Well, you can make a little go a long way if you go to yard sales! We fill up our van just about every week with "wonderful stuff" and spend very little. There's usually at least one good "find" each week to sell on eBay to pay for the whole expedition as well as make a profit. You can also get a lot of good stuff just by shamelessly asking for it. Today, my husband got a 28 foot lamp post (only slightly damaged) just by asking for it. He's been looking for one for awhile to mount a wind generator on. As for cars, we don't pay more than $500 for them. We have a Honda Civic - free, needed a head gasket- and a Toyota Van - free is actually a motor from one van and the body of another. There's a 4WD Jeep for $300 that my husband got last week, I dunno why, really, we don't need it, but now we will be able to go fish at more places with the 4WD. Food falls out of the trees around here, avocados, bananas, papayas, etc. The chickens peck around the yard and give us eggs. There's vegetables and my neighbor trades us beef for bamboo shoots. (We have a tasty variety of bamboo in our backyard and he slaughters a beef every year so HE thinks it's a good trade!) A swarm of bees moved in several months ago, so maybe there will be honey from the yard soon as well. We have a small house that was sold as a "tear-down" so we are one year into a five year renovation. We do all the work ourselves and buy the building supplies as we need them so since we don't work all that hard, we don't spend all that much at one time. The electricity is solar and runs the lights, washer, computer, TV, power tools, etc. etc. Monthly expenses? $ 250.00 mortgage $ 20.00 county water $ 15.00 road dues (we live in a rural subdivision) $ 25.00 telephone $ 35.00 cellphone (free weekend long distance minutes!) $ 55.00 cable modem connection (wonderful thing!) $ 30.00 propane (refridgerator, stove, water heater) $ 150.00 groceries $ 100.00 gasoline (no heating bills, we live in Hawaii - somebody's gotta live here!) Annual expenses $ 110.00 land tax (we get homeowner's + ag exemption for the coffee trees) $ 800.00 car insurance (old cars are cheaper!) My husband teaches at the local high school, so our lifestyle is more than paid for with one income. That also covers our health insurance, which is why at least one of us has a traditional job. I stay busy with the house renovation, growing plants to sell, drafting (blueprints & house designs), building concrete walls, the stock market, beekeeping, web design, etc. etc. It's not traditional "homesteading" but it is rural and has a lot of the same mindsets and values. Plus it's tons of fun! Aloha!

Jennifer, to give you an idea of the difference: I'm having some fun thinking about a location not all that far from here. Oh, I'll never get DW out so far in the country but it is in such an unusual location that even a family of natives who live within 15 miles of it have never seen this little lake. It is just a few more than 100 acres so it IS small and there are certainly folks who know about it since there are boats out there often when I visit or fish there (been years). Local climates are influenced by more than just elevation but I was startled to learn that it was only about 2,300 feet. I'm thinking, "Well, you know, somebody might be able to live there and have a nice little garden!" Compare that with another remote area where I was foolishly thinking about buying land. It is 2,700 feet and I decided (this was years ago) to camp overnight there and kind of get the feel for the place. It was well into July and the coffee in the pot, sitting beside the cold campfire, froze overnight. Nope! No moving onto that "easily accessible yet remote" part of the country for me! My gardens now are just above 2,000 feet. I used to live at just above 2,400 feet. That was where I couldn't seem to grow anything except Polar V sweet corn and ripen only Sub-Arctic tomatoes. It was okay but a little tuff on yours truly. (That was where I had a merle stock dog. She liked it there. ;o) S'

Matthew Cowles played the villain known at Billy Clyde Tuggle... He was what I always thought of as a truly funny villain... what a nut...he always made me laugh... I used to watch AMC all the time from the time Susan Lucci was a teen... and only have it on in the background now and then.. but love watching the old timers and how their story lines go. Wonder if Erica will run off with Caleb?? LOL

ok, muddbelly: Hard to tell if you are just yanking my chain.... but if your toddler has a cell phone then yes, you are giving them too much, and taking away a few "toys" is probably in order. The toddlers will have more fun with the box it came in anyway. =0) I never said don't give your kids ANYthing... I said it don't give them EVERYthing. Obviously you can't teach you child by not giving them anything, anymore than you can teach them by giving them everything. There's a balance that must be achieved. Having your child expect the best is fine, so long as you have also taught them to pay for it. I pay for a week long summer camp for two of my children (the others have not expressed a wish to attend), if they would like to go to another camp during the summer, they have to pay for half the camp fees for that additional camp. I give my 12yo "spending money" for camp (not as much as he wishes I would), but my 15yo must earn and bring his own. The 12yo can also earn his own and add it to what we give him. Next year and the year after we will only match the funds that he earns. Then when he's 15, he'll be earning all his own spending money. For this particular camp, we will pay for it until they no longer desire to attend, because it is a camp my husband and I actively want them to attend. Yes, we want to give our children the best of everything. By that I mean the BEST of EVERYthing. Not just the best stuff. My young children are probably a little spoiled, but as my children enter middle school and high school level learning, then I figure it's my job to make them into productive members of society, not future welfare recipients. Productive members of society work. It's just a fact of life. I want my children to be able to survive after I can't bail them out anymore, and the only way to do that is to teach them well, and to be there when they fall and teach them how to get back up. I'd much rather it be when they're 15 and it's a summer camp they're missing out on because they didn't budget well, than when they're 24-25 and it's a house that's in foreclosure. I know mine is not a popular opinion. I simply do not care. In the future, my children will be the ones who are doing the bailing out, not those in need of it. berniek: Yes, the second, third, and fourth articles are about actual criminal fraud. I could not get to the first, for some reason it kept freezing up my computer. But that is not the category of folks I was talking about. Still, I must say the only victims of those frauds were the folks who had their names and personal information used without their knowledge or consent... and the lending institutions. Everyone else knowingly lied in some form which doesn't make them victims, it makes them accomplices. I was speaking of those who signed up for a higher interest rate than they qualified for, who got an ARM, or an IO loan, and possibly some of those with 80/20 loans that they are now finding that they can not pay while maintaining their current lifestyle. Those who are yelling "fraud" because they did not get the best rate/loan type/terms and now it's time to pay the piper. Those that overbought. Those are the folks that I refuse to call "victim", or believe that they were "scammed" or that there was "fraud", they simply made a bad decision.