How To Retire 6 Months Every Year
(Page 10 of 22)
May/June 1970
By Irv Thomas
Those of you who are buying homes have an entirely different set of circumstances to contend with. In any other context than this article I would be hands down in favor of the home, and where you now have other values going than those advocated here - country property, productive acreage, a real retreat from urban life - I still advise you to hang on to the place. BUT . . . if you have a cute little suburban box with 27 inches of grass to your neighbor's property line, the answer is no.
RELATED CONTENT
The very simple reason, of course, is the car. Suburbanites are commuters, and the automobile is the cornerstone of suburbia. You will have to decide if your home is worth slavery to the car. The choice is that direct. If you own or are buying what I call productive country property, you should bend every possible effort to get your job out to where you live. Or find some dependable alternative to your own automobile for transportation to work. If neither is possible then you, too, are going to have to face the slavery-to-the-car question.
It should be becoming increasingly clear how much we are really slave to that smog belching monster. It not only robs us of 20% of our personal lives, but it has forced upon us some powerful pressure points to perpetuate its own existence. It reminds me very much of the computer in Star-Trek which refused to let anyone pull out the plug.
EATING: IN AND OUT
I'm sure this will come as quite a surprise to most of you, but I eat almost all my food out. I manage to do so for under $20.00 per week, thus defeating another popular American myth, that it is cheaper to prepare your own food. It might be for two persons, but not for one.
I didn't come by this through any brilliant revelation, but as a natural development of my 3-month 'bare bones' program. My studio apartment had a fine electric stove and refrigerator, and I drew up a list of the most essential cooking and eating ware I felt I would need. It came to almost $15.00 - just enough to have to put off for a couple weeks. So I decided to make do with hamburgers till I could afford the plunge.
Whether it was fate or luck or purely the conditioning of necessity, I don't know, but I found a place in the neighborhood that served the most fantastically delicious and filling broiled cheeseburger on a french roll that I had tasted since I was a kid. This, with a large salad and coffee - a full meal - cost only $1.40. I am still eating those cheeseburgers 4 or 5 nights a week, and if the thought of such monotony makes you sick, they are still delicious, nevertheless.
VERSATILITY IS POSSIBLE
The breaking of consumer addictions gives us a radically new frame of reference. Many kinds of living - which seem remote, if not altogether impossible in your present straightjacket way of life-become reasonable.
I got to wondering how one could live in the country and work in town without owning an automobile nor being subjected to daily bus commuting. This is the basis of one variation of the HAVE-MORE Plan in issue No. 2 of THE MOTHER EARTH NEWS. At first it appears impossible, but there actually is a creative way and it illustrates how to mold this plan to your own needs.
Page:
<< Previous 1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 | 10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17 |
18 |
19 |
20 |
21 |
22 |
Next >>
