the year she was born. Her parents were tipped off that something was wrong when they tried to sign their daughter up for a state-run insurance program. The officials for the program wouldn’t let her daughter on the program because she has earned income.
In the case of the little girl, someone happened to produce a social security number that matched hers. There were no documents left out and no wallets lost. It was just by chance. That in itself is a little scary.
I dug a little and have found a few tips to help provide some protection against identity theft (check the articles I reference for even more information):
Shred all documents with personal information – this includes credit card applications that you may receive in the mail (don’t just tear them up). Some theives will raid your trash to find information that can be used for identity theft.
Stop credit card applications from arriving in your mailbox – if you have an unlocked mailbox, you may want to consider calling 888-567-8688 to stop credit card offers from being mailed to you. Theives can raid your mailbox and use these applications to open credit cards in your name [via Good Housekeeping].
Contact your credit card companies and ask that they stop sending “Convenience Checks” – I know a lot of companies send these out. Some as often as once a month. Call them and tell them to stop. Having them around is asking for trouble. If you have a pile of them sitting around, shred them. [via Dateline NBC]
Hang up on telemarketers that seem to be trying to get personal info [via Dateline NBC] – I have a hard-fast rule that I adhere to when it comes to telemarketers. I tell them, “I’m sorry…I do not conduct any business from unsolicited calls.” That includes surveys, organizations requesting donations, etc. If I am not calling them, I don’t do anything. Period.
Be diligent about checking your statements – don’t let your statements sit in a bin to be opened months later. Make sure you are checking them for fraudulent activity [via About.com].
Order your credit report at least once a year – there are credit monitoring services out there (My Fico, Identity Guard, etc) that will let you know within 24 hours of an account opening. I do subscribe to one of those services because of my online presense. You can save that cost by taking advantage of the Federal law that gives you the right to one free credit report each year from the three credit bureaus: Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. To get that free credit report, go to Annualcreditreport.com. You could stagger your reports from each of the three bureaus to have one every four months like so
- July 07 – Experian
- November 07 – TransUnion
- March 08 – Equifax
- July 08- Repeat cycle with Experian
The sad thing is…a lot of the time you cannot prevent an ID theft from occuring [via Dateline NBC]. You can definitely make it more difficult if you follow the steps above. The key is to be vigilant and watchful so if you find something suspicious going on you can stop it.
More resources:
FTC’s Website
PrivacyRights.org (probably the most comprehensive list I’ve found)
Thank you for everyone that had an interest in getting my copy of The Last Chance Millionaire by Douglass R. Andrew. I used Random.org to pick a random commenter number, and it came up with #21.
James, that’s you!
I’ve sent you an email and I hope to hear back from you by July 25th.
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My Debt
- Original Debt: $97,293.06
- Paid: $1,927.89
- Remaining: $95,365.17
- Emergency Fund: $1100
- Broken Down
- Line of Credit 2: $0.00
- Line of Credit 1: $0.00
- Credit Card 1: $0.00
- Credit Card 2: $245.00
- Credit Card 3: $405.00
- Credit Card 6: $1,785.00
- Credit Card 7: $2,381.17
- Consolidation Loan: $11,000.00
- Credit Card 10: $14,519.00
- Auto Loan 1: $16,093.00
- Credit Card 11: $23,873.00
- Auto Loan 2: $25,064.00
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- Beachgirl’s Budget Blog
- Becoming and Staying Debt Free
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- Debt Reduction 101
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- Everybody Loves Your Money
- Financial Hack
- Free Money Finance
- From the Brink of Bankruptcy
- Generation X Finance
- GRACEful Retirement
- Grad Money Matters
- It’s Your Money
- Josephsangl.com
- Kick Debt’s Butt
- Lazy Man and Money
- Low Income Life
- Make Love Not Debt
- Mapgirl’s Fiscal Challenge
- Mighty Bargain Hunter
- Money, Matter and More Musings
- My 1st Million at 33
- No Credit Needed
- One Million and Beyond
- Personal Finance Advice
- pfblogs.org
