How To Retire 6 Months Every Year
(Page 7 of 22)
May/June 1970
By Irv Thomas
And, speaking of freeways, have you any idea what it's like to be without that mad, blasting speedway for a part of every day? Think about it the next time you're cutting into the morning traffic mess. It also feels good to know that you have made a personal contribution to cleaning up the atmosphere. Suddenly you're aware of all the hypocrisy being spouted around as everyone waits for Big Brother to do something about it. You stand a little taller.
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In fact, there is something in you that stands a lot taller when you realize you've busted the habit. You know you're no longer the pawn that you've been played for much of your life. .You have just whipped the most powerful mesmerism that the industrial complex has been able to throw at the American public, and you feel damn good and clean about it. In a way, that one single fringe benefit has been worth more to me than all the dollars I've saved. I simply know I'm my own man now, and the system can never enslave me again.
There is much more to be said about cutting your cost of living, but the automobile is the cornerstone to the whole subject. All the other savings you can put together, in one fat bundle, may approach - but will never equal - what you save by doing away with the automobile. This is probably true even if your 4 wheels is a second-hand clunk that will never see another used car lot. So if you can't make the car break, my advice is to forget the rest of this article and accept your servitude. I am sure there are hardship situations where it really is impossible to be without a car and, if that's the case, you'd better work toward altering the situation before tackling this approach.
LIVING QUARTERS
While no other waste in our addicted lives carries anywhere near the impact of the automobile, housing is probably the closest runner-up for most of us. The standard societal myth says that 1/4 of your income should go for living quarters, which is ridiculous. Obviously the man who earns $800 per month needs the same living space and comfort as the man who earns $400 per month. So much for mythology. It is safe to say that everyone could probably cut his cost of housing by 10% and never feel it; by 20% and just begin to feel it. Some of us could probably whack it by 50%!
I have always been personally sensitive to the quality of my living quarters (isn't that a beautiful example of a rationalized addiction?), and when I began looking for a place in Seattle, I regarded a single bedroom apartment as 'bare essential'. I found a fairly nice one at $115.00, but it would not be open for another month. Since it was a bit lower than most in the neighborhood, I took a $95.00 studio apartment in the building to wait the month out. I thought I'd feel cramped, but I really didn't. And that's how easy it is to save 20%.
But you have to be careful with substitutes that add up to less than what you were really looking for. Any of a hundred little things - sometimes as insignificant as the way people can look into your window from the street - may send you running for the door after you've been inside for an hour, and that can be fatal to an economy drive. Somehow, after you've moved in, an apartment never looks the same as it did before. I have not been able to figure out this illusion, but it never seems to fail. So proceed with caution and look carefully at everything, especially those things that are most important to you, personally.
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